How to tell committee you're exiting academia?

[justpayingthebills]

Hi there, 

was wondering if anyone else out there is finishing up the PhD and thinking about realistic alternative paths. I am finishing up a Humanities PhD in a field with very grim employment prospects. I have been wrestling with the idea of leaving my program throughout the process but have finally (by the support of loved ones), made it to the end. I have also applied to several positions and had no luck so far. I have never had a frank conversation with  my committee about my doubts, and they presume I am going to continue in academia no matter if "my first year on the market is rough." Anyone else in this situation-- i.e., afraid to tell their committee they are leaving academia? Does anyone have any advice? 

 

Best of luck to everyone out there in the same boat, and to anyone who decides to continue or decides to leave. <3

[TakeruK]

I have heard from many professors (in my field though, so there may be differences) that they are often supportive of students who want to leave academia and pursue non-academic careers. However, they never even mention it or bring it up until the student does it first. Their reason is that they are afraid of discouraging the students from academia if they are the ones to bring up the topic. They say that in the past, when they have brought it up first, the student interprets this as a message that the student isn't "good enough" for academia.

I think this is not a great excuse/reason but it is what it is. I discussed non-academic options with my advisor but not my committee. My advisor offered to set me up with connections from their grad school colleagues who have left academia. So I was glad to find a lot of support from my advisor. I ended up only applying to academic jobs and found one but my next job cycle will likely include both academic and non-academic jobs (I will be much more picky on where I live so it's not sensible to limit myself to academic jobs). However, I brought up the topic first, not my advisor. Perhaps many profs wait for their students to open up that box.

It felt like my department in general was very very supportive of non-academic career paths, which I was a little surprised about, given the intense focus on research of my school. It seems like at least 20% (maybe even 30%) of our students leave academia (sometimes after graduating but some choose to leave the program for a better job). Our dept head always said that they thought the goal of a PhD program is to train skilled researchers, not necessarily groom us for academia. One postdoc in the department actually had a tenure-tracked job all lined up out east but then they decided they didn't want to do academia anymore and left the field for a very good job.

That said, there is a dark side. Years ago, during my grad school visits, I asked one professor about their past students. I asked about the ones that are in academia and also the non-academic careers of their students. I got a surprising answer that showed me this prof was very bitter that one of their students left the field (felt like all of the prof's mentoring and training was "wasted"). That interaction made me keep all of my non-academic career thoughts very silent for the first couple of years of grad school, since I never know how profs feel about non-academic options. I started asking around more after I established myself in my dept and saw other signs (see above) that the faculty are "friendly" to these thoughts. They told me that my bad experience was probably the exception rather than the norm.

But you never know. I think it's really important to first identify someone on your committee that you think will be supportive and talk to them first. You can talk to other students perhaps to find out if they might be an ally or not. I was always happy to talk about the profs I knew about to new students in the dept since I know it's scary to ask first (but it seems like the profs expect us to ask first). Also, I think it will go better if you have a solid idea of what you are looking for outside of academia / why you want to leave / what support you need from your committee to graduate and develop the skills you need for non-academic jobs.

I don't think you necessarily have to tell your whole committee unless you think the committee as a whole can help you. For example, many students in my field that have plans to leave often talk to their committees about it during their 3rd year review and then make plans to do things like take extra computational courses or even internships to set themselves up for a non-academic job. Your committee might wonder why you are doing these things if you don't tell them your non-academic career plans. In a 4th year committee meeting, if they know your plans, it might help you set the "scope" you want for your dissertation. For example, perhaps they would be more willing to accept your proposal to do analysis X and Y as your dissertation instead of suggesting also doing bonus analysis Z because they think it will help you. In any case, when you talk to people about it, whether it is an individual meeting or your committee, be sure to think about why you are telling them and what you want to do. I think it might reflect poorly if you come off as sounding like you just want to leave academia because either 1) you can't find a job or 2) you think anything is better than staying.

[Sigaba]

3 hours ago, justpayingthebills said:

Hi there, 

... a field with very grim employment prospects.

. I have also applied to several positions and had no luck so far. I have never had a frank conversation with  my committee about my doubts, and they presume I am going to continue in academia no matter if "my first year on the market is rough." Anyone else in this situation-- i.e., afraid to tell their committee they are leaving academia? Does anyone have any advice? 

 

You're going to need members of your committee to be references and/or write for you when you apply for jobs either in or out of the Ivory Tower. I recommend that you phrase doubts differently than you did in your OP.

Based upon your OP, one make the conclusion that you're leaving your field at the first opportunity as opposed to applying to dozens, if not scores, of available positions. To put it another way, if you were to phrase your doubts and the professor to whom you were speaking asked "Well, how many positions have you applied for?" would your answer be a good one? What if she said in reply "Well, it's your lucky day...I've got a full time job for you..." would you still want to leave the Ivory Tower? Under which conditions would you want to stay? What if the committee members tell you that you're feeling what they and others felt at this point? Do you want to be talked into staying?

Ideally, your committee members will understand your situation and respect your decision. However, there is also a likelihood that your decision could alienate one or more professor. Your education represents a huge investment in money, time, and energy. For you to get your spot, it is likely that someone else was told "no" and that person is going to stay in the Ivory Tower and have a solid professional career. If the conversation takes this type of a turn, do what you can to get change the topic or cut things short. Ultimately, you will have put in the work, you will have earned the degree, and it is entirely your decision on what you want to do next.

What ever you decide, please do the current and future members of this BB a favor by returning to this thread and sharing what happened.

[ZeChocMoose]

On 11/27/2017 at 1:03 PM, justpayingthebills said:

Hi there, 

was wondering if anyone else out there is finishing up the PhD and thinking about realistic alternative paths. I am finishing up a Humanities PhD in a field with very grim employment prospects. I have been wrestling with the idea of leaving my program throughout the process but have finally (by the support of loved ones), made it to the end. I have also applied to several positions and had no luck so far. I have never had a frank conversation with  my committee about my doubts, and they presume I am going to continue in academia no matter if "my first year on the market is rough." Anyone else in this situation-- i.e., afraid to tell their committee they are leaving academia? Does anyone have any advice? 

 

Best of luck to everyone out there in the same boat, and to anyone who decides to continue or decides to leave. <3

I would suggest to have a frank conversation at least with your advisor.  Assuming you have a decent relationship with the person, I would be straight forward with talking about your concerns.  Have they seen your job market materials?  If not, I would have at least one person - ideally two people on your committee look at them.  I also would talk to alumni that graduated recently and have been on the job market in the last couple of years.  These are the people that can really give you insight about what the market is like and the nature of T/TT jobs that you could get.  

When I was on the job market last year, I applied to academic and non-academic jobs and figured that it would sort itself out.  Non-academic jobs in my field pay more and generally have a better work-life balance so those that really decide to stay in academia tend to be more dedicated about it since they sacrifice money and time. 

And if the TT/T job is not possible and you want to stay in academic - what is plan?  Apply to postdocs?  Visiting assistant professor positions?  Assistant research professor positions?

On 11/27/2017 at 4:20 PM, Sigaba said:

Ideally, your committee members will understand your situation and respect your decision. However, there is also a likelihood that your decision could alienate one or more professor. Your education represents a huge investment in money, time, and energy. For you to get your spot, it is likely that someone else was told "no" and that person is going to stay in the Ivory Tower and have a solid professional career. If the conversation takes this type of a turn, do what you can to get change the topic or cut things short. Ultimately, you will have put in the work, you will have earned the degree, and it is entirely your decision on what you want to do next.

I suppose this could happen - but it seems really unlikely.  Most of the professors who act like this/think like this are not shy about their feelings towards non-academic jobs. Don't discuss this with people who won't be at least neutral towards the idea. 

And I won't worry about feeling that your spot was wasted or that your university made a poor investment decision when they chose you for admissions.  Those are things that are honestly not your problem and no admissions committee thinks that all the PhD students are going to stay in academia!  That is not possible - there are not enough jobs!  And if you are feeling guilty about it because there can be a weird emotional process when you seriously consider leaving - staying and making yourself miserable is really not the solution here.

On 11/27/2017 at 2:48 PM, TakeruK said:

I think it might reflect poorly if you come off as sounding like you just want to leave academia because either 1) you can't find a job or 2) you think anything is better than staying.

I actually don't think these reasons will reflect poorly.  Being concerned that you won't be able to secure an academic job and having doubts about whether you want to do academia are fairly solid reasons to look for alternatives! Not sure what field you are in the humanities, but job prospects at least in History and English look bleak and I doubt will approve in the next couple of years.

And it is possible that you may get offered an academic job or several (who knows?!) , but it won't be ideal for various personal and professional reasons.  Speaking from experience, that is a hard decision especially when you are neutral about whether to stay in academia or not.

[TakeruK]

7 hours ago, ZeChocMoose said:

I actually don't think these reasons will reflect poorly.  Being concerned that you won't be able to secure an academic job and having doubts about whether you want to do academia are fairly solid reasons to look for alternatives! Not sure what field you are in the humanities, but job prospects at least in History and English look bleak and I doubt will approve in the next couple of years.

And it is possible that you may get offered an academic job or several (who knows?!) , but it won't be ideal for various personal and professional reasons.  Speaking from experience, that is a hard decision especially when you are neutral about whether to stay in academia or not.

That's a fair point. I didn't really mean it the way you said it. I agree completely that concerns about job security in academia and non-ideal academic jobs are very good reasons to not want to stay in academia. My advisor strongly encouraged all of us to consider personal reasons (e.g. location, etc.) when applying to jobs and that it's perfectly fine for us to not to apply to prestigious jobs because of their location. I did have a lot of location constraints for my first postdoc (I only applied to a few geographical areas) and these constraints will be even larger for future positions.

What I meant to say in my above comment was that I don't think it's a good idea to come to your advisor or committee and simply say that you don't want to stay in academia because you don't think you have a good future in academia. In the preceding paragraph, I said that you will get more help if you have some sort of idea of what you actually want to do instead. Otherwise, it sounds like you don't know what you actually want and you want your committee to help you decide on a career path. So, I should have been more clear and said that I think students wanting to leave could tell the committee their concerns about job security or that the available jobs are not ideal if they want, but they should also follow up with what they want to do instead.

[juilletmercredi]

OP, I left academia a year after finishing my PhD, when I was one year into a two-year postdoc. I had my graduate school advisors to tell as well as my postdoctoral advisors.

Personally, the way I did it was I waited until I had a firm job offer in hand - that I had accepted - before I told my advisors. I had worked a lot of other positions in graduate school so I was able to get around using my advisors as references (although I did put one of my grad school advisors as a reference on some applications - my primary advisor - but I had been frank with him before about perhaps not wanting to go the academic route). Then I presented it as a done deal - "I've accepted a job at X company doing Y thing, I'm very excited. Here are my plans for wrapping up my work and handing over my projects in the next six weeks."

To my surprise, everyone (with the exception of one person, whose opinion I did not care about) was pretty supportive. They were also very curious about the applications of our field outside of academia. Few of them knew many students who had gone to non-academic jobs. I got requests to come back and speak about my job to the department/program some day.

And I have found that there are actually more academics who are very receptive to this than I otherwise would've thought. I've spoken on several panels now about leaving academia and what doctoral and postdoctoral fellows can expect when they leave.

Anyway, my advice is that you give it some time and wait until you are more sure of what you want to do. You also don't have to tell them all at once - you can start with your primary PI and work your way outward.