r/LeavingAcademia

I’m a theoretical physicist a few months away from graduating, seriously thinking about leaving academia.

I really like research, but the prospect of having to expend X years outside my home country jumping from postdoc to postdoc puts me off. Specially since I have my whole life in my current town, including a long time partner with a non-academic career and health conditions that make moving abroad unrealistic.

I’ve seen several postings for jobs as an Editor in front line journals based in my hometown, or allowing for remote work. I’m strongly considering applying.

For those of you who transitioned to the editorial world, how was it?

Do you miss research? Was it a hard or smooth transition? Is postdoc experience valued or necessary in that world?

Mind I have published quite a lot during my PhD, but never been asked to be a referee.

Any other advice?

Thank you everyone.

I am a double degree PhD candidate based in Finland (and my second university is in Australia) and my contract ends end of September. The PhD is in management and it has been so hard to find a job. I have behavioural science, psychology, sustainability, technology, marketing - a lil bit of everything under my belt but has been super hard to land an interview. Need to find any kind of job also to get my PR in Finland. Only getting sponsorship issues in Australia and the UK (have been looking at English speaking countries). I know everyone says networking but it doesn’t quite help. Also don’t want to be in academia anymore at all, but industry is really rejecting me left, right, centre. Quite exhausted, any advice?

I'm leaning toward leaving my university position because of disability/chronic illness. My university is nominally willing to accommodate, but they devote so few resources to faculty accommodation that, in practice, most of my time outside of teaching is spent trying to fight for accommodation/plan around missing accommodation. I got into this field to do research, and at this point I have so little time for research that it just seems clear the job isn't working out. I'm not going to be tenureable at this rate, and I also have very little job satisfaction.

My question really has to do with how these departures usually work in a university setting. My classes have all been planned for next year, and, best case, I'd like to see out the year. (I have some classes that I'm looking forward to teaching, and I think that, if I wasn't constantly spinning my wheels trying to straighten out all this accessibility stuff, I would be able to publish a bit in a way that would be meaningful to me.) I know that, when people leave because they don't get tenure, they usually do stay on for a year after their tenure denial. Is it possible to give notice/to state the intention to resign, but then stay on to finish out scheduled teaching? How are these departures usually timed/scheduled?

I'm sure it can vary enormously, but I wonder what people's experiences have been.

I fear that The publish-or-perish stress has eroded my interest and motivation in year 3 of the TT.

Maybe it is just stress talking, but I do not think I'm cut out for it (e.g., producing the book, the necessary articles).

Sometimes I feel like I can do it. But most days I am just paralyzed by the process, especially after a rejection from a journal after two rounds of review.

My real passion and success has been in teaching and advising.

Seeing a perfectly productive colleague in another department not earn tenure has me concerned about my long-term prospects.

I am thinking of pivoting--maybe to admin/advising/CTL roles--and would love to hear other people's experiences. Has anyone made this move or do you know of anyone making this move?

I'm aware its a big transition with various tradeoffs but I would love to learn more.

Anyone have experience leaving a national lab as a staff scientist? The pay is good, but it still drastically lags behind industry. I’ve got to adjunct just to start making the salary more competitive.

For some context, I’m a staff scientist doing computational geophysics, leading a lot of large scale projects as the head researcher, lots of AI/ML implementation.

Academia has officially become an infinite while loop, and it's crashing our brains.

Looking at the stats lately, it’s wild how much happier PhD holders are in industry compared to academia. Has the ivory tower really gotten that toxic? Because it honestly feels like it.We invariably get stuck in this exhausting cycle, like a buggy Python while loop. The problem is, academia forgot to increment the wellbeing variable, so while stressful == True: just runs forever. There’s no break statement in sight, it's a total infinite loop, and it is actively crashing the brains of PhDs and scientists everywhere. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe I’m right—but it really feels like the system is just completely frying us right now.

For those who already hit Ctrl + C and executed a keyboard interrupt to escape to industry: is the grass actually greener, or does it just have a different set of bugs? And for everyone still stuck inside the loop—what is keeping your script running?

I’ve made peace with the fact that those who are full-time professors got on a boat that’s now left the dock, but those who are my friends and colleagues just can’t accept my resignation. They go, “You just have to adjunct/work part time/volunteer (free labor!) until the right position opens up, that’s what I did!” They send me adjunct pool positions and per-hour tutoring jobs even after I make it clear that I’m only interested in full-time work and thus applying outside of academia.

They think I’m throwing my career away because for them they hustled a few years and then got the position they work now. So if I stop trying after a decade of stringing together contingent contract gigs, I’m giving up! How many doors do I have to put feet into before they believe me that the FT (let alone TT) roles are just not there??

It makes me think of survivorship bias - those bullet holes in returned planes actually showing what can be endured - but also whatever makes gamblers believe their success is inherent rather than pure luck. Like I’m letting down the team by not suffering through another year of insecurity.

I'm in an ongoing role in a good University in Australia but have decided to not go for 'confirmation' (similar to getting tenure in a TT role); which is supposed to happen at end of 2027.

I've got myself in a moderately good financial position so I think I will get by on casual, low-paid (less demanding, and more flexible) jobs until retirement kicks in. I have a couple of health problems that are compounding, plus parents overseas will probably need my support in a year or two. Having seen colleagues deal with similar, opting out seems the best choice.

I've not seen many examples of people leaving from this sort of position and am wondering what the next year or two might look like. I've left plenty of jobs in other sectors but not from a university, and never with such a long "exit ramp".

There are a couple of reasons why I feel it would be courteous to let close colleagues know what I'm thinking:

• I should be actively recruiting PhD students but that seems like a daft idea, because I'd leave the student and my colleagues in the lurch.
• I should be actively applying for 3+ year grants but again, that's not helpful to anyone.

But, I'm aware that it's quite possible for them to terminate my present contract early, so of course I'm cautious about letting people know. (Though they struggle to find teaching staff so it seems they would potentially keep me on until they replace me).

My current strategy is to just do the minimum: look like I'm applying / recruiting but not try too hard) and focus on trying to do a decent job of the activities I'm already involved in, not take on anything new. Does that seem like the right approach?

Would love to hear how others have navigated the departure, any gotchas, etc.

Hi all,

I’m in a bit of a stuck situation and would really appreciate some honest feedback from people who’ve made the move from academia to industry.

I’ve been working as a lecturer in economics at a UK university for a bit over 4 years. Lately the job has become really difficult to sustain. Teaching load has gone up a lot (I’m currently covering 6 different modules), admin has exploded due to restructuring/redundancies, and there’s basically very little time left for research anymore.

On top of that, student expectations and general workload have made things feel pretty overwhelming day-to-day.

For the past ~5 months I’ve been actively trying to move into industry, but I’m not getting shortlisted anywhere, which is starting to get quite frustrating.

I have a PhD in Economics and I’m confident in my quantitative skills (data work, empirical research, econometrics, etc.). I’ve been trying to position myself for roles like:

• data analyst
• research analyst
• economic analyst
• economist (industry/government/finance roles)

I’ve also been carefully reworking my CV away from an academic profile and towards something more industry-focused (highlighting applied skills, tools, and outcomes rather than publications/teaching), but still no luck at the screening stage.

I’m starting to wonder if I’m missing something fundamental in how I’m presenting myself or targeting roles.

Would really appreciate any feedback from people who’ve:

• made the academia → industry transition
• hired PhDs / seen CVs like mine
• or just have insight into what might be going wrong at the shortlisting stage

Happy to take honest criticism, just trying to figure out what I’m not seeing.

Thanks in advance.

Long post incoming, looking for some career advice or insights.

Who I am

I’m 40 and currently an Associate Professor in theoretical/computational physics at a major university in Northern Europe. For a mix of internal reasons (scarce resources, low pay for the level of responsibility and workload) and external ones (I need more geographic flexibility), I’m starting to look around.

My research is highly computational; I’ve been heavily using compute clusters for 15+ years and I genuinely enjoy it. Thanks to this background, about 10 years ago I joined a startup that ended up having a very successful exit to a FAANG-like company around 2020.

Aside from the tech side, I also handle the standard "Professor package": team management, budget allocation, grant writing, communication, teaching, hiring, strategy with chairs in some committees, representative/board roles at university and national level.

What I am looking for

Ideally, a combination of these four ingredients:

• Technical interest & highly competent colleagues: I absolutely despise office politics and dealing with people who spend more time posturing than actually building stuff.
• Geographic flexibility: Remote work (EU) or a highly transferable skill set. For family reasons, I might need to move to another EU country in 2-3 years, and eventually back to Southern Europe (Northern Italy) in 5-10 years. Mobility in academia is complicated and impossible to plan for.
• Positive impact: I want to look back in 10 years and not regret my choices.
• Pay & Upward mobility: Currently making around €65k-70k gross. I'm looking for growth, as upward mobility in my current academic position is practically non-existent.

Note on compromises: I am willing to sacrifice some points if the pay multiplies, just as I’d happily take a significant pay cut for a role in an NGO or institution where I see a clear, non-profit purpose. I don't want to be exploited or undersell my skills, but I don't strictly need a big salary (maybe not even a salary) if the mission is right. My backup plan is high school teaching which is Italy is around half my current salary, but where I see a clear positive value. But I would not go into trading for less than 100k+ obviously.

The Catch / Why I'm asking for help

Honestly, I don't quite know where to look. I’ve explored several options, but there’s often a huge mismatch between my profile and the job market:

Entry-level/Mid roles don't satisfy my needs and ignore my background.

Senior corporate roles often require heavy "stakeholder management" and traditional corporate experience, which I lack. During my startup days, we weren't playing the corporate game I was the happy-go autistic in chief. I was basically pulling and writing algorithms out of a magic hat until we got bought out.

I’ve looked into quantitative finance and energy markets. While there’s some overlap with my computational background, the trade-offs (especially regarding work-life balance and impact) don't always seem worth it. Pure CS/Dev play seem suicide at this point, and I would need to seriously grind leet code. Everyone and his uncle are doing AI right now, I already did plenty of relevant linear algebra, tensors, statistics and learning theory, but few people seem to understand it.

CV I sent occasionally in the last couple of years for technical roles have fallen in deaf ears.

What do you think of this situation? Do you have any suggestions on specific industries, niches, or exact job titles that might fit my weird hybrid background? Has anyone made a similar jump?

TL;DR: 40yo Physics Professor with heavy computational experience and a past tech startup exit. Want to leave academia for better flexibility and upward mobility (EU/Remote). Finding it hard to match my unconventional senior profile with standard corporate roles. Looking for industry/title suggestions

Unfortunately, I also reached the state that I most likely have to depart Academia in pursuit of a better career. My academic career was build around machine learning and artificial intelligence in chemistry. As such, on paper I am a chemist, but in reality a self-taught data-analyst and python developer. Leveraging my knowledge and skill-set in data-analysis and python development I am interested in developing my career in the financial sector with a primary interest in Risk calculations.

To make this shift, which courses and books should I study to prepare for this transition?

I’m currently in my final year of undergrad and planning to apply for a master’s program, but lately I’ve been feeling completely discouraged by my own abilities.
I’ve loved reading ever since I was a kid, which is why I chose to major in literature. I’ve genuinely enjoyed my classes and assignments, and pretty early on I decided that after finishing my bachelor’s, I wanted to pursue a master’s degree and eventually become a researcher.
Recently, though, I’ve started wondering if I’m just not cut out for academia.
I think a big reason is that I’m struggling with my undergraduate thesis. It’s been much harder than I expected, and I often feel like I’m not good enough.
On top of that, I recently became friends with another student around my age who’s studying a very similar field. They’re incredibly talented, and meeting them made me think, “This is the kind of person who actually becomes a successful researcher.” I can’t help comparing myself to them, and it makes me feel inadequate.
Something else happened recently that added to all of this. I was awarded a fairly competitive scholarship. I’ve always been an anxious person with low self-esteem, so getting it gave me a little confidence. I started telling myself (and sometimes saying out loud) that maybe I’d get into graduate school and even receive funding. It wasn’t that I thought it would be easy—I was mostly trying to encourage myself because I’m naturally so pessimistic.
Then one of my professors told me that winning the scholarship and getting graduate funding are on completely different levels of competitiveness. It was basically a reality check. I know they weren’t trying to be mean, and I never actually believed funding would be easy to get. I was just trying to stay optimistic for once. But I think it came across as if I was being overconfident or getting ahead of myself, so I got humbled.
I’d say I’m probably above average at my own university, but I’m definitely not exceptionally gifted compared to students at other universities. And the fact that I’m struggling so much with my thesis only reinforces that feeling.
Now I’m wondering if I was wrong to dream of becoming a researcher in the first place.
Maybe I just love reading books, but research isn’t actually something I’m suited for.
Has anyone else gone through something similar? If so, how did you deal with it?

Edit:
In my country, it’s very common for master’s students to receive government funding. However, getting that funding requires passing a highly competitive selection process. If you don’t receive it, pursuing a master’s degree is, for many people, simply not realistic.
I mean, if your family is financially well off, you can probably pay for graduate school yourself. But my family isn’t in that position, so for me, pursuing a master’s without funding is essentially impossible.

Struggling, I don't think academia for me. Im social and dont like writing for hours on end as much as I would. To be honest, its hard for me to accept as doing a masters degree is a privilege. Despite thr long hours I put in, its really not what I want to be spending the last of my 20s doing. I see my friends having fun and having families. I feel I spent so much time sticking and trying to make it through different things, I never got to do what I really wanted. I genuinely want to leave this program. I also dont want kids and don't know how to twll my partner. I am scared in both cases as I have no financial back up.

Hi all, looking for some words of encouragement and real examples from personal experiences to help me feel at peace with staying in my PhD program.

I’m two years into my program, taking a break over the summer to do an unrelated internship, but returning in the fall to start my third year. I’m in phylogenetics (with a microbial focus, so no fun fieldwork), and I don’t love it. I’ve spent the past two years going back and forth with myself, friends, my therapist, and family about whether or not to leave with a masters, and I was this close to deciding to leave until having some convos with friends this past week that kind of made it seem like it would be a waste to leave.

Reasons for leaving:
I don’t enjoy research or reading/discussing literature

I haven’t built super close friendships with my cohort/department despite two years of concerted effort on my part (they’re friends, but they’re not my people y’know) so it kind of feels lonely on a day-to-day basis

My department (and school) severely lacks diversity and I’m a BIPOC student, and though I’ve been in PWIs my whole life, this experience has been very jarring

I know that I don’t want to go into academia (more interested in science media and I know I don’t NEED a PhD for that, though it might be helpful)

Due to my lab and department’s funding issues there’s a high likelihood that I’ll need to TA at least for this upcoming school year, and after TA-ing for one semester last year, I have a feeling it will be a huge time sink that will further stifle my research progress (i have not yet done quals)

My program and department are also very stingy with funding in general, and I’ve come to realize recently that they’re not willing to help out with conference grants, supplemental funding in emergencies, etc (even though I have countless examples of them doing so for other people in my program)

Reasons for sticking it out
My school is very prestigious and it would feel like a waste to leave when I know being here is a major privilege

Health insurance

The job market is tough and sticking it out may afford me more time while the market (hopefully) improves

I can take courses that will make me more marketable for careers outside of research/academia while i finish

Resources at my school (alumni network, fun classes unrelated to research, wellness programs, etc)

I genuinely think my family would be disappointed and even though I know I shouldn’t make decisions for them, it feels extra risky to leave and disappoint them without a solid path forward/lucrative job offer

My work is computational so I only really need to come in two days a week and can otherwise work from anywhere so it’s relatively chill even though I’m not a fan of it

My advisor is super nice and I think would genuinely be heartbroken

I’m one of 3 BIPOC students in my program and from looking at the alums, I think I would be the third Black student to ever graduate from the program, and part of me feels a responsibility to contribute to more representation

Ive only ever had research-related jobs/internships (started my PhD right out of undergrad) so I don’t think I’m currently marketable for any jobs outside of research or life sciences consulting 🤢

Anyways, looking for some encouragement to stay with the added context that I’m not seeking research/academic jobs, but I am hoping to step into high paying jobs post PhD

"I used to work on Wall Street, and then I became an academic and earned my Ph.D.

Since I couldn't find a job in academia, I'm now a substitute teacher in North Carolina.

I try not to think about my status in society anymore."

I'm a creative writing faculty member. I have a salary with benefits (not tenure-track, so no real room for decent pay increases/job growth), which I know I should be more grateful for--but I would like to shift out of higher ed for better work-life balance, better pay, better mental health.

Creative writing isn't the same as professional writing or technical writing, and a lot of job title suggestions I'm getting seem to be for those types/genres: proposal writer, grant writer. I'm open, but I've spent a month researching, composing a resume, communicating with coaches (free consultations + 1 round of resume help I paid for). I've actually submitted several job apps. Yet, the problem is there are no entry-level jobs. All the job ads want specific experience: "must have 3-5 years experience in proposal writing." Or they want area-specific knowledge I don't have about A/E/C industry or healthcare, and these are stated as requirements, not preferences. Bonus: seems like a fair amount of remote full-time positions?

If I stick to something closer to teaching, I'm limited to working in human resources or admissions. Those areas don't pay better, require on-site presence/an inter-state move (without financial aid), and also don't have entry-level positions.

On the more artistic side, copywriting/content development or strategist--I do not know a lot about SEOs or how to use Figma or InDesign. And these ads are also specifically asking for a portfolio, and I don't think a spec portfolio is even going to get me an entry-level job. Sure, I can do freelance or volunteer work to gain experience, I guess, yet that seems like a lot of effort while I have to keep my full-time job for no guarantee--and a spec/freelance portfolio still doesn't get me 1-2 years experience that the job ads are asking for.

Instructional development and design want specific degrees in education, for example, and also require knowledge of programs that I don't have. Again, these are stated as requirements, not preferences, in most ob ads.

So, I'm told to try to network right? Go after this thing called "hidden jobs." This is starting to sound like Narnia. I feel like it's a million times easier to do this type of career transition if you're STEM. Once again, I feel the arts and humanities are just positioned as trash, useless.

I would appreciate advice!!! Really, go at it. Tell me what to do. And if you are in one of these professions and would be willing to talk to a grumpy, pessimistic....but hardworking teacher and writer, please let me know!!

P.S. I promise I'm not all negative--just really disillusioned and discouraged with this process.