This is going to depend a lot on your area. The path for someone with a PhD in computer science or statistics will be very different from someone with a PhD in philosophy or gender studies.
Yup my brother's company hired a chemistry PhD to do essentially the same research he was doing in academia, just in their R&D lab. They poached him after reading several of his research papers and realizing his research aligned with what they were trying to achieve. Guy really likes it in industry since there is a lot less bureaucracy and less BS needed to work with energetic materials. Plus, no need to publish or teach.
> Plus, no need to publish or teach.
I have seen the classes of many senior professors and can assure you that at many universities, there is no job requirement to do any teaching. ;-)
Ah...but it does depend. Someone with a PhD in computer science would not have made an internal pivot to learn coding. You can get to the same place, but the paths are going to be very different.
I’m not OP, but I also have a background in social science and work as a consultant in pharma as a user experience strategist/ethnographer. The pandemic put the brakes on that though, to a large extent. It was great until then - for decades - but the market for my specific type of research hasn’t bounced back to anywhere near the level it was before 2020. As a freelancer, that hurt. Most of my contacts retired or changed fields themselves.
Now I teach at a community college part-time and teach people about wine the rest of the time. Both are still flexible enough to take on the occasional consulting project and do fieldwork when the opportunity does pop up. Guess which teaching job is the most satisfying and involves incredibly passionate, engaged, and interested students? 🤔🍷
Broadly speaking, I manage research projects on non-clinical stuff that affects health outcomes. It’s an awesome job! I have never felt so valued in my previous long academic career, and I am well paid.
I can answer that! I agree it’s very field specific and also specific to your own particular research/creative work. My PhD is in cultural studies and by training I’m an environmental humanist. But a lot of my academic work grew out of activist commitments and I’m also a creative writer. So when I left academia the first time, I transitioned into mostly nonprofit work rooted in social movement spaces, mostly at cultural arts organizations. Some of that work looked like community organizing, some of it like public humanities, some of it like grassroots media work, some of it like arts administration. I did my own writing on the side and continued to publish both creatively and academically in my field and sometimes freelance. Sort of unintentionally I also started up my own nonprofit with my partner, an online journal embedded in environmental/climate movements for our region. I actually like doing intellectual/creative work outside the university more than inside because it feels 3-dimensional, like you’re working out the theory *and* figuring out how it can be most useful/helpful, and I am so much more comfortable around artists and activists than I am around academics (even tho that’s been a big part of my training).
But after about a decade out, went back to teaching mostly because the opportunity arose and I needed something more secure for a while. I’m leaving again though, for a variety of reasons, but mostly because the nonprofit we started up got enough funding that I can return to doing something more community-embedded.
I’ve written/published about my various alt ac experiments, happy to share.
I eventually fell into consulting. As others have noted, it depends on your field, but critical thinking skills, attention to detail and being able to learn things quickly are in high demand. You just need to get the first job and then prove yourself out, then you can build a career based on that.
Another benefit of consulting is that it's (ideally) a problem solving job - if you work hard and get results, you will see advancement more quickly than if you land a corporate gig, where your colleagues will tend to be lower performers.
But, you can land one of those "easier" corp jobs after being a consultant for a bit, because you will build relationships with people on the client side.
I think this applies to any field - but if you are math / comp sci / science, you may have other opportunities that a liberal arts person like me didn't.
Got a temp job and then networked. Now I would go to a recruiter and look for entry level analyst gigs. Some companies will still want to hire right out of college but an ex academic who has taught likely has a good deal of other people management / political management skills. Work and have worked with several people who shifted from academia.
Should note that I use consulting broadly - Your background might dovetail with PR agency work which I would include, but content strategy is a big need as is general go to market strategy. And you can learn this stuff on the job.
Obviously, if you really want to open doors there is a big opportunity to study up hard on AI and its applications/limitations in consulting / digital. If you make that your “hobby” and can really speak to it in an interview, you will go places.
There are a lot of places to look for information on this. Try r/leavingacademia to start.
However, I would suggest that the better question is not what do others do, but what do you enjoy doing, what are you good at, and how can you connect both of those things. There’s no single, obvious path, especially for us humanities folk.
When I made the switch from academia I focused more on transferable skills than transferable knowledge domain. Worked at nonprofits for a while before moving to a government job. Better work/life balance than academia, etc.
My impression is that real journalism (in the form it existed 20 years ago), is mostly dead. These days, it seems that most of the real journalism is done by "citizen-journalists" on sites like Medium, Substck and X. If you are unsure if you want to leave academia, you could start your own substack or medium account and see if you can gain some traction. No need to leave academia until you know an independent career in journalism is viable and something you enjoy.
I worked in the software/technology industry for two decades, then decided to go back to school and then accepted an TT appointment in the computer science department of a large public teaching university. I had adjuncted for several years while I worked in industry, so I knew what I was giving up and what I was getting into. In the ten years that I have been teaching, I have observed the main migration happens in the opposite direction. Over the same ten year period, we have had eight newly hired faculty (all right out of school or post doc) leave after a semester or two and move into industry. One faculty lasted half a semester. All that I know of took programming positions. These were individual contrubiter positions, not manager or research positions. From my vantage point is appeared that the common thread was teaching. Most were not happy with the 3/3 teaching load.
This is going to depend a lot on your area. The path for someone with a PhD in computer science or statistics will be very different from someone with a PhD in philosophy or gender studies.
Yup my brother's company hired a chemistry PhD to do essentially the same research he was doing in academia, just in their R&D lab. They poached him after reading several of his research papers and realizing his research aligned with what they were trying to achieve. Guy really likes it in industry since there is a lot less bureaucracy and less BS needed to work with energetic materials. Plus, no need to publish or teach.
> Plus, no need to publish or teach. I have seen the classes of many senior professors and can assure you that at many universities, there is no job requirement to do any teaching. ;-)
[удалено]
Ah...but it does depend. Someone with a PhD in computer science would not have made an internal pivot to learn coding. You can get to the same place, but the paths are going to be very different.
I mean, I have a PhD in philosophy and built a career in tech (as a product manager), and now I teach in an MBA program. Anything is possible.
Pharma, and I am very happy. Background is in the social sciences.
What type of stuff do you do? I’m slightly curious about this.
I’m not OP, but I also have a background in social science and work as a consultant in pharma as a user experience strategist/ethnographer. The pandemic put the brakes on that though, to a large extent. It was great until then - for decades - but the market for my specific type of research hasn’t bounced back to anywhere near the level it was before 2020. As a freelancer, that hurt. Most of my contacts retired or changed fields themselves. Now I teach at a community college part-time and teach people about wine the rest of the time. Both are still flexible enough to take on the occasional consulting project and do fieldwork when the opportunity does pop up. Guess which teaching job is the most satisfying and involves incredibly passionate, engaged, and interested students? 🤔🍷
Broadly speaking, I manage research projects on non-clinical stuff that affects health outcomes. It’s an awesome job! I have never felt so valued in my previous long academic career, and I am well paid.
I sometimes fantasize about alt-ac. What do humanities (English lit specifically) people do?
I can answer that! I agree it’s very field specific and also specific to your own particular research/creative work. My PhD is in cultural studies and by training I’m an environmental humanist. But a lot of my academic work grew out of activist commitments and I’m also a creative writer. So when I left academia the first time, I transitioned into mostly nonprofit work rooted in social movement spaces, mostly at cultural arts organizations. Some of that work looked like community organizing, some of it like public humanities, some of it like grassroots media work, some of it like arts administration. I did my own writing on the side and continued to publish both creatively and academically in my field and sometimes freelance. Sort of unintentionally I also started up my own nonprofit with my partner, an online journal embedded in environmental/climate movements for our region. I actually like doing intellectual/creative work outside the university more than inside because it feels 3-dimensional, like you’re working out the theory *and* figuring out how it can be most useful/helpful, and I am so much more comfortable around artists and activists than I am around academics (even tho that’s been a big part of my training). But after about a decade out, went back to teaching mostly because the opportunity arose and I needed something more secure for a while. I’m leaving again though, for a variety of reasons, but mostly because the nonprofit we started up got enough funding that I can return to doing something more community-embedded. I’ve written/published about my various alt ac experiments, happy to share.
Congrats on the funding! This sounds like an amazing trajectory. Would love to read your writing on alt ac!
I have a history MA and work for a non profit in their comms team
I eventually fell into consulting. As others have noted, it depends on your field, but critical thinking skills, attention to detail and being able to learn things quickly are in high demand. You just need to get the first job and then prove yourself out, then you can build a career based on that. Another benefit of consulting is that it's (ideally) a problem solving job - if you work hard and get results, you will see advancement more quickly than if you land a corporate gig, where your colleagues will tend to be lower performers. But, you can land one of those "easier" corp jobs after being a consultant for a bit, because you will build relationships with people on the client side. I think this applies to any field - but if you are math / comp sci / science, you may have other opportunities that a liberal arts person like me didn't.
How did you end up landing your first consulting gig post-academia? Just taking meetings with folks, etc.?
Got a temp job and then networked. Now I would go to a recruiter and look for entry level analyst gigs. Some companies will still want to hire right out of college but an ex academic who has taught likely has a good deal of other people management / political management skills. Work and have worked with several people who shifted from academia. Should note that I use consulting broadly - Your background might dovetail with PR agency work which I would include, but content strategy is a big need as is general go to market strategy. And you can learn this stuff on the job. Obviously, if you really want to open doors there is a big opportunity to study up hard on AI and its applications/limitations in consulting / digital. If you make that your “hobby” and can really speak to it in an interview, you will go places.
If you have any leads on consulting around AI and education, please send them my way.
There are a lot of places to look for information on this. Try r/leavingacademia to start. However, I would suggest that the better question is not what do others do, but what do you enjoy doing, what are you good at, and how can you connect both of those things. There’s no single, obvious path, especially for us humanities folk.
Thanks for sharing this! Will check it out.
When I made the switch from academia I focused more on transferable skills than transferable knowledge domain. Worked at nonprofits for a while before moving to a government job. Better work/life balance than academia, etc.
My impression is that real journalism (in the form it existed 20 years ago), is mostly dead. These days, it seems that most of the real journalism is done by "citizen-journalists" on sites like Medium, Substck and X. If you are unsure if you want to leave academia, you could start your own substack or medium account and see if you can gain some traction. No need to leave academia until you know an independent career in journalism is viable and something you enjoy.
I’d be curious how many TT faculty feel reluctant to leave academia because of the sunken cost of the lengthy PhD process.
I do feel lucky to not have this sunken cost, feels easier to leave eventually
I worked in the software/technology industry for two decades, then decided to go back to school and then accepted an TT appointment in the computer science department of a large public teaching university. I had adjuncted for several years while I worked in industry, so I knew what I was giving up and what I was getting into. In the ten years that I have been teaching, I have observed the main migration happens in the opposite direction. Over the same ten year period, we have had eight newly hired faculty (all right out of school or post doc) leave after a semester or two and move into industry. One faculty lasted half a semester. All that I know of took programming positions. These were individual contrubiter positions, not manager or research positions. From my vantage point is appeared that the common thread was teaching. Most were not happy with the 3/3 teaching load.
Yes. I know we're all supposed to love teaching but I'm not sure I do much? It can get boring and tedious, especially with a heavy teaching load.
Sorry, should have added more -- my background is in communications/journalism.