3 Lessons from Life after Academia

I left academia more than a decade ago. In the first years after I left, I sat down for a couple of interviews and wrote a longer reflection piece. But that material concerned the transition itself — how a person moves from grad school or an early academic career to a non-academic career path.

That’s great, but what happens next? What happens after the transition is finished? As one’s career progresses and one moves further out of the academy, do any lessons come to mind? Can we learn anything from the post-academic life?

I thought about these questions and drew quite a few lessons! But in this article, I’ll focus on two of them. They summarize a great deal about the strangeness of academic life and the insights one gains in leaving it behind.

1. Careers aren’t vocations.

OK, I’ll admit I touched on this point in the material I linked above. But I need to stress it again, this time with more emphasis. It’s a lesson one learns repeatedly in one’s post-academic life. And each time reinforces it yet again.

Once I left the academy, I found it much easier to see that there’s more to life than a career. Careers aren’t about expressing oneself, saving the world, or doing what one is ‘meant’ to do. It’s a job or a set of economic transactions.

It’s not a priesthood.

Many academics still think they’re in a priesthood. And they’re still wrong. Centering one’s life on one’s career is a road to all kinds of burnout and dissatisfaction. Both in one’s career and personal life.

Do people automatically understand this after they leave academia? No. Do all academics try to turn their career into a vocation? No, of course not. And do some non-academics think they’re out saving the world? Of course. Look at Silicon Valley.

But I’m talking about averages here. People who leave academia are far likelier to see through this career myth because it’s much easier to see the silliness of non-academic careers than academic ones. And it’s far easier to take academic careers — especially the old story about the ‘pursuit of knowledge’ — way too seriously.

Readers who are leaving academia should use this to their advantage.

2. You can opt out of conversations you don’t want to be involved in.

It took me far longer to learn the second lesson. But I found it just as rewarding as the first and perhaps even more so. Academics usually end up in a narrow career path. A person writes a dissertation in a specific field. They land a job as a professor in that field. And then they participate in scholarly conversations in that field: research articles, conferences, and so on.

Getting from point A to point B to point C in these career paths requires the academic to pay attention to key debates and key scholars in their field and their specialty within that field. They attend conferences where people take those debates and scholars seriously. And when it comes time to publish, they have to read and respond to all this.

They have to do these things even if — maybe especially if — they think badly of the key debates or scholars.

Again, as we saw in the first lesson, this isn’t some kind of Iron Law of Academia. A few academics get around it. But getting around it requires quite a bit of privilege, e.g., attending the best schools, landing a rare job as a professor at a top department, becoming one of the key scholars in a specialty, and so on.

But non-academics have an easier time avoiding this. Their careers offer far more ways around it. It’s less difficult to transfer from one field to another or one focus to another. Sure, some hiring managers hang rigid experience requirements on jobs. But, even in these cases, it’s easier to gain that experience in non-academic lines of work than academic ones.

Finally, non-academic fields diffuse authority more widely than academic fields. Not that this is always a good thing. It often leads to various quacks becoming authorities. But academia has its own problems with its narrower spreading of authority. How many big-name philosophers are there who are major influences in the literature or even on social media?

Honestly, not many. And far fewer than the corporate world. A person looking to avoid certain authorities or conversations has a rough road ahead of them as an academic.

Bonus: 3. You won’t want to go back.

It’s not that I have no nostalgia for academia. But I never really wanted to return.

Why?

For one, even when nostalgia creeps in, it’s mostly nostalgia for the ‘academia’ of my imagination as an undergrad student or early grad student. The one where professors sit around reading books and articles, writing books and articles, and talking with people about big ideas.

You know, fiction. The academia of the real world doesn’t look like this. Especially for the 95+% of academics who aren’t big stars at top schools.

But, more importantly, I’ve found that by learning the lessons of (1) and (2) above, life after academia opened the door for me to live a more complete and fulfilling life. Compared to my time in academia, I spend more time with my partner, friends, and other family. I explore hobbies, travel, read, and volunteer. And I can do it all without feeling too hectic or rushed.

It’s a better life.