[Should I Quit Academia Series] How To Know If It’s Time To Quit Academia [RE-RELEASE 176]

In this episode, I discuss the challenges of deciding whether it’s time to quit academia. I share how to assess your current situation, identify the root causes of your dissatisfaction, and explore if there’s a way to make your academic career more enjoyable. Whether you’re a professor on a tenure track or are already a permanent faculty member, this episode guides you through the self-reflection process to help you make an informed decision about the future of your academic career.

Reasons You May Think About Quitting

Consider the reasons why you may be thinking about quitting academia. These might include feeling overwhelmed by the constant work demands, the bureaucratic struggles within your institution, or dealing with a mismatch in values within your department. Another factor might be academia’s toll on your personal life, especially if you’re juggling family responsibilities and work.

What You Love About Academia

But it’s not all doom and gloom—there are parts of academia that many of us genuinely love. Whether it’s those moments when you see your students have a breakthrough, the joy of research and publishing, or the excitement of engaging with colleagues at conferences, there are sparks that remind us why we chose this path in the first place. It’s essential to keep those moments in mind as you evaluate your career.

Determining What Can Be Re-Engineered

Many of the problems academics experience can be solved or re-engineered. You may feel trapped by the unsustainable cycle of urgent tasks and due dates, but skill-building and professional development can address some of these issues. It’s about finding a sustainable way to keep doing the work you love, but in a way that doesn’t leave you stressed out and overworked.

“If you are in a professorial job, the container is the professorship at a university. That is the container. You are doing your work in the world through that container. That is the container that facilitates your work. That is never the only container through which you could do the work.”

“Most of the time, the problems that are making people like they want to quit are solvable problems. They are problems that you can address through skill-building and coaching, so professional development. They are not the ‘quit your job and do something completely different’ type of issues. Most people don’t need to do that, they just don’t know that there is a way to make academia sustainable for them.”

We’ve opened the waitlist for our next cohort of Navigate: Your Writing Roadmap®. Check out the program details and get on the waitlist here.

CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION:

1. Our 12-week Navigate: Your Writing Roadmap® program helps tenure-track womxn and nonbinary professors to publish their backlog of papers so that their voice can have the impact they know is possible. Get on the waitlist here!
2. Cathy’s book, Making Time to Write: How to Resist the Patriarchy and Take Control of Your Academic Career Through Writing is available in print! Learn how to build your career around your writing practice while shattering the myths of writing every day, accountability, and motivation, doing mindset work that’s going to reshape your writing,and changing academic culture one womxn and nonbinary professor at a time. Get your print copy today or order it for a friend here!
3. If you would like to hear more from Cathy for free, please subscribe to the weekly newsletter, In the Pipeline, at scholarsvoice.org. It’s a newsletter that she personally writes that goes out once a week with writing and publication tips, strategies, inspiration, book reviews and more.

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