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Leaving #academia thread ( #withaphd, #AltAc, #academicjobs) I’m not a prominent voice, in fact in Twitter metrics I’m a nobody, but I want to say this: leaving the tenure track is not a defeat. It’s a choice like any other, and like all choices
it is not entirely free. Sometimes it’s compelled by necessity. Whatever. Work is work. Paid labor is paid labor. In a classroom, in an office, in a store: it’s work. Make ends meet, make a living. Oh, You want to be fulfilled?
Why should fulfillment only come from a particular kind of work? Why do we get high on the thought of being professors? Why can’t we see that anything done for money is a transaction? And that just like in any other sector, academics are interchangeable?
Do we hold our intelligence in too high a regard perhaps? So that only “the life of the mind” seems appropriate? Do we sneer at the idea of selling out? Look around and tell me who hasn’t sold themselves.
And if you really love research and can’t get a TT job and are forced out of the moldy ivory tower, that sucks, yes. Some dreams must die. I wanted to be a model but I’m 5’5 and ugly, so no amount of dieting would make my dream come true.
