Adding to Hannalore's good advice: taking a year+ off working a COMPLETELY random job is not all bad! I did it. I worked as a receptionist at a vet hospital. It paid the bills and I got into grad school the next year. And it made me more sure of my decision to get a PhD https://twitter.com/joyofphysics/status/1359217916680392704
Frankly I don't know a single person who took time off between UG and grad school who regrets it. Also please know that getting a grad degree is not the be all end all for your career. Times like this are a reminder that academia is in a major squeeze, not just in admissions.
I am on the other side of it - I got a PhD and now I am facing the Academic Hunger Games in the job market. Most searches I applied to last year were cancelled. Very few TT jobs were advertised this year. And I spent 5 years making low wages instead of in a career.
Doing a PhD is not necessarily job training for non academic jobs. If I had to do it all over again I probably would have chosen a different subdiscipline, or at least spent more time on industry-friendly skills (e.g. data science, remote sensing, instrumentation)
This is hard for me to admit because I love igneous petrology and the science I do. But I also have spent the last year deleting emails from job listservs filled with positions I am not optimally qualified for.
In grad school I became a great (imho) teacher, petrologist, geochemist, and mentor. But my skill set is 100% optimized for an academic career and that may hurt me in the long run.
So my advice is: don't give up academic dreams, but keep your finger on the pulse of what skills you may need to be a more versatile PhD.
You can follow @ellenwalex.
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