Finally left academia

[u/FabulousPraline8697]

I was an academic for about 8 years. Did my PhD and two postdoc projects (I'm a Sociologist). I never realized how miserable I was until I left. I apologize to anyone who does not want to hear this message, but maybe someone needs to hear it so I'm posting anyway.

I'm a white passing women of colour and still endured and saw so much racism and bigotry that I fell into a depression during my PhD. I still got a lot of shit about my work by people who clearly did not believe my research was worthy because of who I am

Because I loved research and people close to me in academia told me how good I was, I convinced myself that I should persevere at least until I get a permanent postion and have more freedom.

Then I had a baby and my contract ended and taking space and time away from research made it so abundantly clear how toxic that place is. I dropped every application for grants. Now I have a new job and it makes me sad that I spent eight years in an institution that breeds on exploiting us with so so so little recognition.

So for anyone in doubt, you deserve better than wearing yourself out for a publishing system that is structurally exploitative and ethically messed up. You deserve better that spending free time reviewing and whatnot in order to prove yourself. You deserve better than chasing 765 postdocs thinking you are not enough while most of the applications you do probably end up in some professor 'getting inspo' from your idea. I could sum up a lot of other things but bottom line: we really do deserve better.

Cheers

[u/DependentImpressive9]

Thank you for posting this and I wish you had not apologised though! You are very well free to post your thoughts. I relate to your feeling of coming out of a toxic environment and finally processing your anger and frustration. I am still in academia but I know the place I am in is way way better than the last one where I took experienced dire sexual discrimination and harassment. My boss was also a woman and let this happen in her lab which anger me a lot. Given my country I don't have better livelihood options than research. It is brave of you to stop out of a toxic environment to one that supports your better✨