Thousands of people have successfully made the transition from academia — whether as graduate students, postdocs, adjuncts, tenure-line faculty, or tenured faculty — to lives and careers outside the ivory tower.

What do you do after tenure?

It’s not often you hear stories about people transitioning out of academia after they’ve already received tenure. It’s easy to attribute that to job security, to the satisfaction of hitting the pinnacle of a career, and to simple career success.

The reality is that tenure can act like a pair of golden handcuffs. You’ve got job security – why risk doing something else? You’ve already sunk the better part of decades into this career – how could you possibly start over? What will your colleagues think? What else could you possibly do?

The flip side of job security

Last week, Inside Higher Ed profiled Ann Daly, a former tenured women’s studies professor from the University of Texas turned women’s coach. Why did she leave?

I was dissatisfied and bored for a long, long time before I made my escape. My reasons were several. First, academia wasn’t a good fit for me. I’m a high-autonomy person, and my university had become increasingly bureaucratic and committee-obsessed over the years. Second, my foundational intellectual questions about women and culture were leading me outside into the “real world.” Third, I got bored in such a static environment. Seventeen years is a long time to be teaching the same thing in the same classroom and discussing the same problems in the same faculty meeting room. Fourth, I wanted to develop new capacities. The supreme irony is that my core desire, to constantly learn and grow, was thwarted within the very cultural institution that is supposed to advance learning.

In short, the reality of professoring, in her experience, didn’t live up to the reasons she had gone into academia. So she took that passion for women, that interest in learning, and turned it in a new direction.

Could her experience have been yours?

When a job market like this one hits, when no one is getting full-time jobs because there are almost none to be had, it’s easy to blame ourselves – we didn’t prepare enough, we didn’t do enough, we didn’t know enough. And it’s equally easy to hold up the job we didn’t get as the perfect career fantasy: If I had gotten that job, I would be totally content in all ways.

But consider, for just a minute, the possibility that you might have had an experience like Daly’s. Consider the possibility that you would have found being a faculty member ill-fitting – the endless committee meetings, trapped for decades with the same colleagues, teaching the same classes over and over again.

Now consider the possibility that you can take all of your passion for your subject, all of your curiosity, and all of your skills at learning something and turn it into a completely different career, one that might actually fit your personality better.

It really is possible

Academia, however lovely it is for those for whom it is right, is not the right place for all of us. It’s not even the best place for all of us. And that’s okay.

There’s a big wide world out there, and even though that, in and of itself, can be kind of scary, it means that there are more possibilities than you can dream of right now. There’s something out there for you, even if you don’t know what it is yet.

If nothing else, Daly’s experience tells us this: Even when the thread of your calling and your passion is constant, it might very well lead you into more than one career. We humans thrive on learning and challenge, and following our passions into new learnings and new challenges can take us outside of the boxes society likes to keep people in. And that’s okay.

Our job, the only one that matters, is to keep showing up, to keep noticing what draws us, and to keep thinking about how to arrange that to pay the rent. Because more often than you’d suspect, your passion really can support you.

Thousands of people have successfully made the transition from academia — whether as graduate students, postdocs, adjuncts, tenure-line faculty, or tenured faculty — to lives and careers outside the ivory tower.

A Renaissance Man

A few weeks ago, the Chronicle published an interview with John Fox, former anthropology PhD turned writer, explorer, and educator. (If you’re a subscriber, you can read the whole thing here.)

The interview was so interesting — and the interview subject so compelling! — that I’d like to call out here some of the key takeaways for those of you still in the how-do-I-get-out-trenches.

There will not be a Master Plan.

When the interviewer asks him what ties together all of his disparate jobs, he said,

I’ve always loved the quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson that “the voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks.” My career since grad school has followed a zigzag course, to say the least. Much as I’d like to pretend it’s been the unfolding of some great master plan, the truth is, it’s come about through a combination of pursuing interests, seizing opportunities, and being pragmatic about making a living.

In other words, even if you start with a Grand Master Plan, it’s probably not going to last. But always taking the next right step — defined as whatever is the most interesting, compelling, exciting opportunity in front of you (which is not necessarily the most lucrative or prestigious), will get you somewhere fascinating and joyful.

Leveraging … anthropology?

You’d think, actually, that Fox would have had a harder time than most academics turning an academic career into a non-academic career. After all, his field was ancient Maya — not something you find everyday jobs in.

But he points out that we tend to undersell ourselves, especially in academia:

The other big lesson I’ve learned is that you can’t define your capabilities too narrowly—to be successful, you need to have an expansive view of yourself and what you have to offer. Ironically, I found academe as a career track to be very narrowing and limiting in that regard. These days, I’m quite comfortable wearing many career hats and learning about and dabbling in other fields. Again, I apply myself as an anthropologist, always the participant observer, always curious about “the other.” Comes in handy.

Even if you aren’t an anthropologist, all of those “soft” skills that helped you succeed in graduate school are things employers outside of academia are desperate for. If you don’t think writing is a significant skill, well, you probably haven’t spent much time reading what passes for communication in a lot of companies.

John Fox does not have superpowers

Okay, he probably does — the same way we all do. We all have unique and particular conglomerations of passions, skills, talents, and curiosities, and that intersection is where your escape hatch is probably located.

It can be easy to dismiss other people’s success outside of academia — they had something special going for them, you’re more ordinary, yadda yadda. But that’s just an excuse. John Fox was just another unhappy academia, and he turned that into a rich and rewarding life. And so can you.

A few comments about comments

I’d love leads on any other post-academics who’ve been successful out there in the wide world. If you know of any, drop me a line!

The whole question of being unhappy in academia — no matter what stage you’re in — can feel fraught. If you’d like to comment but are feeling shy about “being out there,” feel free to make up a persona or comment anonymously. You can also email me directly.

First-time commenters are always moderated (because you wouldn’t believe the spam I get), so if your comment doesn’t show up immediately, hang tight! Chances are, I’m not right on my email.

And most of all, let’s all practice compassion for ourselves and others in this difficult time and space.