My Impressions of Lingua Latina

Why I Am Not Pursuing Academia

This has been a long time coming.

I decided last year that academia wasn’t the right career path for me, but there’s always been a thought in the back of my head which has urged me to push on with it. In my two years of being a visiting lecturer, there’s many aspects of the job I’ve enjoyed. I feel very lucky to have taught at the University of Roehampton, as I’ve been supported by my department, supervisors and have been paid generously compared to other PhD students I know at other universities. I absolutely adore teaching and have been blessed with excellent students who were always engaged. In fact, teaching Classics at secondary schools is a career path I’m still considering and would be delighted to get into.

I’ve also had many opportunities which I’m fully aware other PhD students would envy. I’ve taught many sessions for two years, including several lectures and I know other universities don’t offer these easily. I’ve given many conference papers and even have a publication on Pliny which should be coming out eventually. I’m also fully aware that I have institutional privilege: I’m white, straight, male and cis. However, when it comes to academia, I know that it's my time to bow out.

The primary reason I want to leave, and one I suspect is the same for most PhD students, is that the job market is way, way too difficult to get into and is very precarious. I’m aware that many other industries (and academia is an industry) have few jobs and are very competitive, but I feel that academia is especially ridiculous.

My first step after finishing my PhD would be to go into a post-doctoral fellowship. These are very competitive and, crucially, don’t guarantee you a job. I know people who are post-docs and have been on temporary contracts for over ten years. That’s ludicrous no matter what industry you are in. These include some of the most talented scholars I’ve met and some have even published specialist monographs with renowned academic publishers. If that’s not enough to get you a permanent job, then what is?

There’s also the genuine issue that these post-doctoral opportunities often mean you must travel all over the place. This is of course a severe blow to those who are in long committed relationships or have children and it excludes them from the job market. I currently have zero responsibilities, so this isn’t really an issue for me now, but even I am starting to think about my future. I’m 29 in February and I’m getting to the point where I’m becoming aware of my age. I’ve already spent the last decade moving about from place to place so I can financially support my studies, I’m not sure I want to spend another decade doing it to secure a permanent job.

Yet aside from the uncertainty of the early career path, I also have some issues with academia generally that put me off the job market. Academia has a very rigid hierarchy, a fact which becomes even more notable as you continue in Classics. For all the talk of breaking down boundaries, exploring the ancient world in a new light and challenging our minds, I often see academics treat others in different ways depending on their status and credentials. I’ve seen at conferences that it’s typical for PhD students to wait patiently to speak to an esteemed scholar and then be silently dropped as soon as a senior colleague approaches. I know that all careers have hierarchies, but it’s worse in academia than in any job market I’ve been in, and I’ve worked in financial insurance! I’ve never seen junior staff be silently ditched by senior management in other industries, but I’ve seen it many times at academic conferences. I almost felt like I was on interview every day.

I also want to leave for other, smaller reasons. For one, I’m tired of spending so much of my spare time learning languages – I’m starting to get confident in my Latin, I’m happy to dabble in Ancient Greek, but I really don’t have the energy to teach myself French, Italian or German for research purposes. It’s an accomplishment which I find unrealistic and I don’t know how people do it, but I certainly can’t, I just try to read scholarship in other languages in any way I can.

I’m also starting to tire of Classics and I want to do new things: the subject has dominated my life for over ten years. I really want to emphasise this point, as not pursuing academia gives you so many job opportunities and careers paths to choose. I remember exactly when I decided to leave this profession. After the last CA Conference, I was just exhausted by the whole experience and was feeling completely crushed and fatigued about going into academia. I was really worrying how I was going to break into the profession, but then I just thought to myself “what if I just don’t go into academia?” I felt so much relief, and it’s going to sound really melodramatic, but I genuinely felt like I did when I’ve ended relationships which were going in a bad direction. Ever since I’ve made that decision, I’ve really felt at peace, have stressed out far less about my PhD and have enjoyed being a student again. This is something I’ve not seen discussed much, and maybe this is just me, but I really did find it hard to be a student who was technically a member of staff but also one who’s not really a part of the department. You are neither a student nor staff.

Deciding not to go into academia has been overwhelmingly positive for me. Of course, there are still times when I get anxious: I’ve spent 10 years of my life obsessing over Classics and academia and It’s really hard to just break off like that. Sometimes I worry about what I’m going to do with my life and if I’ve wasted my twenties on a mistaken path. However, most of the time I’m just working on my PhD and not worrying about how many conferences I will attend, my chances of getting more publications, looking like a future colleague for other academics, getting valuable teaching work and surpassing my PhD friends. Very recently, one of my PhD friends got a permanent lecturing job and I know that I would have been secretly jealous of him two years ago. How did he get that job and I don’t have that opportunity? It’s wrong, and I know I shouldn’t feel that way, but I wouldn’t be able to help myself. I’m happy that I was free of such feelings when I heard the news, because I know it’s a path I no longer need to worry about.

The point of this blog post is really for other PhD students. I know some of you will feel like I did a year ago. You always knew that getting into academia was extremely difficult, but you’ve found it’s even harder than you expected. You are starting to get disillusioned with the profession and all the effort you are putting into getting an academic job has interfered with your PhD. Maybe you’ve been pushed back a whole year and now need to do 4 years. You know that there are other jobs out there that you would be interested in, but you don’t want to end it, you are so close and it feels stupid to stop now. After all, this is your life passion, you’ve already sacrificed so much for it. Perhaps you feel like you’ll be a failure if you don’t become a lecturer. All I want to tell you is that as soon as I took that step and decide to leave, my life became far less stressful and I really started to enjoy my PhD. And then, I started to think of all the careers I could move into. In a way, leaving academia is very liberating.

And for you who are still reading, no, I won’t abandon Pliny! No need to 'worry' on that front, I have exciting ideas of what to do with Pliny after my PhD. Even if it’s just for a very small number of people who follow me on Twitter, I want to continue to write about Pliny, even not as an academic. So I will still be with Pliny! Not pursuing academia doesn't mean the end of a Classics passion.

Maybe I'll be a hypocrite and go into academia one day, but at least I will have had a less stressful time in my PhD studies.