Would you try and break into academia now? (Literature)

[QuimReaper]

I'm 33 and had my viva in March. I always thought I wanted to go into academia but I'm feeling increasingly disillusioned for a number of reasons:

• The humanities were hardly rolling in it before the pandemic and really won't be now. In my occasion desultory job searches I've seen NOTHING advertised. I worry a lot about trying to find a job, spending years in precarious short-term contracts, and ultimately ending up nowhere. I passed my viva with no corrections, have some good relationships in my university, and had excellent feedback on my teaching, but I doubt any of that would translate into my being a successful applicant in the current climate. A proper stable career in the humanities almost seems like a thing of the past.

• Life / work balance seems awful. For some reason women seem to really get the fuzzy end of the lollipop here - it seems like a lot of academics I know are married to their work, and are hardly raking it in, especially at the early stages. Somehow the male academics I know frequently seem to get off more easily.

• Freedom of speech issues really concern me. I am already loath to stick my head above the parapet on Twitter even as an anonymous person, and am in awe of women who are vocal about their beliefs, but universities seem like stunningly hostile environments, and frankly, students are starting to look like the worst of the lot. I feel really conflicted about this, as if people resist entering the field because they're scared off by the mob, then the field will lose any possibility of dissent or diversity of opinions, and I would be directly contributing to the problem by staying away on this basis. But as I say, it's not the only reason.

Would love to hear the thoughts of anyone who's working in academia currently.

You need to be willing to move for a job, probably a couple of hundred miles and perhaps even to a different country. Then you might have to move again for a new job every few years until you get a permanent position - but who knows where that will be, you’re unlikely to be able to choose the location. It’s also quite a heavy workload, lots of female academics don’t have children and if they do then they end up leaving academia. For me that was enough to rule it out as a career.

The other option is research consulting (public sector) for a private company. Working on research commissioned by government departments. Competitive but more job security and much better pay.

Lucky I almost put that in my post. I am happily married and very settled in our forever home. Husband is very established in his career and it isn't mobile. And he very much wants kids in the next couple of years. If I were in my early / mid twenties / single I'd consider pinging around where the work took me, but I'm not.

Ifyoubelieve that's interesting! Is that what you do? Can you tell me any more? Would a researcher specialising in obscure literature be attractive?

I don’t see why you couldn’t repurpose your research skills.

Qualitative research, rapid and systematic lit reviews are all relevant to the job of research consulting. It is going to be driven by government policy need. So the sorts of things in demand vary but criminal justice, social policy, health, etc

As a start check out Ispos Mori evaluation team. They cover a lot of policy areas and will give you a sense of what the work involves. There are too many companies to mention but if you google evaluation / economic consultancy the main players will pop up. A lot of what is branded as economic consulting would actually really fall under social/ health policy.

An analyst or consultant position only requires a strong academic background and research skills. Your subject / policy expertise will evolve with projects.

Ps 9 times out of 10 these projects will have an academic advisor subcontracted to the team, so it’s probably as close to being in academia as can be in the private sector. Although driven by profit, there is a strong element of social value in the work for most staff. It can be tough meeting client needs, but then so can academia!

Another option is a think tank

I am happily married and very settled in our forever home. Husband is very established in his career and it isn't mobile.
Then I think it’s very unlikely you’ll get a job. You’re looking at 2 or 3 universities within driving distance and relying on one of them to advertise a suitable job, and then you being awarded said job. Put it this way: ten years ago I took a temporary job while waiting for a suitable academic job to come up. But in that period there has been ONE JOB in my field advertised at a university within driving distance. One job in ten years, and I wasn’t successful in getting it.

Academia def has its benefits (interesting, great colleagues and students) but as a job I'm not sure I'd choose it if I were starting over again. The pressures are growing relentlessly with increasing rules (at my place) on how to teach, research, & do admin etc. There's v little practical support eg with endless new IT systems. Pay is declining (1% raise for a few years now, pensions stop good but nowhere near as good as eg civil service or teachers and also decline). Huge congratulations on your viva but I'd think seriously about leaving it there (or going into Uni admin, also an option along with consultancy, civil service etc).

"Freedom of speech issues really concern me. I am already loath to stick my head above the parapet on Twitter even as an anonymous person, and am in awe of women who are vocal about their beliefs, but universities seem like stunningly hostile environments, and frankly, students are starting to look like the worst of the lot. I feel really conflicted about this, as if people resist entering the field because they're scared off by the mob, then the field will lose any possibility of dissent or diversity of opinions, and I would be directly contributing to the problem by staying away on this basis. But as I say, it's not the only reason."

On the basis of where I am currently (which may not be typical but is a place that has various others not far away to benchmark itself against), this is a rolling snowball. It seems so strange that critical thinking is a buzzword for almost all content that students 'should' receive, but that the sense of 'rightthink' rather than tolerance and questioning gets blown up more and more, in policy and metrics and many little corners. It feels to me like a great deal is made of looking for/recruiting diversity, but that once you're 'in', the way to thrive is to join the echo chamber - you'll be 'one of us'. Meanwhile many of the better-known 'academic' leaders don't really have any incentive to change behaviour or make themselves alter ways they do things ('I didn't get where I was today by dong XX').

I've seen it change, fast, in the last 8-10 years.

Given your academic discipline and the fact that you would like to stay settled in your current area, it is near impossible that you will get an academic job. It is really good that you are thinking these things through with clarity now, rather than waste years following temporary contracts, being under-paid and over-worked, living in a perpetual state of insecurity all the while becoming less able to make the switch to other fields.
The good news is that skills are transferable and, as you note, a more balanced life, rewarding, and really interesting life is possible outside academia.
While it is tailored to the US, I have found Karen Kelsky's advice (The Professor is In website) helpful for both reading about the realities of the academic job market and for managing the transition to alt-ac life.
Good luck!
(I followed the academic career path. I love my job - particularly the luxury of the time to research, the freedom to follow my own interests as I shape my research agenda and my classes - but I now live on an entirely different continent, thousands of miles away from my family. I met my husband, also an academic, in this new country but the search for permanent academic jobs meant that we lived two thousand miles apart for five years, flying to see each other once a month. We managed to make it work eventually, but my current job definitely isn't my dream job and I wonder whether sacrificing so much for so long was the right thing to do).

I'm in much the field as yours @QuimReaper and I agree that it is looking bleak in terms of academic employment, particularly if you aren't mobile. In terms of your personal set up, I can't help thinking you're actually quite lucky - as a single I always had to work, and moved several times to stay employed. And also looked at alternatives, as you are doing.

I managed to stay in my field, but I suspect I sacrificed relationships & the chance of a family to do so. In the year I graduated with my PhD, there were precisely 2 jobs in the entire country that I was qualified to apply for. I took one of them, taking a step downwards in status and moving several hundred miles ...

That was 30 years ago, so you know, I"m not sure things are particularly harder now (no post-docs in the humanities for a start). Just difficult in different ways.

You could go on to start developing British Academy & Leverhulme post-doc applications. Find a university near to where you live with a good research reputation in your field, and appropriate mentors. We've learnt from COVID that we don't need always to be in physical proximity - although sometimes is good.

Or start to think about what skills you have - not what you know, but what you can do. The daughter of a colleague of mine, with a very good humanities PhD from an excellent research university moved into a graduate training programme where her analytical skills were valued, as was her ability to analyse text and get to the nub of it - this was in financial management! So apparently miles away from her PhD topic, but her skills were valued.

Good luck!

My background is lit, though I'm currently working in a history faculty. I have a book out, articles in good journals, extensive postgrad and undergrad teaching experience, scholarships/grants, blah blah blah. It is looking absolutely dire at the moment. I finished my PhD in 2014 and there are tinier and tinier numbers of permanent jobs advertised each year. Add to that the fact permanent colleagues are getting made redundant, so you're not even competing against other postdocs, you're competing against people who have been university lecturers already.

I agree with putting in all the funding applications you can, while eligible.

The other thing I suggest is to work with someone who's putting in a research grant (AHRC, ERC, ESRC are the ones in our broad field/s) - and get yourself written in as a postdoctoral research fellow. If the grant app is successful, you have a post in a research project. You'll need to have established some good networks or relationships with more senior academics for that, but it can keep you in the game ...

I've done it for a former PhD student and I'm in conversation with another one about my next grant application.

Are you sure that these things are better in other industries?
Work-life balance & "free speech"?

I've had a career on short-term contracts in academia. Has suited me. I feel certain my job is more secure than so-called 'permanent' posts which are really dependent on a single boss liking you & continued but not guaranteed company revenue. DH has a lot of stories about colleagues (private industry) who stayed in post < 2 yrs -- in their so-called "permanent" jobs.

I dunno what being a literature academic means. Your definition of systematic literature review probably isn't like mine. My suggestion is find work you can enjoy.

Are you sure that these things are better in other industries?
Work-life balance & "free speech"?

Re. other industries, freedom of speech (or academic freedom, more accurately) is not going to be an issue in the way that it is in academia. You may well escape this in a STEM subject, but in the humanities you are expected to teach certain topics in an environment where the freedom to articulate views which even the general public would find unremarkable or commonplace is becoming increasingly curtailed unless you are prepared to run the gamut of complaints and campaigns against you (and you can't expect the university or UCU to have your back, as I have seen with colleagues who have been in this situation).

I've had a career on short-term contracts in academia.

"Academia" is not a homogenous thing. In the humanities, short-term contracts are more likely to be hourly-paid teaching. Poorly paid and exploitative.

Even with a permanent job on offer (highly unlikely, as others have said), it's not a career I would go into again, if I had my time over. There is no work-life balance, the pressures coming from all directions (publishing, impact, grant income, teaching, pastoral care, administration, widening participation, recruitment - I could go on) are immense and overwhelming. There comes a point in life when you simply don't want to be working every evening and weekend, but the reality is that you're facing doing that for the rest of your career and the workload is only increasing.

It is interesting and possibly a bit embarrassing how much this differs between disciplines and institutions. I am in a subject area which attracts very high numbers of students and often acts as a cash cow for other departments in the university. Most people reading this will know what subject this is, I expect! There are in my view massive ethical issues here (relating to charging students for degrees which are of dubious value). However, selfishly, what it means is that jobs are (relatively) more available. There are still similar pressures, undoubtedly - I go through periods where I work A LOT and periods when I just work a 'normal' amount - ie 9-5 and not weekends.

My career has moved slowly as a result and I do not work in a particularly prestigious institution - and almost certainly would not be offered a job in one. That is not always great for my ego but on the upside I do have a job that for the most part I feel privileged to hold.

Not sure what my point is other than to suggest that in some universities and disciplines it is possible to be a bit mediocre (a description I apply to myself, not others!) in some ways and still get/have a job. I do not work in the discipline in which I trained - I moved across quite strategically to this area. I recognise this is not an option for everybody.

Anyway, very good luck whatever you decide!

I dunno what being a literature academic means. Your definition of systematic literature review probably isn't like mine. My suggestion is find work you can enjoy.

Won't it just mean an academic in a literature department?

Thank you all so much for your replies. @GCAcademic you have hit the nail on the head with all of my concerns.

It's so confusing as I do hear conflicting stories. I'm visiting a friend this weekend whose husband is an academic in the same sort of field (Philosophy), not much older than me, and he seems to have a terrific lifestyle and manageable stress levels. Could be an illusion of course but these are reports I get from my friend, his wife, who is very candid. And yet I know other people who work 6 days as standard and live in their office.

Hi @QuimReaper, I am in basically the same situation as you-recently finished a humanities PhD, a lot of teaching experience, great references etc. but I have decided not to apply for academic posts.

I have worked in academia alongside senior academics for a number of years now and the levels of unnecessary stress, dissatisfaction and disillusionment they grapple with on a daily basis is ridiculous. Not to mention that even if you do get a permanent post, most universities seem to be in constant rounds of some form of redundancy/restructuring so I doubt I would have ever felt secure, and it's not like other industries where you can move from organisation to organisation or even change sectors based upon your transferable skills. You are either an academic or you are not.

And this isn't taking into account your other concerns about free speech etc. which is a huge issue for me. I have been to some interesting conferences and events where these issues have come up and I find that certainly in my discipline, large swathes of people seem to have lost all sense!

I'd be happy to have a longer chat about all this outside of this thread if you'd like to bounce some ideas around? I'm currently applying for jobs that utilise my skill set and my PhD-just in a different way to academia.

UCU & employer do not have my back if I want to come out as a Lockdown Skeptic -- as an infectious disease researcher who doesn't agree with all the covid controls I may know a bit more than most academics do, about biting my tongue in last 18m.

Awkward moment when I was invited by someone on BBC World Service to condemn Bolsonaro (admittedly, he is a first class plonk) and I just dodged and said that a healthy economy is worth protecting, too, and I'm glad I didn't have to make hard choices that politicians have to make.

Ultimately, I don't need to have opinions about most things to be an academic. Happy to acknowledge I don't know best way to run the world. Please don't make out that working in science means we aren't encouraged to have, and don't actually have, opinions about very important hot topics in the world.

Work-life balance in other industries: I genuinely wish all good luck with that one.

@JonahofArk I would love that! I am in work at the moment in something totally unrelated but very comfy but in no way a career, and very aware that time is ticking away to establish myself in something I want to do for the next thirty-odd years. There must be loads of interesting things but I'm completely at sea. I would love to hear what you're looking into.

And yes as @SarahAndQuack says, I meant an academic in the field of literature!

I know this thread is a couple of weeks old but I’ve found reading it really interesting. I’m an academic working in your field, OP, and I’m on the brink of quitting. I have a permanent job which is just within commuting distance, and although there are definitely work bottlenecks during term time I don’t generally find the work-life balance as bad as a lot of academics do.
But. I detest my commute. It’s expensive and exhausting and makes me feel I’m short-changing both my employer and also my child pretty much the entire time. My university is very bad at offering meaningful flexibility or rationalised timetabling, so I’m at the mercy of centralised room-allocation software. Will I get a lunch break? Will I have teaching from 9-10 and then 5-6 with nothing in between? Only the algorithm can decide, and then tell me with only 2 or 3 weeks at most to get extra childcare set up. I’ve accepted without question or complaint unbroken teaching blocks of 7 hours because whatever else I’m offered if I lock up a fuss could be even worse. And, by the time you take the cost of my commute and all the out-of-hours childcare into account, my salary is honestly negligible.
Then there’s the research culture thing. The work I like doing does not lend itself to the current research assessment metrics or finding types, so it’s not valued by my institution. I can either resign myself to a life without promotion prospects and probably without much sabbatical either, or I can start trying to do more AHRC friendly work. Neither will make me very happy. A lot of people would say all jobs come with downsides and that’s true — but when I started out on this career I thought the hefty administrative burden and the tougher parts of teaching were the bad bits and the research was the sweetener (god knows it’s not the ever-diminishing-in-real-terms salary. To find my enjoyment of that eroded by admonishments about the fact that it’s not Impact-friendly has been tough.
So: I’d look elsewhere, OP. I likely will be soon too.

Thanks for posting Rose, really interesting. It's so sad that academia in general and some universities in particular create such an unattractive workplace culture.

Can I ask if you'd be quitting academia altogether, or do you hold out hopes of finding a department / institution with a better culture? If you leave academia do you have any idea what you'd like to do instead?

Reading this makes me feel quite grateful for what I have. I'm at a top thirty university for what it's worth (not Russell Group) and its very far from perfect but I don't feel under absurd pressure. I really don't. I mean I work hard but I think everybody does.

However, this is related to relatively constrained ambition - I am not, as I said upthread, especially successful, and I do feel embarrassment and shame in relation to other academics, especially about my quite poor publication record. In fact, I often avoid mixing with other academics at eg conferences because I feel so embarrassed! On the upside, I get to research what I want, have some time to do so, and my teaching and admin roles are manageable.

I sometimes wonder whether this is unique to my subject area or because I have accepted being a bit mediocre ... or that mediocrity would not be accepted at other institutions? I think probably it's a combination!

I don’t think you should feel ashamed @woodington! I bet you’re a nice colleague to have and a really good teacher. I find the pressure to publish and the macho rubbish about super long publications lists really tedious, especially as those with the most articles etc are often the same people that give minimal feedback, recycle exactly the same lectures year after year, and somehow dodge all the chunky admin roles. Not always, of course, but often. Honestly, if I could be left alone to pop out an article I felt was worthwhile once every one or two years and a book maybe once every 10-15 years I‘d be happy with never making Professor or whatever. But at my workplace that kind of productivity (or lack of it) gets me labelled ‘research inactive’.
@QuimReaper — I’ll quit altogether, I think. The main issue is the distance, though it’s exacerbated by the crap timetabling and generally s**y treatment of parents. There is a university closer to home but in the last 10 years or so I think maybe one job I could realistically have applied for has been advertised there, and someone far more senior got it. (And, as above, my publication record isn’t looking great, especially after having a child and going part time, so no one’s going to hire me right now anyway.) Moving is not an option (husband’s job, schools, house).
Other options: university administration at nearby uni (plenty of jobs I could go for, better flexibility for WFH and sticking to contracted working hours when PT, plus I know several people who have made the switch successfully and happily); retraining entirely (actually quite appealing except for the cost); primary school teaching. Interested in what a PP said about consultancy, but I find the idea of starting in something like that whilst in the thick of caring for very young children quite daunting. Might just take on some casual work like transcription services for a couple of years to make a bit of cash and then regroup. At the moment I feel quite demoralised, honestly. Lockdown was in some ways a god-send because it freed me from the tyranny of what would otherwise have been a crushingly awful semester of commuting in three days a week for between 1 and 3 hours on each day. And that’s working part time. My round trip is between 4.5 and 6 hours, depending on how lucky I am with travel conditions. It’s just not sustainable.