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Mourning and moving on: rituals for leaving a career (2014)
- imwillofficial 2y agoHolding a wake for one’s career and inviting people strikes me ad incredibly narcissistic.
- wy35 2y agoI don’t agree. It’s obviously not a “real” wake, just something for friends to hang out and show support. And switching careers often means moving to a different city, so it would be nice to say goodbye to friends who won’t be seen for years (or forever). I’ve been to a couple “deportation parties” for friends who couldn’t get their visas renewed, and it’s sort of the same thing. Mostly lighthearted but a slight somber undertone.
- imwillofficial 2y agoMan, I could see that being somber! That seems like a great way to have a goodbye party.
- iamleppert 2y agoI'm sure the author (in addition to this blog post) posted some trite little post on LinkedIn with a photo of a vista or something. We live in a golden age of narcissism.
- unwind 2y agoWhat is the "alternate career path" the author mentions but never explains? I didn't get that part.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- noelwelsh 2y agoAccording to their CV, on the same site, they became a developer at the Wikimedia foundation.
- flobosg 2y ago(2014)
- mgaunard 2y agoI quit the company I was working for many times. It was usually an opportunity to leave the drama behind, not create more.
- jacobgkau 2y agoTo be fair, this blog post is more about making a complete career change, not just switching companies within the same general field. Having one of your friends bring you funeral lilies does seem a little much, though.
- campervans 2y agoWonder how it went for her. Probably the best decision of her life
- the_real_cher 2y agoSeems a bit dramatic
- KSteffensen 2y agoI don't know anything about the author and their situation, but in my experience the first time you realize that your life is not going to be as you expected in major ways can be quite hard. I don't think mourning is an inappropriate word to use for this.
- bowsamic 2y agoLeaving academia is like this. It's very sticky and scary to leave. I remember how devastating it was for me. I think it's because there's a very strong sense of a missed dream, and that you can never return.
- 0xEF 2y agoI feel the need to point out that it's not difficult for people whose identity is not centered around their jobs, since I see that disconnect in the comments. I found the author's take full of the pageantry that I often associate with people who make big deals out of fairly inconsequential things, but before I begrudge the author their take, I have to remember that my career is of relatively little importance to me. Hypothetically, when you meet someone new, do you introduce yourself as your job? Is one of the first exchanges of self-identifying information what you do for a living? A lot of people do and while I do not understand it, I guess that is what their lives are. Tbh, I find it a bit sad. Generally, my career does not enter the conversation unless there is some relevant reason. I'd rather talk about my productive hobbies where I am making or building or learning a thing. Breaking this down, when we use our jobs as our identity, I find it exceptionally difficult to pull the "why do you do it" out of that conversation, because a career is just a paycheck, in the end and involves very little personal enrichment. Of course, not everyone views careers that way and I'm not here to try to change minds, but shed light on why it might seem silly to many of us. Perhaps we are not one of the lucky few with those unicorn jobs that both pay the bills, offer a bright future, and promote personal growth. They exist, I am sure, but they are the exception to the rule.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Jgrady 2y ago[dead]
- emmelaich 2y agoReminds me of Sabine Hossenfelder's "My dream died, and now I'm here" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKiBlGDfRU8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKiBlGDfRU8
- roel_v 2y agoNot to highjack this topic, but she was recommended (like to many others of you no doubt) quite a bit in my Youtube feeds over the last few months; and the first few videos I watched seemed to be solid enough. Yet as I watched a few more, I couldn't shake the feeling that she's so out of left field that she's not just a 'quirky renegade' anymore, but rather a quack who dresses up her quackery with just enough 'real' physics to make it all sound very convincing. (By that I don't mean that she says factually wrong things, but that her conclusions or extrapolations from established facts seem to me, well, outrageous). However, I don't know enough physics to be able to tell if this is a correct feeling, and the Youtube comments are, as usual, one big fanboy fest, which is true for any large enough channel - even those of flat earthers and similarly delusional content). So my question is - just how serious should she (and others like her, who denounce 'mainstream' academia as much as those other fringe groups who go on and on about the corruption of 'mainstream' media) be taken? Anyone have an opinion on this?
- Tazerenix 2y agoAs an expert in at least some of the things Sabine makes videos about (string theory), Sabine is a contrarian who, if you are not otherwise an expert on what she is talking about, it would be best to avoid. Sabine, like many contrarians, takes advantage of the fact that there are smart and convincing criticisms of many mainstream ideas, and she does her best to rely on those criticisms. However like all contrarians she presents a biased and exaggerated view of things in order to stoke engagement, and unless you are an expert it can be difficult/impossible to determine whether the view she is giving is balanced. This is a classic issue with string theory critics, because string theory has many legitimate problems with it, but many of the critics are intellectually dishonest and you probably shouldn't listen to their criticisms on principle (but even I must admit it's quite hard to find good quality intellectually honest criticism of string theory which is digestible, so these contrarians tend to be the only loud voice). In Sabine's case it is not so bad, because it is clear from some of her other positions that she is basically a crank. MOND and superdeterminism are basically crank physics at this point but she supports them purely because she is a contrarian. On this evidence alone you should not trust anything she says on any other subject, otherwise you're falling for a kind of Gell-Mann amnesia.
- kanodiaashu 2y agoIts interesting to me how you start with career maps. Maybe this is advertising, but I made a career mapping app here - https://www.moveup.ai/for-individuals https://www.moveup.ai/for-individuals - I wonder if you would find it interesting.
- gbuk2013 2y agoFYI I tried putting in my linked-in profile and it failed to pull in any data.
- kanodiaashu 2y agooh; thanks for trying it - our linkedin api provider is imperfect. If you could try to put in your resume that would be great. I'm happy to get on a call and talk about it but no pressure.
- avg_dev 2y agoVery nice read. I remember reading the one she wrote first too. Quite moving.
- jipengfei1016 2y ago[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- vouaobrasil 2y agoI'm afraid I can't relate. I initially invested a lot of time in my first choice of career (over a decade) and just left last year. I walked out the door, said goodbye, and the next day it was out of my mind. That being said, I think the key is keeping a strong mental separation between "passion for a field of work" and "predetermined path by society to actualize that passion". The latter, in my opinion, is something that one should never get attached to.
- esafak 2y agoIf you wanted to become a doctor, say, and flunked out of school, how would you find another path to become a doctor; start again in another country? Sometimes the cost of failure is high.
- mp05 2y agoEasy, just apply to a osteopathic medicine program.
- lostlogin 2y agoI’m not sure that works in many places outside the US. It’s viewed as alternative medicine here in New Zealand, in a similar ballpark to homeopathy, though perhaps a bit closer to conventional medicine.
- vouaobrasil 2y agoIt is, but sometimes there is no choice but to do something else. And the cost of my own "failure" was high, though I wouldn't label it as a failure. That word is barely in my vocabulary...I prefer to consider it as a learning experience.
- silcoon 2y agoThis article is from 2014, the year should be included in the title
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- thenoblesunfish 2y agoI made a similar move and felt a similar sense of loss. I wish I had had the mental clarity at the time to throw fun parties instead of just trying to keep life together. I'm comforted by the fact that in my new career there are great people, just like there were in academia, and that my friends who stayed there are either (a) truly great scientists (b) struggling basically with the same things (money, politics, , people, "work") that most people in most white collar jobs struggle with.
- lucraft 2y ago> "You are formally invited to A WAKE for THE RESEARCH SCIENCE CAREER of FRANCES HOCUTT FRIDAY from 7 PM to MIDNIGHT" When I quit my PhD I had an Ungraduation Party! My wife made a cake and everyone sang Happy Ungraduation To You! It was sad and happy but overwhelmingly such a relief to get out
- bumby 2y agoWhat went into your decision to drop out? Good on you too not wrap your identity too much in a credential to allow yourself that decision and also having unconditional support from those close to you.
- lucraft 2y agoThanks... I haven't thought about it in a long time, as it was difficult, but looking back it seems quite positive. Three things: 1. Full disclosure at that time in my life I was rather bad at motivating myself to work independently for long periods. In hindsight starting a PhD was a bad idea for this reason alone. 2. The university closed the department I was in. I was transferred to another supervisor in another department, who was nice but saw his role as more administrative. After a while he then announced he was retiring so I was looking at moving to another supervisor again. 3. I turned out to be far, far more interested in writing software than doing research. E.g I wrote an open source unit testing library in Prolog to support my research tooling. I was learning Rails on the side. I went to the Hacker News meet-up in London, and the startup that was running them offered me a job, and the rest is history! I had sunk multiple years into it so it wasn't easy. But in hindsight it was not even a close decision.
- 11101010001100 2y agoReading their first post about leaving https://modelviewculture.com/pieces/i-didn-t-want-to-lean-out https://modelviewculture.com/pieces/i-didn-t-want-to-lean-ou..., I'm not sure how seriously I should take this piece. 'They don't tell you ...'. Of course not, but they certainly hint at it. This is something that goes well beyond academia...
- ryukoposting 2y ago> We create meaning around the stress and soften transitions with rituals and rites of passage. I graduated into the height of the pandemic, so I never had a graduation ceremony. Instead, they played a shitty video presentation over Zoom and my parents cracked open a beer and watched it on TV. By the time I got invited back for a ceremony, I had already moved hundreds of miles away from my university. Obviously, I turned down the offer. I sometimes wonder if I'll regret that choice later on down the line.
- helsinki 2y agoYou won’t.
- hemloc_io 2y agoAs someone who also graduated during the pandemic an moved across the country. Maybe man, but honestly it just isn't the same as actually getting to say goodbye to your friends. Out of all of the things that went poorly that year, ppl missing their graduations is definitely pretty low on that list, but on a personal level it just really sucked having your entire social circle just disappear out of your life basically randomly.
- dustincoates 2y ago> Obviously, I turned down the offer. I sometimes wonder if I'll regret that choice later on down the line. I could not tell you a single thing about my graduation ceremony.
- icedchai 2y agoSame. It's been over 2 decades. I was practically a different person.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y agoI don't regret skipping college graduation and I barely remember high school graduation I do regret that I didn't join any clubs in college until my last semester, and that I didn't make the kind of friendships I wanted
- PaulHoule 2y agoI can say I did it with a lot less grace as a postdoc but I did get my honorable discharge from my PhD program.
- goldfishgold 2y agoThis is from 10 years ago. I would be curious to know where they are now and how they feel now about this career decision and blog post.
- HarryHirsch 2y agoLooking at the webpage, she is now active in the diversity & inclusion space, which is still booming. She gets an endorsement from Sumana Harihareshwara, who turned the DEI up to 11 in Wikiland. The talks of the Women in Chemistry section at the recent American Chemical Society meeting included gems like "Metalloids and mentoring: Life at a PUI as the 'Other" and "Transgender chemistry graduate students navigating between trans and STEM identities". All of that sounds nice until you start teaching in Alabama or get students from a reservation in New Mexico, then you see that what the DEI folks offer is completely useless when it comes to deprivation.
- Eridrus 2y agoSeems like they got into tech, like many people leaving science: https://www.usenix.org/conference/lisa19/speaker-or-organizer/frances-hocutt-rackspace https://www.usenix.org/conference/lisa19/speaker-or-organize...
- ziofill 2y agoA few years ago I left a tenured position and transitioned to industry. It was quite a mixed bag of feelings, including grief for a career that I had identified myself with. It’s very difficult not to identify ourselves with our jobs.
- cgearhart 2y agoThanks. I needed this today. :-)
- blueyes 2y agoI think this is true for most careers and prominent roles: "When I first came to The Times in 2006, a reporter warned me not to identify myself too heavily with my work. “Any job at The Times is a rented tux,” she said." https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/16/dining/pete-wells-steps-down-food-critic.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/16/dining/pete-wells-steps-d...
- gowld 2y agoIdentifying with your work is different from identifying with your employer.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- m463 2y agoBefore leaving every job I've had, every one, I worried, I agonized, I second guessed myself... And every new job, every one, within a short time, I thought "I should have done this sooner!" I think we need to have a bias for moving forward, and I think it is healthy. That said, I remember a friend who immediately quit their job (for a legitimate reason) without having another job lined up and regretted it. They told me they should have stayed cool, lined up another job first, and then quit.
- nopmat 2y agoI worked with someone who dropped out of a physical chemistry graduate program at one of the most prestigious universities in the U.S.. His epiphany: This has nothing to with people. He is now a physician.
- ddingus 2y agoI have never mourned on career changes. I do miss access to things associated with a former career. However, I can often buy or build what I need due to strong electromechanical skills developed along the way and or as side hustle skill builder type gigs taken oppertunistically. Learning new things and working with others more skilled than I always pays off. I end up with the skill and have a pool of help available should I need it. I myself can help others too. First change was from manufacturing as a prototype mechanic / planning production mfg engineer to pre-sales and training related to then high end CAD software and related systems engineering. (Sgi IRIX and Win NT) I could make almost anything I modeled. Second change was from the CAD position to General management and engineering R&D at a small company needing some of both. This was fun. I got to use all accumulated skills. I picked up several more. Third change was into the Additive Manufacturing industry as services lead, moving into product development. Fourth and current is tech founder in an additive related startup about to be funded. This one also allows me to use all accumulated skills. Same industry, so this is more like a move, not change. That is three real, leave old career behind type moves. Times change, I tend to go where the opportunity is and will do what it takes to rapidly master new aspects while employing what I know and mentoring others, usually seeking to help make more of my type available. I have a few to my credit, all doing things in ways similar to my own path. None of that was easy. Some of it was very difficult. All of it was fun and rewarding The best thing I did along the way was to network, cultivate friendships and help others. When I need the same, I usually get it gladly.
- thelastinuit 2y ago11 years ago i left my PhD in theoretical physics. I started so happy in 2008 and left in discontent 'cuz the corruption and culture of the institution. I started it for the love of knowledge so it was easy to leave evethough i wws about to finish. I left as a protest, i hope it had caused some ripple effects (i lost any form of contact since i left). Maybe that's the reality oh things but i wanted to do research just for the love of curiosity and knowledge but gosh why do we humans corrupt eveything? anywho... this feels right at home.