I think your perception is miscalibrated. The writer did join academia, just not for very long. If I were to get a job at Google, work there for a week, and q

I think your perception is miscalibrated. The writer did join academia, just not for very long. If I were to get a job at Google, work there for a week, and quit, I think it would just fine to write an essay about "Leaving Google". How long do you think you need to be working at X before you can write that you are leaving X? Or rather, when do you think you actually join academia? Is a 6th year graduate student, pre-defense, still not yet part of academia?