🔴 WHY WE LEFT ACADEMIA (THE FINAL STRAW THAT MADE EACH OF US LEAVE)

hello everyone welcome to a very special panel today we are talking about why we left academia uh we've seen patterns over and over again uh with all of the phds that we've worked with in the cheeky scientist association or other advanced programs of you know what's that final straw what's that trigger that gets people to finally uh say enough is enough i'm going to take my career into my own hands i'm going to take my job search seriously and it's different for everybody some people it's a really bad experience with an advisor some people it's getting isolated in some way in academia and feeling like they have no options so they make an option for themselves other people it could be something more traumatic it could be abuse it could be a fear of having to leave the country and for others they could have a great advisor a great experience but the work isn't fulfilling anymore what we see in general though is that as phds we have a high tolerance for lack of a better word for pain we have a very high tolerance for pain we like challenge so if things get hard at first if they're challenging it's difficult it's like yes this is right this is what i expected it's supposed to be hard is what we what we think um so if we're underpaid uh even if we start working for free uh if our pi's not nice to us if we don't have support on and on we think okay this is just part of the process it's supposed to be challenging etc and we stay in that moderate pain forever i would say you know for the general population it's actually extreme pain but for our personal threshold it's just moderate pain and it's not until that moderate pain goes up to intense pain on an individual level that we finally say never again enough is enough something's changing now so what i wanted to ask everybody here is what was that moment for you for me things were getting progressively bad for a long time in terms of a lot of things stacking and sometimes things will stack right and that's why we talk about the final straw here what's that final thing that stacked that made everything break apart and made you change directions now for me i ended up having a stress stress induced uh kidney condition in graduate school just from the stress and i didn't know what was going on and i thought this was very unique i've talked to a lot of phds and they've had all kinds of wonky things happen to their health because of the stress you get so isolated it's so intense and you have no support or outlet you can't externalize anything i went for help to different departments etc my p.i uh it was after the 2008 financial crisis so my pi and i's our relationship had really started to deteriorate there wasn't a lot of support to be fair he was under a lot of pressure so that became worse and worse and worse he was yelling at different people in the lab he had already forced out one postdoc he forced out a graduate student who had to go back to their country the technician we worked with you know left his office multiple times crying and i saw the writing on the wall and i knew i was next and uh the the uh the intensity of i think my pi's frustration was just taken out on others and again it was a very tough time to be fair but i remember that i guess the tipping point for me was i got yelled at like very intensely like grabbed my arm and yelled at me in the lab and basically said basically it said you know uh i'm gonna destroy your career right i'm gonna i'm gonna write a letter to your department and make sure that you can't graduate on and on and on um and then actually actually took steps to do this took steps to take away a first author paper which i didn't think was possible um but worked hard i had to have meetings with my department and talk about it i mean seriously tried to it was already published too tried to take away that first authorship so it couldn't be used to have me graduate and that was uh just one one thing of many things that was the final straw for me and i said you know what if if academia doesn't have a support system for people going through this um you know if i was struggling to even see after all you know after reaching that level i guess in terms of education struggling to see any other options something's not right and i have to go figure this out for myself so that's what it was for me um i want to ask our panel what it was for them alejandra i'm going to turn to you first thank you isaiah um for me it was i really didn't want to spend another day at the bench it came to a point where i would go i would would arrive at the lab and i would rather read a paper analyze data correct my like if somebody had a poster presentation i would rather look at their poster than to actually face my experiments and it got really really bad and since you're talking about that breaking point actually i remember the breaking point as being uh one day i got offered a postdoc in another lab with api i knew was very supported which i supported which i didn't have at my lab and i remember looking at him in the eye and saying i'm sure many people would love to hear this proposal but i can't do it anymore and he asked me what are you doing afterwards and i say i don't know but i need that fear if if i take this postdoc as something that i am going to do to transition i i'll just keep in this safe place in this safe paycheck and it was actually it wasn't even underpaid for for what it was the the life life standard in brazil was a very good salary but i just couldn't do it anymore like no matter what and that that's something also that fired my decision to go into science communication i just didn't want to see i bench type everything i become allergic to all that and i i really felt that all of those transferable skills that i was realizing i had i couldn't apply to something besides just doing experiments that weren't fulfilling in any way anymore yeah and i like i love that example and the way that you discussed it because it doesn't have to be this big thing you know you don't have to have a big blowout with your pi you don't have to have something disastrous happening more often than not it's just a slow creep of dread of disinterest of apathy you're not meant to live that way and if you're you know you feel like you're losing part of yourself or it just drains you to open up your computer in the morning in the lab or or the classroom or to go in and uh to have to set up an experiment you know that is an indicator that you're likely not headed in the right direction you need to recalibrate you've got to figure out what it you know what do you want to do what's your professional lifestyle a lot of us i think end up stuck because we don't consider what the professional lifestyle is of a phd at whatever level we've achieved we just think about you know becoming a phd we think about the titles uh elliot same question to you what was that final straw when was the moment if you could pinpoint at least one thing where the i guess the the stacking uh made everything fall over yeah that's a a good way of saying it is i think my my set was more of you know i guess you say that that's what finally broke you know that the straw that finally broke back because i unlike alejandra i didn't mind doing the bench work i enjoyed it i i liked doing that but i had a lot of other little issues as well like you know having an argument with my pi about a paper at one point because i just couldn't get him to you know read it and review it and i needed it to graduate i think some of it was just seeing the the i guess sort of the dread and so many other postdocs in the center i was at how they had just sort of like gotten to this point of like apathy where they were just like i just have to do this a little bit longer a little bit longer seeing some of them who had been postdocs for over a dozen years like eventually i'm gonna get myself a faculty position others who are like eventually i'm gonna be able to like get some loan forgiveness eventually just i'm just gonna i just have to do one more year one more year into seeing this around me surrounding it was just sort of like you're just surrounded by this sort of like overall dread from so many different people and it was just sort of it's just draining you're just going like is this the career path that i have to go down as well it's just like just gonna do it a few more times a few more times eventually it'll pay off eventually you'll be up and just seeing so many other people like it's just not paying off like there just being no light at the end of the tunnel for so many other people i mean like all right this is this is my life now like this is what i have to do this is what i'm gonna be looking forward forward to is just sitting here doing the same sort of thing and just like eventually maybe if i'm lucky it'll pay off it just doesn't it just it's just soul sucking you know and besides all the other things that are going on of like having arguments having yelling matches having some of the you know ras going like why is so and so like screaming at you you know it's like this this is not how your life is normally supposed to be oh and i think two really important things there number one it's easy to lose track of normal reference points when you're in the ivory tower and the fish bowl it's easy to think well something's wrong with me here or is this normal uh nobody's saying anything you know i'm getting yelled at intensely or i'm being made to feel this small uh you know verbal abuse sometimes worse and uh it's kind of it's almost like stockholm syndrome you just you get used to an environment you're isolated you don't have the same reference points it's not until you talk to somebody else and this is why informational interviews are so powerful a lot of people think informational review is networking whatever but no it's really to hear the experiences outside of your little academic bubble what is possible what's normal how you should actually be treated i mean and not being heard you know elliot brought that up too i think when you're not heard your career is always put on the back burner to your pi or to somebody else this is far too often the case in academia and it takes the time to realize that it takes time to know that you're valuable too and that your career should be just as important so great insights elliot um amanda i want to turn to you next what was the final straw for you yeah isaiah so uh others may have noticed that i have been laughing a little bit during this video because everything that you all have said is so true and i feel like i have to laugh so that i don't cry because of how crazy academia is and definitely like you guys were saying you go through these horrible things sometimes and you just end up in there for a long time because you don't realize that it's bad until you talk to somebody outside of academia and they're like whoa so i think for me um my my breaking point built up slowly over time um and ultimately it boils down to [Music] the lack of support um in academia and it really started from when i joined my phd lab um so like many of you i showed up excited to do science and try to make a difference that's why i i wanted to get a phd in the first place but i ended up in a situation where i had to fight just to come to lab let alone do this science because the environment was so toxic um to give an example as a junior grad student i reached out to my pi because two of my colleagues had serious issues with each other one was a post-doc and one was a graduate student and they would literally yell at each other and say the most hurtful things they could to each other and i approached my pi and i said hey i think this is a problem um it's disruptive to my work like i can't think and his response was it's okay it's not a problem and then at one point when they started arguing he shut himself in his office and i ended up breaking up the argument as the junior graduate student but i thought okay this is it it's gonna get better um but it didn't i mean stuff kept popping up and i kept thinking even though i kept thinking okay i'll just work harder i'll prove myself if i show that i'm willing to give to the lab and to this pi they're going to coach me and guide me in a way that's going to help my career but eventually [Music] i realized that that was never going to happen and you know unfortunately it took it took me developing several mental health issues before i realized it but um you know i kept hearing my pi saying linkedin doesn't matter networking doesn't matter and then at the same time i was coming to cheeky scientists and say no this is the things that are going to help you get into industry and get a career that you want so yeah at some point i just had to say okay look my pi doesn't care no matter what i do i'm just going to have to stand up for myself and say this is what i want to do i'm going to go for it and i'm not going to care what you think about me anymore yeah i know i appreciate sharing that i think it's a tough conversation to have and we were talking about this before you know sharing what's happened to us hopefully will help all of you if you're watching this know that you're not alone right and that's something that's very easy to feel like we don't talk about it right you experience these challenges these difficulties and we because phds are such amazing people we place it on ourselves we're like well it's my deficiency i should be stronger i should be able to handle this i'm not as smart as i should be right that's one that comes up a lot i'm not as you know logical or strong as i should be it's not true i mean you're you're a person you're going to have you know emotions you have biology right like you're not a robot uh having respect right uh you know having values people see you're seeing your career path as important uh not having a toxic work environment like you deserve that and it's easy to think that you don't for whatever reason seem to be easy to be convinced of that um so what we want to show you here is look these things happen you don't have to wait for things to get that bad for you if they haven't i can tell you right now that most phds do they wait till it gets this bad or worse before they finally change you don't have to do that you could do it before you can look ahead one thing's phds are really good at is looking ahead seeing the writing on the wall understanding this looking at the data knowing there's not a career for you in academia knowing that it is toxic or it's going to become toxic or maybe you've noticed things have slowly started to get worse um for you in your lab or i could you know in academia in general uh do something about it now before it gets real bad think ahead prepare uh take action and don't don't be afraid to speak up don't be afraid to share right just sharing here with each other i mean i think we're closer now because we've talked about this and as i learned more about our panelists here of course and then any other phd it shows that camaraderie we've all been through something very difficult but there are certain things that you should not accept and you do not have to wait till that final straw moment you can take action now there are resources available for you um if you have questions on this please let us know below in the comments section thanks to our panelists for sharing so openly really appreciate it as always remember your value as a phd and start thinking and acting like a successful industry professional thanks all

Channel: Cheeky Scientist

Views: 39,519

Keywords:

Id: HRGKRKUlwhA

Length: 16min 29sec (989 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 17 2020