Why I left academia
<p>“I think you’ve already decided. You have all the answers figured out; you need to listen to yourself.”</p>
<p>This was the usual type of ending to a conversation I’d have, on average, with two or three students every year. They would knock on my office door and ask if I had time to talk with them. I’d see the look in their eyes and immediately know this was a <em>“closed-door”</em> talk.</p>
<p>I started teaching at university in 2006. In my previous gig as a high school teacher, I learned early on that an unspecified function of my job was “part-time counselor.” Students had problems, and they came to me with them. When I started at the university, it was no different.</p>
<p>“Of course they will tell you to stay,” I would say. “We have a vested interest in keeping people in the program.”</p>
<p>The conversation was almost always the same. The student was overwhelmed and not happy where they currently were. Something needed to change. I let them talk through it, because by the end they knew the right path to take. They had already known. But they were reluctant to go that route because other people told them they shouldn’t.</p>
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