I smiled at Hilary Levey Friedman *09’s article on leaving academia (Perspective, March 21). Like Dr. Friedman, my husband (’96) and I are post-academic Ph.Ds by choice. We, too, were struck by the arbitrary whims of academia, including the tendency of many in our fields to jump on intellectual fads with little real-world applicability. In part with help from the book So What Are You Going to Do With That? A Guide to Career-Changing for M.A.’s and Ph.D.’s by fellow alums Susan Basalla *97 and Maggie Debelius *00, we decided to pursue careers that allow us to actively contribute to solving real-time problems in government, defense, and social policy.
Academia is a wonderful choice for some, but far too many Ph.D.s stay in academics because they feel stuck on that path. Rather than going through the grinder of job-search and tenure pain, many would do better to reflect on how the skills they honed in graduate school could be applied to different careers with potentially happier outcomes.