My story
17 years ago I took a commercial graduate position as a quality control (QC) laboratory technician at a medical devices company. After only a few months, the job itself quickly became monotonous and to be frank, altogether downright tedious.
This was due to the repetitive nature of the lab tests being conducted on a daily basis. As a result, my attention soon turned to more senior roles in the company and what it would take to progress from the coalface of the QC lab to a higher position.
What was strikingly obvious was that the majority of scientific managers held higher degrees, many of whom had PhDs. For this reason I felt it was necessary to return to university in pursuit of some post-graduate education.
4 years on from starting my post-grad career, at the point of completing my PhD, I had been truly bitten by the addictive nature of biomedical research and shuddered at the thought of returning to the mundane work that I had previously experienced in the as a QC techy (essentially I had become addicted to research).
Ultimately, I flaked on my original plan and decided not to return to industry, but rather search for an exciting postdoctoral position. 3 years on from that, I was fully indoctrinated into the academic system and like many of my peers at the time, my dream was now to pursue that most highly desirable prize, the tenured research position.
Luckily for me I made it, obtaining research independence and a lab of my own following completion of a second post-doc position abroad. However, somewhat unexpectedly over the initial few years of research independence, I began to feel increasing more despondent about the research system in which I found myself.
Whilst I still very much enjoyed scientific research, a focus by universities on money generation, league table places and the increased casualization of their workforce left me feeling as if the academic workplace had transitioned to a state not too dissimilar to the commercial sector (at least in some regards at least). Whilst I understood that universities require money in order to operate, I did not agree that profit should a primary driver in the system.
At the same time I also felt as if I had poured so much time and effort into obtaining this dream job that changing track at this point felt nothing short of abject failure. I struggled on with this feeling for years and with the added responsibility of a growing research lab, and teaching/administrative commitments at the university, I began to develop feelings of incarceration within a system that I no longer felt fulfilled my own personal needs.
I thought I needed to find a way to carry on regardless and that being a research scientist was a major part of my identity (ultimately I felt ambivalence towards my situation).
This was a very difficult period in my professional life and it took a long period of procrastination (at least two years) before I finally faced up to and acted upon my decision to leave academia. I had now reached a point where I was prepared to try my luck back in the commercial sector.
However, I was also 15 years older since my last non-academic job and worried about my employability prospects outside the academy. Was I too old, too educated and too inexperienced in the commercial world to be considered as an attractive candidate for good industry positions?
The prospect of retraining and starting on the shop floor of something new was absolutely daunting (I felt an overwhelming reluctance towards career transition). In effect I felt trapped by my education and ultimately the previous success I had enjoyed in academia.
I was of course not trapped, but this felt very real at the time. Upon reflection, the one essential thing I did to overcome this was to rewire any thoughts of entrapment to ones of empowerment by my circumstances.
I began to view my experiences as a biomedical researcher as highly desirable by industry and consequently several months later, I landed an exciting role in the pharmaceutical industry.
Career Procrastination
Upon talking to other colleagues during this period of transition, I soon became acutely aware that I was not alone in these feelings. In fact, entrapment appeared to be surprisingly commonplace amongst other academic researchers that I was speaking to and I began to wonder why this was the case.
From my own experience and from discussions with others, I realised that 3 main reasons kept cropping up: (i) Addiction to scientific research; (ii) ambivalence towards their situation; and (iii) an overwhelming reluctance to transition into other professional roles (exemplified in bold by my own personal experiences above).
Due to these reasons, researchers who find themselves dissatisfied with their current situation can often end up in a cycle of procrastination, flipping between the desire of removing themselves from their current professional roles in search of something else and the anxiety of taking the practical steps needed to successfully navigate this transition.
A prolonged period of procrastination can have severe detrimental effects not only on your career progression, but importantly also on your personal well-being.
If you find yourself in this situation, it’s important to take practical steps in order to break this cycle of procrastination as quickly as possible. This will allow you to reach an informed decision and move forward ASAP.
In the coming weeks, I will discuss each of the 3 common reasons as to why researchers feel trapped in academia (project addiction, ambivalence and reluctance to transition), and will offer practical advice about what can be done to tackle each issue head-on should you be considering your future in academia.
In the meantime, remember to stay focussed on your goals and keep learning how to be a badass in your biomed career.
Do you agree with the above? Have you ever felt trapped in the academic system and if so why? I’m interested in hearing your experiences.