If you leave academia, you can come back

In my experience, a common thought among junior academics (e.g. PhD candidates/graduate students, postdoctoral associates, associate lecturers, etc.) is that if they leave academia they will never be able to return, unless their job outside the academy allows them to keep publishing articles in their field. I too thought this way for a long time. But recent personal experiences have proven this idea wrong.

In 2015, I left my position as a Postdoctoral Associate at UMN to pursue a career outside academia. I really had no intentions of going back. I had pushed myself too far. I was burnt out. I needed a break. But I didn't have much idea what I could do outside academia. After a few gruelling months of soul-searching and over 100 job applications for positions in a panoply of industries, I landed a position at a raw narcotic material manufacturing facility. I thought this job was the perfect fit for me. It mainly involved process development and improvement, technology transfer and factory process troubleshooting. It seemed to offer the right level of challenge for me but was also the kind of work I could forget about at knocking-off time. Initially, this was a welcome contrast to academic work, which seemed to follow me home every night and stalked me every weekend. It wasn't the sort of job that involved publishing journal articles or presenting at conferences, but I didn't mind this—at least, not at first. However, after a couple of years, I found I missed academia. I missed basic research. I really missed teaching. I missed publishing and sharing research findings at conferences. Most of all, I missed daily interactions with university faculty and students. But, from everything I had read and understood from conversations with colleagues and friends, the transition back from industry to academia would be very difficult, some might even say impossible. I thought my bridges had been burnt. Yet, I decided to give it a go anyway. I fired off a bunch of applications for academic positions at universities in Australia, the USA, NZ and the UK. Fortunately, it turns out you can come back to academia after some time away; I recently accepted a Level B Research Fellow position at the University of Western Australia and I'm excited to be returning to where I belong.

If you are certain you belong in academia, then stay the course; but if you want to explore other options, then perhaps some time in industry would do you good. Perhaps you are considering taking a break from academia, but you aren't sure that you want to give it up for good. Hopefully, my story shows that it is possible to return to academia after a break. Moreover, I think time in industry research or development is actually an asset: it will broaden your mind, make you a more well-rounded academic and better mentor if you do decide to return to academia, improve your future job prospects and give you time and space to figure out which career path is right for you. As far as I can see, taking a break from academia to experience a different side of science is a really good idea.

Disclaimer: Advice given in this blog is of a general nature and does not take into consideration individual circumstances. If you're at a crossroads in your academic career and not sure what to do next, you should talk to a trusted mentor in your institution and also consider getting professional career advice from someone outside your institution.