Leaving Academia

An estimated ninety-three percent of graduate students in the humanities and social sciences won't get a tenure-track job, yet many still assume that a tenured professorship is the only successful outcome for a PhD. With the academic job market in such crisis, Leaving Academia helps grad students and academics in any scholarly field find satisfying careers beyond higher education. Short and pragmatic, the book offers invaluable advice to visiting and adjunct instructors ready to seek new opportunities, to scholars caught in "tenure-trap" jobs, to grad students interested in nonacademic work, and to committed academics who want to support their students and contingent colleagues more effectively.

After earning a PhD in classics from the University of Virginia and teaching at Tulane, Christopher Caterine left academia for a job at a corporate consulting firm. During his career transition, he went on more than 150 informational interviews and later interviewed twelve other professionals who had left higher education for diverse fields. Drawing on everything he learned, Caterine helps readers chart their own course to a rewarding new career. He addresses dozens of key issues, including overcoming psychological difficulties, translating academic experience for nonacademics, and meeting the challenges of a first job in a new field.

Providing clear, concrete ways to move forward at each stage of your career change, even when the going gets tough, Leaving Academia is both realistic and filled with hope.

'The prospect of leaving the ivory tower for new careers has never been made so accessible or so attractive. The reams of practical, actionable information packed into every chapter of this guide are underpinned by Caterine's compelling story of personal reinvention. Leaving Academia provides an escape plan for researchers and scholars frustrated with today's academic career maze.' — Chris Humphrey, PhD, founder of Jobs on Toast

'Written with energy and wit, Leaving Academia centers on Christopher Caterine's practical and emotional journey from academic to business employment. The book provides excellent discussions of resume writing, informational interviews, and other skills—but it's likewise valuable for the way Caterine describes how it feels to change careers. If you're thinking of making that change — or if your students are — then you should read this book.' — Leonard Cassuto, PhD, author of The Graduate School Mess: What Caused It and How We Can Fix It

'Leaving Academia delivers! Graduate students and newly minted PhDs need this book now. A compelling account of paths to professional flourishing outside academia, it will be useful to graduate students and PhDs in the humanities, arts, social sciences, and sciences.' — John Paulas, PhD, president of PhD Matters Ltd.