Related to my thoughts on survivor's guilt, academic regret is a hard subject to talk about. But you’re used to hard things. You have a doctorate after all.
Once you leave academia or while you are leaving, you may feel a twinge of regret about your academic career. You would be so much further if you hadn’t spent all that time in academia, chasing the carrot on the stick. You may have colleagues who are younger than you are or maybe around your age with more work experience in your field. More on your new colleagues later. And more on work experience later.
In this regretful state, it’s easy to recount all the bad things about academia, all the things you want to escape from. Resist this temptation. You’re not running. You don’t need to disown part of your life, just create a narrative.
When you’re in an interview and your interviewer says something about your background or looks quizzically at you when you start talking about your research (briefly), that twinge of regret may resurface. Don’t beat yourself up.
Connect your academic life with your non-academic life. Combine both halves into a cohesive, professional life. I’m sure some of the same qualities that drew you to academic life are similar to what draws you to your new career industry. Connect those qualities for your interviewer just like you would for your students. If you really like the teaching part of academia, you probably live for the moment when the light bulb goes off, when someone gets it. All of your efforts are worth it for that single moment. You probably love the moment when your own light bulb goes off. Treat your transition like this, as a path to discovery. If you are a creative person, which if you are in the humanities I’m sure you are, transitioning out of academia can ignite or re-ignite the creativity that academia often extinguishes.
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