You're Not Alone - Part 6

Apologies for being MIA this past week. I've been trying to post at least once per week, but couldn't come up with anything particularly insightful over the last few days. I've got a few posts in the pipeline, though, so I'll put up a couple of things over the next few days.

Despite me not having posted much in the last couple of weeks, new visits to this blog have spiked in recent days - probably not coincidentally due to the fact that we're in the first few months of the new academic semester. There seem to be some new grad students out there who are realizing that the whole academia thing might not be a good fit for them, as well as returning academics who are wondering why they even came back.

So since I haven't done one of these in awhile, here is a selection of search terms that have been bringing people to this blog via Google. Again - I can't see any identifying information about these searchers, so there's no reason to feel embarrassed if you see one of your searches represented here.

But I always pay attention to the search term portion of my blog statistics, because I think that it reveals a lot about how many people out there are toiling way in academic positions, being unhappy and second-guessing their choices without apparently knowing where to go for help or advice.

I remember very clearly that while I was having doubts about grad school, I felt completely alone. I felt like I was the only person who saw the unethical and illogical and flat-out unfair aspects of academia, and like I was the only person who was genuinely unhappy. Sure, we all joked about how "all grad students are miserable" and about how everyone was in therapy and on psych meds. But still, everyone always talked about how academia was "the best job in the world." I always felt like I couldn't say anything to anyone about the doubts I was having because, obviously, I was the only person having those thoughts. Perhaps you are thinking that now, reading this.

Well, trust me ... you're not. This week's search terms bringing people to my blog:
-i hate academia (3 searches)
-i hate my research
-hate phd research work
-how to leave academia
-i want to leave grad school
-hopeless situation grad school
-hate graduate school
-i don't like my graduate advisor
-anxiety depression since grad school
-depression grad school science
-academics are snobs

You're not alone, and you don't have to stay in academia just because that's where you started out.