New Location for How To Leave Academia

Hi all! Long time no talk!!!

I am still here...still working...still happy...still doing pretty great, with no regrets about my choice to leave academia in 2011. I'm going to write more about what I'm doing now and how I'm feeling in the next week or so, but it won't be appearing here...it will be appearing over at our recently moved and revamped How to Leave Academia site!

Check it out: http://www.howtoleaveacademia.blogspot.com/

As some of you probably noticed, the old site went kaput a year or two ago, and unfortunately due to work and life demands it took us a long time to fix it. But all of the content that used to be at HTLA is now at this (free!) Blogspot site, and it will remain there until the end of the internet. We promise.

I doubt that any of us will be writing much over there, but I suppose you never know when the mood might strike one of us to write something. So keep an eye on it! In the meantime, if any of you would like to add some content, write a guest post, leave a comment, etc., shoot one of us an email! We would love to add more to the site, and I'm sure that the newer folks who are leaving would love to hear from people who are going through the same process.

And in the meantime, don't forget about our e-book, Moving On, which is still available on Amazon!

I hope you're all doing well and are figuring things out for yourselves. Even if you feel alone, don't worry...we've got your back, and there is light at the end of the academic tunnel.

More E-Book News...and Also, Take the Ph.D Debt Survey!

Hey friends!

I promise...now that this e-book craziness is all but over for me, I will get back to updating this blog more regularly. I have missed writing here!! And with postacademia and problems of academic labor blowing up all over the internet and the blogosphere, there are certainly a lot of topics I could discuss!

But, today I have two quick things to tell you about.

First ... for those of you who have e-book devices other than a Kindle, our book ("Moving On: Essays on the Aftermath of Leaving Academia") is now available for purchase in EPUB format on Kobo.com. Here's the link.

Again, the book is value-priced at $2.99, and all proceeds will go toward the maintenance of the HTLA site. (Including the forums, which we are still working on!)

As before ... we kindly ask you to leave reviews of the book on either site or on your blog, and to tell your friends about our book if you think they would benefit from it!

In news not related to me or my blog..............

The E-Book is Published!!!

(Cross-posted from the HTLA site.)

Kathleen, Lauren, Jet and I are thrilled to announce that Moving On: Essays on the Aftermath of Leaving Academia has now been released!! We’ve been working on this book for a year and are excited to share these wonderful stories with everyone interested in the experience of leaving academia.

Here is the link to where you can purchase the book on Amazon for your Kindle, or simply to read in your browser via Amazon. In the next few months, we will be also adding the book to Smashwords for use on readers other than the Kindle, so stay tuned!

The e-book is $2.99, and costs go towards publication expenses and site maintenance. We priced it as low as possible to make sure it’s available to anyone, even us brokeass ex-grads. It would also make a great gift to anyone you know going through this.

If and when you read the book, please leave a review on Amazon. THANK YOU for your support of our project and for your support of all post-academics.

Exciting News in Postacademia!!

Hey everybody!! (Really, really) long time no talk!!

Everything with me is going well ... I'm still at the same job, still living in the same place ... still hanging out with my partner and friends and family and dogs. Life is good!

I haven't written in a while for various reasons ... to some extent, I just haven't had much to add to the interesting and varied conversations that have been happening in the postacademic world in recent months. On another level, I simply haven't been quite as "tuned in" to academic and postacademic news as I used to be. I do still pay attention, but as I've moved further away from my grad school life I have found that my emotions aren't as raw, my anger not so acute, and my desire to blog about each article and event to be less strong.

(So take heart, new academic leavers - the raw emotions do fade over time!!)

However, I'm back today to tell you about a few really exciting developments in the postacademic world, and with our How to Leave Academia website in particular.

More after the jump...

Belated New Year's Roundup Post

Whew, finding time to blog is hard when you're also trying to work full-time, volunteer a few hours a week, start up a brand spanking new postacademic website, and find a little bit of time to hang out with your partner and pets and yourself! :)

But I really can't complain ... things are going pretty well for me right now. So, yay.

But given that we just had another new year sneak up on us, I wanted to write a brief "year in review" kind of post, to sum up how the year has gone and where I hope to go in 2013.

2012 was a weird year. Upon first glance, it looks like a pretty uneventful year, primarily because nothing much happened for me career-wise. But when I think about it more closely, I actually do think it was a big year for me in my journey out of academia. And even more importantly, I'm hopeful that I'm finally in a good position to make 2013 a really great year.

Exciting News! ...Wanna Help? :)

As Lauren mentioned in her post just a little while ago, we have exciting news to report from the postacademic blogosphere!

After months of ranting away on our own blogs, several of us (me, Lauren, Currer and Jet) have decided to move forward with a centralized website and e-book that will provide resources for folks who are contemplating leaving academia, as well as support for those who have already left.

The website won't be up and running for a little while, although we do have a URL and an outline, so it's definitely going to happen. :) The book will follow once the website is up and running, and once we get a sense for the type of information people seem to be looking for and how we can best complement what's on the site.

Our initial plan for the website is for it to provide concrete, tangible information about how to leave academia (how to tell your advisor, how to write a resume, how to deal with financial and other issues that might arise), as well as support and resources to help you make the decision that's best for you and to keep yourself emotionally on-track.

So! We have plans, and we're excited about them! And this is where you come in.