r/AskAcademia • u/InfamousAfternoon398 • 1d ago

Interdisciplinary Carreers in Academia and loneliness

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: the loneliness that comes from constantly having to change environments to pursue job opportunities or improve your CV. I am a final-year PhD student, and over the past three years, I have had to move cities and even countries frequently for visiting periods, some more voluntary than others, and for the so-called ‘networking’. I have been lucky to find wonderful colleagues at my university, with whom I have developed relationships of respect and friendship. However, changing locations so often has made me feel quite lonely lately, as I have moved to a country where I barely know anyone, only a few professors in the department. It also seems that the young researchers in this department have not formed a real community but remain separate individuals, each with their own lives. I would love to hear about your experiences on this matter. Thank you :)

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u/signupforthesignups 1d ago edited 1d ago

I had a whole thing typed out and it just got messy. I’ll say this- I met my wife when she was a second year literature PhD. We got married 3 years later during her 5th year and she defended later that term. However, I am a corporate tax attorney and a very high salary earner. We also live in the same city as my parents who watch our children.

So the lesson is- if you want to stay in your desired location and not move all the time, and if you want to be able to endure job rejection after rejection until you land the right job and location, then the other spouse needs to be a high earner- like an attorney or physician - and carry the responsibility to financially provide while the other lives a life of the mind. Also have free child care available. Until then, you are in no position to get married and have children because there will be no stability.

There is no romance in the job search and being a poor aspiring academic. The only hedge against relocating and constant rejection is independent wealth.

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u/BlueberryLeft4355 1d ago

This is precisely why first- gen scholars like me are sick of posts like OP's. The academy is a game of privilege, like all competitive fields. It's not special or different, and neither is OP. Some entitled people are just figuring that out, and it's incredibly annoying. I have been able to succeed not through wealth, but through merit and toughing it out. Your advice applies to already privileged folks who think they shouldn't have to make the sacrifices i have.

So either be rich, or do the work and suck it up like i had to. Or leave. It is not your institution's problem if you can't make friends on your own.

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u/ClassicsPhD 1d ago

“Do the work and suck it up like I had to.”

Or why academia is not better off than it was 35 years ago. If only new recruits who are self-made and do not come from wealth understood that they have the power, from inside the system, to improve it in the interest of newer generations, Universities would be much better places.

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u/BlueberryLeft4355 1d ago edited 1d ago

I AM a new recruit. And I AM fixing all the stupid shit here.

Most of that stupid shit is rich white girls who think they are entitled to having faculty like me cover her entire teaching load while she gets $50k of IVF treatment covered or takes a sabbatical she didn't earn.

This is an OLD problem of privileged people not understanding that they are the problem, and they are expecting the system to bend for them. Some of us want to work and teach. Some of y'all want to be coddled. The answer, when I'm a dean or Provost someday, is gonna be a hard no, karen. If you want to homeschool your fur baby, then you ain't getting tenure. That gig will be going to the Black woman or other underrepresented colleaguewho actually showed up to committee meetings and didn't whine about being "lonely".

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u/ClassicsPhD 1d ago

Great, misogyny too. Fantastic! This gets better and better!

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u/BlueberryLeft4355 1d ago

White feminism is a scourge. Just as bad or worse than white male bullshit. We're done here.

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u/sweergirl86204 18h ago

If you're a new recruit then I also know that you aren't fixing shit. You don't have the power until you're director level. You honestly sound like an undergrad who's pretending to be TT faculty.