Many PhD students still experience choosing a career outside academia as a step down — and the language around it doesn’t help. In her column, Isabelle Kohler challenges the narrative behind terms like “leaving academia”, and invites PhD students to ask themselves a harder question: whose voice are they actually listening to when they doubt their own path?

Earlier this year, I was part of an online panel discussion about career paths after a PhD. Attendees could share their thoughts in the chat, and what I read there surprised me.

Many comments were heavy: “academia doesn’t want us”, “people at work think academia is the only real path.” There was a lot of resentment and frustration in those words – directed at academia and the people inside it.

It reminded me of something I’ve been thinking about for a while: the way the term “leaving academia” is still widely used for PhD students and postdocs who want to work outside of a university. It sounds neutral, but it isn’t. The word “leaving” implies there is a default path, and that walking away from it means stepping down. It frames academia as the gold standard and everything else as a second choice. That’s not accurate. After a PhD, all doors are open. PhD graduates don’t leave academia – they move to their next professional step, wherever that may be.

This language doesn’t emerge from nowhere. I’ve heard dismissive comments from senior academics about colleagues who chose careers outside of academia. I’ve had people tell me I was taking risks by not showing full commitment to becoming a professor. It’s easy to start doubting your own choices when you hear these things often enough.

But your career is your career. Nobody else will live your professional life – not your supervisor, not the colleague with an opinion. What matters is your own job satisfaction, and staying honest with yourself about what that means. So how do you hold on to that when the noise around you says otherwise?

• Pay attention to the language you absorb. “Leaving academia,” “giving up on research,” “going to industry” – these phrases carry assumptions. Notice them. The same applies to social media: posts built on fear or doubt tend to perform better, which means they also shape your perception the most, often without you realizing it.
• A PhD is not an identity. It is a professional training – a rigorous and demanding one, but still a form of training that prepares you for your next step, whether inside or outside of a university. You are not your degree, and your value as a professional doesn’t depend on where you end up after it.
• Your career is your sole responsibility – and that is actually a good thing. There will always be people who comment on your choices: senior colleagues, peers, people on LinkedIn. Their opinions say more about their own frame of reference than about the quality of your decisions. You are the one who has to show up every day in the job you choose. Make it count for you.

Back to those chat comments. The frustration I read there – I understand where it comes from. But I’d encourage PhD students to also turn the lens inward: whose voice are you actually listening to when you doubt your own path? Chances are, it isn’t yours.

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NextMinds by Isabelle Kohler

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