Sari Piittinen

In the beginning of this year, I decided to give an academic career track a 6 months’ chance during which I would apply for research funding and academic positions, and if none of them worked out, I’d seriously consider moving on. I’ve now received a rejection for all my funding applications this spring and have started to apply for non-academic positions…

…Quite happily. The more I’ve thought about it, I don’t think an academic career track would make me a very happy person. I’m passionate about doing research, sure, but the constant competition, rejections, and job insecurity – when I’m already prone to unfairly comparing myself to others – is never going to create a healthy mental and emotional state for me. What the academia is so far constantly telling me is that I’m not good enough. Not enough experience of this or that, not enough networks (especially international ones), not enough publications… Which is, pardon my French, bullshit because I’m a hard worker and fully capable of anything that the work requires. So why not leave behind this toxic unrequited love and look for a position in which my skills are appreciated? It may not be easily and quickly found, but I still have more hope to find a position like that than to be successful with funding applications (which are like playing lottery, if it took weeks to prepare a lottery ticket) or battling for scarce academic positions with equally capable peers (who may have more impressive CVs).

Right now, I honestly just want to have a job with some new challenges that will give me something new to focus on, but at the same time, will allow me to enjoy my freetime guilt-free, as I think I may not have been able to fully do for the past six years. When you’re a researcher, there’s always something you should be doing.

I feel like I’ve somehow always known that things would end this way, with me and the academic world. There have always been “requirements” for doing the work that I haven’t been, well, okay with. I think it’s ridiculous that weekends become time to do parts of the work there was no time to do during the week, without extra pay. I have no interest in staying abroad for lengthy periods of time to prove I’m an international master scholar. I’m okay with teaching, but it’s always been clear to me I’m not as passionate about it as many of my peers who do a wonderful job connecting with their students. But more than anything, I’m just not interested in constant individual competition and comparison to others. Even when I play video games with my friends, I never play against them – we play co-operative games as a team. That’s because I’m not interested in proving that I’m better than others, I just want to be important and useful for my team. But in the academics, you have to be the one with the best stats and scores to have a chance at… you know, having a career, getting paid. I want to be the best for my team, I don’t want to be the best, period. There’s a difference.

And the thing is, outside academia, I think people appreciate team thinking. I want to be a team’s healer, tank, damage dealer, whatever position I fit best; not the person who grinds the game 12 hours a day to max all these skills and may still not even get a chance to enter the match because someone else grinded 13 hours. I’m exhausted by the academia, but also energised by the thought that somewhere out there, a team might be able to recognize my skills and invite me to join them.

Besides, I’ve got cats to feed. And there are so many content creators I want to be able to support, and currently can’t, because I don’t have the extra money. It’s hecking killing me. I need to have an income so I can give other people theirs.

The good thing to come from this is that I’ll probably feel free to start blogging about very non-academic topics here as well. I’ve always enjoyed writing down my thoughts on random topics and have had a diary/journal/blog online, on and off, since I was 15. Now I can turn this into my new platform for doing it. Should be fun.