This episode is for anyone who is an adjunct considering whether to stay or to leave academia.
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Leslie:
Hey folks, and welcome to the next installment of my series on leaving academia!
Before I introduce today’s guest, I wanted to give some background on this episode. A few months ago, I received an email from a listener where they wrote,
“When it comes to podcasts, blogs, substacks about quitting academia, it always strikes me that we only hear from one perspective, that of the academic who got the tenure track job and decided to leave. The concerns usually center around losing one’s identity and finding ways to engage in research outside of academia. All useful conversations. But as an adjunct who’s struggling to find full-time/slash sustainable work, I’d like to hear from folks who didn’t get that far. How long they held on and how they decided it was time to leave.”
And this person explained that they got into academia later in life and really enjoy their work as an adjunct. However, it’s unstable. And because there’s no retirement benefits or ability to save, they will have to leave if they can’t find a more secure position.
So receiving this message was like a lightning bolt for me. Although a number of people I’ve interviewed about leaving academia were never on the tenure track, I can still see how I’ve neglected to address the needs of a very large segment of PhDs. According to a recent report by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources, there are roughly 650,000 adjunct faculty members in American colleges and universities. They comprise about 40% of the higher education faculty workforce. They typically teach one or two courses per semester for low pay and few benefits. And only about one-third of institutions provide health insurance for adjuncts.
So this is like a really incredibly informative and thorough report that I highly recommend people go read.
But I wanted to point out one eye-opening quote about income, which was “based on the median pay per credit hour, adjuncts who teach four courses per semester year-round, i.e. 36 credit hours. So this would be 12 courses a year, would be paid approximately $41,976. This is much lower than the median annual income of full-time workers in the United States.”
So to me, this really speaks volumes to how undervalued teaching is. When the truth is that the vast majority of academics I’ve ever spoken to really enjoy being in the classroom. This may be shifting with the advent of AI, but nonetheless, I know so many scholars who derive the most meaning purpose from their work with students.
So after receiving this email, I posted on LinkedIn asking if there were any former full-time adjuncts who had left academia and were willing to share about their journey. A lot of people offered their stories, and I ended up choosing today’s guest, Caitlin Luetger-Schlewitt. I think her experiences will resonate with a lot of people.
So let me tell you about her. Caitlin is a board-certified career and leadership coach, educator, and licensed professional counselor. Having built a career around guiding others through the hidden curriculum of life, school, and career, Caitlin’s practice is grounded in helping people better understand themselves, clarify their goals, and make thoughtful decisions about their future through curiosity, meaning making, and design thinking. She currently works as a lecturer in leadership and career readiness and faculty coordinator for Cardinal Internship Lab at North Central College.
So as we’ll talk about more, she’s pivoted back and forth between academic and non-academic positions. And I can’t wait to hear more.
So thank you so much for being here, Caitlin!
Caitlin:
Thank you for having me. I’m really excited to be here.
Leslie:
So, like I ask everybody, can you first talk about your journey through academia and how you became an adjunct lecturer?
Caitlin:
Yes. So I came to higher ed not necessarily on purpose. When I graduated college, I actually wanted to work in museum education. And I graduated in a recession. And it was really hard to find that type of work in the humanities. And I wanted to work in that kind of environment because I was really interested in helping people connect with our humanities and and kind of find that personal connection.
So when I could not find a job in a museum, I really had the panic of, “oh no, what do I do now?” And a friend of mine had made the suggestion of “why don’t you look at the community colleges? Because you could do kind of the same thing there.” I had gone to a community college during my own college experience. I had a very good experience there. And I realized, “yeah, I can actually make the kind of impact that I want to make in a community college environment.”
So I went to grad school. Earned a master’s degree and then I immediately went on the market to find roles in community colleges. Now I know a lot of people have moved people with doctorates have moved into the community college spaces just because of the lack of jobs that are there. When I initially pursued that, you didn’t need a doctorate, which is why I didn’t initially pursue that. I needed to make money and I wanted to get, you know, my career started. So I immediately went on the market after my master’s degree.
In the back of my mind, I’d always thought, “sure, I’ll go over the PhD eventually, but right now I’m gonna focus on getting my career started.” So I found jobs that were adjunct positions, but I had some limitations in that I live in an area where there are so many schools. We have a lot of community colleges and we have really great community colleges, but I was really limited to this location because I was a caretaker for a family member who was unwell at the time. And so I was unable to move. So I was very limited by my geographical location.
And I think the first year that I went on the market with a general humanities master’s degree, there were maybe four jobs across the country that I qualified for that were full time. And none of them were here. Like none of them were in the Chicago area. And so that that’s kind of how I ended up pursuing the adjunct roles. I thought, “I’ll take some adjunct positions, I can make some money, build my CV, gain some teaching experience. And then while I’m doing this, I will also continue pursuing full-time faculty positions.” Those full-time faculty positions did not show up because there just were not any. It was a really, really challenging market.
And I know a lot of your listeners can relate to the fact that the opportunities are not there, and especially in the humanities. While I worked at three colleges as an adjunct, I was teaching more than the equivalent of a full-time load for most full-time faculty members at most community colleges. I know at the schools that I was at, a full-time faculty was a four-four load. I was teaching about like an eight or ten, eight, ten load. Double the amount that a full-time faculty, yeah, but across three schools. And I was still earning less than a full-time faculty member would earn. In addition to that, I had part-time jobs outside of higher education that I was working to supplement my pay.
So I worked in retail part-time, I tutored part-time. I taught some kids art classes, which was fun, but you know, not the kind of work that I was hoping to do while I was trying to launch my career. I think at one point I did have six jobs that I was balancing and while trying to find a full-time position. I adjuncted, I call it full-time adjuncting, for probably eight years before I decided to make a change.
The work that I was doing as an adjunct, I loved it, right? I loved the subject matter. I loved the courses I was teaching. I had amazing students. I had really great colleagues, both part-time and full-time colleagues that I really enjoyed working with. But as an adult person who had bills to pay and, you know, like rent and I needed groceries and it just wasn’t stable. So I first thought about changing career paths about eight years in. I had become kind of a resource on campus for my students for things that were just really inappropriate for a faculty member to be handling. And a lot of it was mental health concerns.
So I had started kind of tossing around the idea of like, maybe I should be a counselor. People really seem to trust me and they feel very comfortable talking about really serious issues with me. And maybe that could be a path that I take. And I’d found myself at the crossroads of should I change careers or should I jump in and get the humanities PhD finally so I can widen my ability to get jobs outside of community colleges? And that did not seem like a viable path.
And so I really did a lot of self-examination. It was a very difficult process to go through because my identity was fully tied to being a teacher and fully tied to being in the humanities and really tied to this eight-year journey of I’m gonna get the full-time position eventually. And it was really difficult. But I’m married and I had to consider, you know, more than just myself in this process. So it was a lot of difficult discussions with my husband and a lot of, you know, difficult discussions with other people, kind of getting their feedback and kind of talking it out to figure out what the best path best path would have been. And we landed on counseling, made the most sense for me to have the kind of access to a career that I wanted where I could make an impact and I could have a steady job that wasn’t so tumultuous and kind of precariously perched.
So I decided to go get a master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling. That was a like a three-year program, but you do a lot of heavy training during the program. So you do practicum internship and develop clinical experience. And by the end of the program, you’re ready to get your provisional license. Once I graduated, I started working in private practice.
Most of my clients, because of my background in higher education, I was really interested in continuing to work with college students. And I had actually initially planned on pursuing counseling roles in university settings. And I found a private practice in my in our area that actually specialized in college student mental health. And it was an amazing practice to work for. I had access to really great clients. They were mostly students, a lot of young professionals too, issues that were really relevant to the work that I had done.
And as I continued working in private practice, I started to learn things about the industry of the mental health care industry that were not widely known to me before I had become a counselor. It was just as unstable as higher education. The pay was not always guaranteed. And that for me was a big challenge being a person approaching middle age and needing to have some kind of stability in my life. And while I was doing that work, those kind of issues were swirling around in my mind of like, “no, did I make a mistake? Was this the wrong path?” It wasn’t. It absolutely was not.
I am really grateful for the experiences that I had working as a therapist, the connections that I’ve made. And honestly, I think being a therapist has made me a much better educator with a better understanding of boundaries, a better ability to understand my students and work with them. So I have no regrets at all about having become a therapist. And doing that work actually led me to pivoting a little bit into the career development spaces.
While I was a mental health counselor, a lot of my clients were coming in with standard issues, right? Anxiety, depression, you know, transitional life issues. But many of them were also coming in with career issues and career confusion and “I don’t know what I want to do. My parents made me pick this major and I actually really hate it and I feel terrible. Can we, you know, talk about ideas of what I could do and how I could make the best of the situation?” But like I said, young professionals were kind of feeling stuck in their career. And I realized I just really love career work. And so it was really rewarding for me.
And I realized I don’t necessarily think I want to work in a counseling center in a university. But I could absolutely see myself pivoting into career services. And that is what I did. I left private practice in mental health to work in the career services space. So I took a role with DePaul University, their Kellstadt Graduate School of Business as the assistant director of the career management center. And my role there was to help graduate students, mostly MBA, but we had several masters programs in business helping them prepare to go on the market after earning their master’s degree or after earning their MBA.
So I did a lot of career exploration. We did some, you know, technical work like build your resume, build your personal value proposition, you know, work on cover letters, some of the really technical pieces of going on the market. But a lot of the conversations were, “what do I want to do when I’m done? I worked at, you know, X Company before I started my MBA. I’m in my MBA now and I don’t know where I want to go next?”
And so I was really, really excited by those conversations. I really enjoyed doing that type of work. And the role that I’m in right now, I’m a full-time lecturer in leadership and career readiness at North Central College. This role kind of fell into my lap by accident. While I was working in career services, I missed teaching a little bit. And so I thought, “I’m just gonna see if there’s like an adjunct position I could pick up on the side and you know, just bring teaching back in.” There is teaching involved in career services, but it was a different kind of teaching that I that I really missed. And so I was looking for just some opportunities.
And North Central College had recently been expanding their career education across campus. So they have a very strong all college requirement for career readiness and career experiential learning graduation requirements. They were looking for someone to teach a couple of classes that were related to that requirement. So I applied for it on a whim. I said, “sure, this is related to what I do. I think that I could, you know, pick that up. That might be really fun to do on the side.” And they called me in for an interview.
We had some conversations about it. I happened to be in the right place at the right time because they did have such a need to expand this program that I was offered a full-time position as a result of the conversations we had just talking about an adjunct role. That is, you know, some gift from the universe. I would not expect that to ever happen again. I wouldn’t expect anyone to have that experience. That truly was just unexpected for me. And I had to kind of wrestle with the idea of “if I have a good thing going and career services, like I’m really liking this work, what would it be like to go back into a faculty role?”
And ultimately I took it and it’s been an amazing opportunity. But again, it was not the path that I was on initially. And it was not where I expected to end up at all. I’m really grateful for the opportunity. You know, I think that having a background as an adjunct, I always have that voice in the back of my head that says, “but this isn’t stable, right? This could change.” So I’ve maintained my counseling licensure. I maintain my contacts, right? My network and career services. And I approach my full-time faculty role now with a different mindset than I might have 10 to 15 years ago, where I’m very aware of I have a backup, right? I have a I have a safety net to fall into just in case because I do not think higher ed is a stable career path.
Leslie:
First of all, thank you so much for sharing all of that. I think it’s such a good example of the twists and turns that happen in one’s career that I think that many folks on an academic track are not aware of at all because there is an ideology of a linear kind of “you do this and then you get that, and then you do this, then you get tenure.” And so there’s many different paths.
And also it sounds like there’s been a lot of alignment, like as you’ve learned the next set of skills or you’ve made the next set of realizations or gotten clear on your priorities, that’s led you to the next opportunity. And, you know, there’s always a bit of magic involved, I think, in landing the right thing, but there’s also the preparedness, right? And knowing like, what do I have to offer? What are the things that I care about now?
And then the last thing about having a backup plan, I think is really, really important. And I would love to talk about that more because I don’t think many people do have a backup plan. But I kind of want to return to that maybe as we talk through the life of an adjunct.
So, you know, in my graduate program, going to a, you know, top R1 where people were expected to go right into a tenure track position or a postdoc that would lead to one, there was no discussion of adjuncting as a potential option for anything beyond grad school.
What was life like as an adjunct who was teaching at multiple institutions? Like just kind of walk me through what a semester would be like.
Caitlin:
It was so hard! I’ll walk you through a day and then I’ll walk you through a semester. So I worked at three schools in addition to my part-time jobs. Those schools were not near each other. And eventually I was lucky to be assigned some online courses and that helped a little bit. But initially I was teaching in person, face to face at three different institutions that were about 30 to 45 minutes away from each other.
So my day started around like 4:30 or 5 in the morning, I would wake up to get ready. I would have to do, you know, some prep and I would have classes starting by 8 a.m. I would have classes throughout the day at several institutions. I there one of the days of the week, I had three institutions that I was at. Usually it was two though. And I basically would teach from 8 a.m. until 10 PM at night. And then I would do the same schedule the next day. It was terrible.
I probably was burnt out way before I realized I was burnt out. I have a memory of the moment I realized I was burnt out, but I think it had crept up on body aches. I was just so stressed out. And the courses that I was teaching usually I think they were capped at about 35 students each. So it’s, you know, it’s not like I was teaching a full day of 100-250 students per class, but it was still a lot of people. Yeah, and could never remember my students’ names because there were so many of them. I had a really hard time keeping up with my grading because I had so many students.
There were times that, this never happened to me, but I was so afraid that I was gonna go to the wrong school for the wrong class, right? Show up to the wrong campus thinking I was going for one class. And actually it never happened to me, but that that was one of the deepest fears that I had at the time.
In addition to teaching one of my campuses, I was involved in service. And so I was involved in some committees. It was by choice. You know, I look back now and I think, man, I really overcommitted and I was doing way more than I should have. I was doing it with the intention of “if I do these things and I show that I’m capable of doing the work of a full-time faculty member, they’ll think, yeah, we want her to be a full-time faculty member here.” And that’s not, that’s not how those offices operate. A lot of adjuncts do that kind of work. And well, it’s great for the school because you’re doing free labor. And it’s great for the school because you’re giving and it really sets the standard that you’ll give and give and give, and you don’t need to receive.
So I was definitely giving, giving, giving. I don’t regret the work that I did because it helped me gain skills that were useful to me later on, you know, like chairing committees and being a part of committees that were hosting events, right? Campus-wide events or cultural events for our students to participate in. I don’t regret that at all. It was really great learning experience for me. It also helped me build my network on campus. So I was able to develop friendships and find allies in the full-time faculty that I probably would never have met if I had not done those things.
But a semester for me was so exhausting. And I would get really sick by the end of the semester, like finals week every year. I would have the flu and I’d be, you know, like dying at the front of the classroom. Like, I’m so sorry that I’m here and I’m sick, but I have to be here. And if I don’t come here, I’ll get in trouble or I won’t get paid for this. Or, you know, some terrible thing will happen if I’m not here. And that’s another thing I look back on. I’m like, man, I should have just taken this sick day. I should have just called in for it.
But yeah, it was, it was just really stressful. And it impacted me at work. I had such a high level of anxiety over the, you know, instability of my job and this kind of fear of, my gosh, if they don’t have a class to give me next semester, will I be able to pay my rent or will I be able to pay for, you know, these bills that I have, like these things that I need for life. Will I be able to continue functioning? So it was really challenging.
It also extended, you know, out into my personal life. So the amount of time that I was working was excessive and it impacted my friendships, my relationships, relationship with family. There was a lot of questioning of like, “why are why are you doing this? Like, what’s in the point?” And at the time it was just, you know, I am a mission-driven person. And at the time when I was younger and I had a less developed sense of boundaries. And my mission was less developed for me back then.
I looked at it and said, “but this is what I was meant to do, right? I’m doing the work that I was meant to do. I’m helping people. I’m doing good in the world and I’m an educator and this is just what educators do.” So I was definitely feeding into some of the more toxic narratives that exist in higher education. But my day-to-day was really tough. Semesters were long. None of the schools that I worked at had the same schedule. So they were always like two to three weeks off of each other. That meant that during winter break, I only got like one actual week off during the year because all the other schools were overlapping. It was different.
And I’ll say my schedule now is different because I’m not teaching at three schools, you know, a triple full-time load, but I do adjunct during the summer to make, you know, a little extra money on top of what I earn yearly and my schedule now, I do way more than I did as an adjunct. But I would say comparatively, I have more wiggle room now than I did back then to do things that I care about. And even, you know, things like have hobbies and, you know, see the people that I care about. I just wasn’t getting to do those things back then.
Leslie:
For sure. I mean, part of it is just like the literal commute time every day. So like running from one place to another. And then so one of the things that you mentioned that I thought was really important is these narratives about higher ed. And you know, you do hear people talk about teaching, also research, but the work that scholars do as a calling. And I take huge issue with that because I do think it opens the door for exploitation.
So if you are really fully into that mindset of “this is what we do, this is the job. If this is not what you’re willing to sacrifice, then it’s the wrong job.” If you are believing that, then where are boundaries? There are no self-imposed limits.
Caitlin:
It’s so pervasive. I will say that’s one of the things that being a counselor, right? Going through counselor training really, really helped me kind of reshape my perspective on the nature of work and the nature of work in higher education. You know, being a counselor, it was so interesting. When I was going through my counselor training program, professional identity development is very strong in the field of mental health. And so there are a lot of people who practice psychotherapy under different licenses and under different titles, even though they do the same thing, kind of.
They all have very distinct professional identities. So social workers different from a mental health counselor, different from a clinical psychologist. I found that so interesting because when I was going through my training in the humanities, there was no focus on professional identity development. And that’s something that I really care about in the work that I do now for my students is helping them understand like who are you as a worker, who do you want to be as a worker? And that really includes thinking about how do you or how do I fit into the system around me?
And so the system of higher ed has some wacky narratives that are pretty harmful. And I’m saying that to be nice, right? The phrasing. It’s a tough environment to work in. And so when I went through this training as a counselor, we did spend a lot of time in in our graduate coursework talking about how will you set boundaries with clients? How will you set boundaries with your practice? How will you set boundaries with other people? Because there are just a lot of things you can’t talk about your job with other people without violating, you know, laws or, you know, damaging the relationship that you might have with client.
So that is something that I brought with me as I’ve re-entered higher education, is really thinking about how am I setting boundaries and how am I engaging with this organization around me and the institution of higher education as a whole? What can I do differently this time around? And I am really proud of the fact that I’ve been able to really determine this is the type of worker that I want to be. And this is, you know, I can do meaningful work without it absorbing my entire personality and damaging my relationships, right?
I can care about my students and also care about my personal time, right? I can say, “I’m not gonna respond to emails at midnight. I’m not gonna respond to emails at 2 a.m. on a Saturday.” But some people do that and you know, that’s great, but it doesn’t work for me. That’s something that’s different for me this time around. And it’s very empowering. But at the same time, I can feel both sides of some people that I work with are like, “yeah, that’s incredible. Like I’m so glad you have these boundaries.” And some people are like, “I’m confused by those boundaries and I don’t do it that way. And maybe we shouldn’t do it that way.” I’m like, “I’m gonna have these boundaries as long as I need them and it’s gonna help me.”
Leslie:
No, absolutely. It’s the only sustainable path. So I’m wondering when you say, like, what type of worker do I want to be, what are the options?
Caitlin:
I mean, I think the sky is the limit, honestly. I think about work from the perspective that I want my work to be meaningful, right? That helps me feel good. It helps me stay engaged, really. When I say feel good, I mean I like my work to be meaningful because that is something that makes me feel engaged in the work that I’m doing. If I’m engaged in the work that I’m doing, I would like honestly just be a better worker all around.
I think about the time, you know, when I was younger and I had my six jobs and I was working in retail. I wasn’t engaged in that. That was just a job I had for the money. And I was not a good retail worker, right? I am the first person to admit it. I know my former bosses will probably admit that too, right? I was in it for the money because I needed it. Compared to the work that I do now, this is meaningful for me. And my, you know, my development as a worker and I think about who do I want to be? I want to be somebody that models healthy boundaries to my students as they enter a tough job market. And I want to be somebody that models healthy boundaries and a healthy professional identity to my colleagues, right?
I do a lot of work with our Center for Teaching and Learning at North Central College. And part of what I do is manage a faculty peer-to-peer mentorship network. And I serve as a mentor in that program too. And one of my areas work-life balance and helping people understand like you can love your job, but you can also develop these other areas of your life. And it’s okay to do that. And honestly, it’s healthy to do that. You know, not everybody has like a hundred different areas that they want to be involved in outside of work. And that’s fine. But I think that it’s really important for me. And I do find meaning in helping other people navigate some of those professional challenges related to professional identity.
That’s one of the reasons that I really like in what I do as a faculty member because I’m teaching that to students, right? I teach leadership and career development courses. And, you know, some of the coursework that we do is really technical. Build the resume, build the cover letter, get ready for the job market. But a lot of the conversations that I have with students in the classroom and during office hours for, you know, are coaching, right? I’m coaching them on becoming the type of person that they want to be. I try to model, you know, my version and let them know, like, you don’t have to do it exactly the way that I do, but I want you to know it’s okay to do things in a way that work for you. It’s okay to express some boundaries on your time.
Now, sometimes you have to do things at your job you don’t necessarily love, but you can also find ways to make sure that your needs are being met or you know, it’s okay to kind of think about what are my needs? Where do I want this work to take me? And I don’t necessarily think you should always approach your job from the perspective of how is my job serving me, but it’s okay to think about how is my job serving me.
Leslie:
And if you don’t think about that, you may end up in a really, really unhealthy place. And I think that’s true of many, many people in higher ed. In part because of the mission-driven nature of it, right? Because there’s always more to be done. Especially I think right now where there’s such an urgency around trying to save what’s left.
So you know, like I mentioned, there’s 650,000 adjuncts right now in in US colleges and universities, and some portion of them are looking or will have to pivot to something else. What advice could you offer to folks who are trying to make that decision around staying or leaving academia?
Caitlin:
Yeah, I would really urge them to think about what their needs, their actual needs are. Think about what are their talents and what are their interests, right? And maybe do by themselves or with the help of someone, right? A friend, a coach, a mentor, right? Do a needs assessment, right? And do a values assessment and think about what are the things that I absolutely must have in my career path? What are the things that I like about what I’m doing right now. And then where can I find those opportunities elsewhere?
When I talk with my students as an example, most of them when they come into a career preparation class, you know, I ask them, who has a major? Do you know what you want to do yet? Most of them are like, “yes, I have a major and I know exactly what I want to do.” I’m like, “sure, sure you do. But what if you thought about that in addition to two other things that you might be able to do those skills that you have in a way that works for you?” Because sometimes the path that you really want isn’t there.
Or sometimes, you know, they’re I tell my students, like frankly, some of you guys are gonna lack some of the talents to do the things that you want to do. I would personally love to be a professional tennis player, but I’m not defended enough to have that as my career path. So I urge my students to have kind of a realistic view on, sure, you have one thing that you’re really interested in, but what are some other things that are similar to that that could work? And that and I would say the same to adjuncts, right? What are the skills that you have, the interests that you have? And where could you apply those and at the same time earn a living, right? Or find meaning and find value that way.
I would also, you know, I’m the first person to admit I never could have been an adjunct for eight years if I was not in a dual income relationship. There are a lot of people that I’ve known who didn’t have that luxury and they weren’t able to continue. And I am very grateful for the opportunity that I’ve had. I’m very lucky to have a spouse who is supportive of my academic career. But it sometimes, you know, I think there’s a need to be aware of some of those limitations, geographical limitations too, right? If you’re stuck in one location and you have a lack of resources, you might need to think about where else can I go.
So I would urge adjuncts to spend time just evaluating the situation and at the same time start thinking about that professional identity in conjunction with your personal identity. And kind of think of how can I round myself out so that I’m detaching from this really strong faculty identity or really strong identity with my discipline, right? The things that we think we’re gonna do when we’re coming out of school just might not happen. And there’s so many reasons for that. But the more we can develop our identities outside of just our job, the easier it becomes to find some of those opportunities. That’s kind of where I would start.
I would do the big push and work with a therapist if you need to. It is really hard to change your identity. It’s really hard to change your professional identity. And if you’ve devoted years to that path, it makes sense that there’s a grieving process that comes with it. I went through that myself. You know, I was I was ready to make a change, but at the same time, I was just not expecting such a large wave of grief to come over me when I left the humanities behind. And I should have seen it, or I feel like I should have seen that coming, right? It was who I was.
But I wasn’t expecting that because I was like, yeah, I’m ready, I’m ready for a change. I’m gonna become a counselor now. This is my new profession, new professional identity. And looking back, I wish that I had made maybe more space to just let that grief, right? Let that grief be and engage with it in a way. I was so keen on just making this change and kind of jumping into it that I think that it took some time to catch up to me. Where one day I was like, “wow, this was a bigger change for me than I thought it could have been. This was actually a lot more emotionally taxing than I ever imagined it would be.” So make space for the grief and just engage with it.
Leslie:
I think those are all really, really useful points. And especially around the emotional component, shifting your identity alongside shifting your career path. And similarly, you know, I’ve been very open about the fact that when I was deciding to leave academia, I was in this state of heartbreak for like a year and a half, even before I left. Because I was still I was in that like, can I make it work phase? When I decided, nope, I’m definitely leaving it was still a question of like when.
And then when I finally did leave, and this was over like a four-year process, there was this big period of time of probably two years where I was like, “Who am I? Who am I if I’m not a professor anymore? If I’m not in academia anymore, if those concerns and communities are not actually my reference points anymore, and I haven’t replaced them with anything just as strong. And I may never, honestly, then who am I?” It took a really long time to figure that out. At that point, I don’t know if it was grief anymore. It was more just like question marks. And I felt very untethered. And now I don’t feel that at all. But I did not expect that.
Even though I’ve read about transitions, I’ve read about all these things that even when you’re moving towards a change that you’ve really been hoping for, you planned, it’s exciting. You have a lot of optimism around it. There’s all kinds of lingering things that come from the last stage. So I think, you know, knowing to anticipate some of that, creating space for it is super important.
What do you think about like adjuncts who they still want the tenure track position, even though realistically speaking, it’s not gonna happen. Folks in that situation where they’ve been trying for year after year after year, it’s really takes a lot out of a person to go on the market every single year.
Say they’ve been doing it five, six, seven years. It doesn’t look like it’s gonna happen, but they want it so badly and they’re trying to figure out if they need to now pivot.
Caitlin:
It’s tough, right? That’s a really tough place to be. And it’s even a tough question to give, you know, one solid answer to. I think that everybody’s situation is unique. So there might be a person who’s in a position to keep pushing for it, but you might be the person who is not in a position to keep pushing for it. And again, I would lean into just really evaluating what’s possible for you, you know, financially, personally, emotionally, and if it’s worthwhile and, you know, it’s something you want to continue looking for while you do other things.
I mean, I personally don’t see the harm in pursuing other options and just keeping an eye, right? Keeping an eye out on the on the market if that’s really, really what you have in your heart set on, right? But at the same time, we still need to be realistic, right? We live in a very expensive world and we need to be able to pay our bills and you know afford basic necessities and and adjuncting does not unfortunately does not always provide that so I would say it’s okay to really, really want that. And at the same time, it’s okay to put that on the back burner and focus on the on meeting your needs in the moment.
Leslie:
So it’s the idea of having fallback options.
Caitlin:
Yeah, having fallback options. I think that’s just so important. And I would say that’s kind of how, you know, my career ended up, right? I wasn’t necessarily looking for a full-time faculty position by the time I landed my position. But I’m not gonna lie, that was always in the back of my mind, right? Like I didn’t let go of that dream, but realistically, I was like, it’s not gonna happen, right? I’ve shifted to staff, right? I’m a staff member. I’m career services. I’m in this totally different realm. Sure, that would be amazing, but it’s really unlikely.
And so that that’s why I was like, “well, maybe I’ll just pick up adjuncting on the side to kind of, you know, fill that need to teach again. But yeah, I would completely be lying to you if I said that was a voice in the back of my head, right? Maybe probably driving some of my decisions, but yeah, I think it’s normal to still hold on to some of those dreams. And I think it’s possible to hold on to some of those goals and those dreams while also recognizing I need to focus on this other thing right now because I, you know, don’t have those opportunities present.
Leslie:
You know, it reminds me of like some of these stories I’ve heard about Hollywood actors, like the moment they got a big role. They went from sort of a nobody to like this big thing, are often preceded by this like, I don’t know, a moment of just giving up, of just being like, “this is not gonna work out for me. I’ve been doing all these auditions for like years now. It’s not happening. I released this dream, really.” And then very soon after that, they get the big role.
And there is something about letting go of attachment, of having yeah, like this idea that that job is the thing that’s gonna make me happy. That’s the only thing I can do. That’s the only thing I’m all about. I think the lighter you can hold something, the more you can actually make way for opportunities to come sometimes.
And that might be kind of what happened for you, where you didn’t let go of it. You just weren’t attached to it as the only thing that was ever gonna work for you.
Caitlin:
Yeah, I agree with that. I think that by the time I got a full-time faculty position, I had spent several years, right, adjusting and going through that grief and really trying to come to terms with, well, that’s just not who I am anymore. Like I am Caitlin, the counselor, or I am Caitlin the cruise services person, or I’m Caitlin the former professor, Caitlin the person who does, you know, XYZ.
And it was, you know, like I said earlier, so difficult. And now I understand that that was just a really prolonged grieving period. But I agree. I think that being able to let go a little bit of that identity and of that that desire and that need really opened me up to, I don’t want to say care less, right? But I think I wasn’t, you know, when I when I interviewed for my current position, I didn’t have such the stakes weren’t as high. Because it wasn’t, you know, this make or break opportunity for me where if I don’t get this, my life is over. ‘Cause I had a job, right? I had a job doing something that was meaningful and fulfilling to me. And I was still working with students and I was, you know, doing something that I cared about.
So going into that little faculty search was not as risky for me, I think. And I think that made me probably more relaxed and a little bit more open. Maybe the situation wasn’t riskier, but I was willing to take more risks as I interviewed or as I talked about my, you know, my role and kind of the work that I do and how I could contribute to the school. So I I I definitely think there is some power in in letting go and expanding some of the some of your identity beyond just faculty or just beyond tenure track search or full-time faculty.
Leslie:
I think that’s actually really, really great advice is on top of assessing your needs and your values and all those things, is like, how can I also release a little bit of this pressure? Because it’s so much pressure that people put on themselves and also their families, their advisors, you know, feeling peer pressure from their peers who are getting jobs and things like that.
But how do I release some of this? ‘Cause it’s like an overfilled balloon, you know? It’s like it’s too much. There’s no wiggle room, there’s no flexibility in there. So where can I build some of that in?
Caitlin:
Yes. I will say that transitioning away from that identity, the grief that’s attached to that might feel different than the grief of, you know, having been like rejected from a full-time job offer, right? You might have gone on interviews and been a finalist and not gotten that position. And you’re gonna go through, you know, a big, a big grief, right? I was there. I’ve spent probably like a full week weeping after I didn’t get a full-time position at one of the schools that I worked at. And that was different, right? That was very different than the grief of unchanging who I am, my entire identity. But I think also having gone through that experience helped me shed some of that identity as well.
‘Cause I remember after I had been turned down for this position that I was, I was sure I was going to get, right? I was like a hundred percent positive this is going to be my job. You know, I heard feedback from people like, “we just need more adjuncts like you, right? Or we need, you know, we need more overachievers like you.” And I was like, “no, that’s not, that’s not good. That’s not right.” We need more adjuncts like you. That tells me we need more people who will give and give and give and give and give, right? Without needing to receive. And I think that also helped, like those experiences helped me be more willing to change my professional identity and to shed some of that attachment to just “I am a humanities professor and I’m gonna have my full-time job at a community college and live out my life that way.”
There’s also it’s honestly it’s kind of fun once you get past the grief, right? Once you get over the hump of the grief, it is actually kind of fun having the opportunity to kind of redesign who you are and who you wanna be and kind of see the possibilities that are there for what meaningful work can look like. And so I’m, you know, I have a professional identity, but I’ll also say having a background in education and counseling and coaching, my professional identity is still like a little muddy, I think. And I’m having a good time really kind of deciding like what that looks like from this point forward.
Leslie:
Totally. Yeah. And it can be all the things. It doesn’t have to be one anymore. Yeah. Immense freedom in that.
So Caitlin, I think this has been such an interesting, insightful conversation. I know a lot of people are gonna be able to apply a lot of your ideas right away. So how can listeners connect with you?
Caitlin:
LinkedIn is probably the best place to get in touch with me. There’s you know, there’s contact information for me on our on our college website, but LinkedIn is the best direct route to me.
Leslie:
Awesome. So thanks again for your willingness to share your story. Folks, make sure to connect with her on LinkedIn.
And I will talk to you all again soon.
If you liked this episode, make sure to also check out:
Ep. 105 – Leaving Academia #9: Craft a Powerful Career Story (with Dr. David Mendes)
Ep. 101 – Leaving Academia #8: Find Career Clarity Beyond the Tenure Track (with Dr. Jennifer Polk)