In this week's reading of How to Leave Academia, Neutill describes her experience as a barmaid after many failed attempts to find work. She became the most knowledgeable and oldest of the barmaid. When she didn't get used to it, she even felt ashamed to be a barman as a postdoc. But gradually she found that her colleagues and her guests were so interesting and gave her encouragement and warmth. She experienced a world quite different from the cold, boring world of academia. In this bar, she was free from the elitism and seduction cultivated by academia. She found that her past self was too conceited, and she found that she despised what they did but her failures. The new life taught her about the world, and she is now proud to say, "I'm a waitress."

To be sure, there are no ranks of job, no ranks of high and low for waiters and university professors. But waitressing is a job that doesn't require much knowledge or education. If there are too many senior intellectuals leaving the education sector, that will be a loss of educational resources. And for those who want to stay in academia but have no choice but to drop out, waitressing is not a good idea at all. Therefore, how to change the status quo of education, so that it is not so boring to limit the dress of people persuade beauty, and how to make it a place to forge the spirit and increase the knowledge, just like the students who just enter the university imagine in their mind, is a very important thing.

https://images.app.goo.gl/Zi7q6GcCGXiXDTiR9

My question is: the last few weeks we've seen some examples of staying in academia, and this week we've seen some examples of leaving academia. Should we stand up to the disadvantageous treatment in academia, or should we leave it in search of new joys?

Reference:

Valverde, K.-L. C., & Dariotis, W. M. (2020). Fight the tower: Asian American women scholars resistance and renewal in the academy. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.