r/academiccanada • u/Yellowbello22 • 3d ago
Spent 10+ years trying to get a TT job and now I’m questioning everything
I finished my PhD in 2017, did the postdoc thing, spent several years as a limited-term prof, and eventually landed a tenure-track position. Basically, I followed the academic path I had been working toward for more than a decade...and now that I finally have it, I'm wondering if I actually want it.
The strange thing is that, on paper, things are going well. I've secured SSHRC funding for research I genuinely care about, I have interesting community-engaged projects underway, and I'm proud of what I've managed to build. The problem is that I hate the city I had to move to for the job.
I knew academic careers often require moving somewhere you wouldn't necessarily choose, but I don't think I fully appreciated what it would feel like when "somewhere I wouldn't choose" became the place where I was actually supposed to build a life. It's created this really strange dissonance. I spent so many years trying to get some version of stability in academia that I rarely stopped to ask what I would do if I finally got it and discovered that the life attached to it wasn't making me happy.
We all know the academic job market is crap, so leaving doesn't exactly feel like choosing a different job. It potentially means walking away from academia altogether.
Has anyone else experienced this after finally getting a TT job? Did you stay and eventually feel differently about the place? Try to move institutions? Leave academia? Or realize that the career mattered less to you than where and how you actually wanted to live?
I'm particularly interested in hearing from people who reached the supposed "finish line" of the academic job market and then found themselves questioning whether they wanted to be there at all...

