I do miss academia, but only in the abstract.

I miss benchwork, but that was coming to an end regardless of whether I stayed in academia or not. I miss directly supervising students at the bench, but that was probably also coming to an end. And I miss lecturing. But all those things are with the sadness that comes from moving on to a different chapter in my life. I would feel those same pangs if I had been given tenure and found that administrative responsibilities severed the connection to the bench just as effectively as my resignation did. I don’t miss them to the extent that I think I made a bad decision in choosing to leave academia.

If I’m being completely honest, I don’t miss organising practical classes, which were fun to do but stressful to plan and execute. I don’t miss peer review, which in theory involves critical engagement with experts in the field, but for me was too often about simply weathering hostile and unhelpful feedback. I don’t miss writing grants.

I don’t miss reading the primary literature, because I still do that. 

I don’t miss writing manuscripts and abstracts and other texts, because I still do that. 

I don’t miss producing posters or presentations, because I still do that too. 

I don’t miss collaborating with experts and organising and coordinating things, because I still do all those things as well. Working in MedComms is currently preserving almost all of the activities I enjoyed most in academia, and I’m thrilled and surprised and pleasantly amazed that that’s the case. I feel happy. I feel content. I feel energised.

When I look back, as an undergraduate I had naively imagined the life of the academic as being one of continuous intellectual stimulation. I saw myself delivering lectures on the latest scientific concepts to packed rooms of enthralled undergraduates. I saw myself strolling through practical classes in a white coat, dispensing practical advice to small groups. I saw myself leading a group of excited, enthusiastic young PhDs and postdocs which hummed with activity as we produced one important discovery after another.

I’ve been lucky enough to see places that approximated some of those conditions. I’ve seen powerhouse research institutes where funding was practically unlimited and the fervour of discovery could be tasted…but those places didn’t have the lecture halls packed with eager undergraduates; I’ve seen universities where the thrill of transmitting knowledge to the next generation imparted a tangible electricity to the air…but those places tended not to have the same kind of resources for research activity, and it was clear that the administrative burden was enormous. There are, I’m sure, scientists out there who are managing to live exactly the kind of life I envisaged all those years ago, but these are, I think, the lucky few. Most scientist academics have probably had to compromise (wittingly or otherwise) on either their research programme or their duty to teach.

I’m experienced enough now to realise that what I envisioned was just that – a vision. And visions don’t always come true, and aren’t always real. I’m realising again the importance of stepping back every now and then and asking yourself whether the life you’re leading is the one that you really want to, and if it’s not, will it be possible to change things so that it is? 

I got it back to front by resigning before reflecting, but the time I spent early last year when – for the first time in my life – I asked what it was that I really wanted to be doing on a daily basis was one of the most important mental exercises I ever did. For the first time I defined not the thing that I wanted to be, but the things that I wanted to be doing, and that was what enabled me to find a new career direction that matched my expectations in terms of its lived reality.

So the tinge of regret I still feel about leaving academia comes from something more abstract. It comes partly from the fact that a key part of my sense of identity came not just from self-defining as a scientist (I still do that) but as an academic (I can’t do that any more). It comes partly from the fact that I still believe strongly in academia’s mission and the part it has to play in society at large, and that’s something I’m no longer part of, even though my contributions were pretty small. That tinge is receding weekly though. Right now, there isn’t anything I really miss about the day-to-day reality of academia.

I do miss academia, but only in the abstract.