By Sheeva Azma
Note: This blog is written for those people, like me, who are scientists, but no longer in academic (or federal) science. We are out there (and we vote, by the way).
Like most other things in life, your scientific identity doesn’t come from the government or your colleagues. It comes from you doing actual science.
In July 2013, I left academic neuroscience and didn’t really look back. Well, I wish I could say that I did not look back at all, but I did – while I was becoming a freelance writer, and working in Congress, and starting my own small business (which just celebrated its 5th birthday in 2025!), I reapplied to grad school year after year until my program banned me from ever applying again. In fact, they created a departmental rule to ban all people kicked out from my program from ever being admitted ever again (can’t imagine how that’s going over in our current times with grants being cancelled left and right).
Yes, that is a true story, and no, I am still not happy about it — for myself or anyone who, like me, has faced the downright nasty internal politics of navigating science PhD programs as a grad student. To this day, nothing has ever made me feel so powerless — not to mention stupid — in life.
Fast forward about a decade, and these days, a huge part of my work at Fancy Comma is helping scientists advocate more for their work and livelihoods, whether that’s by speaking to students, teaching a SciComm course, or organizing a rally at Oklahoma’s state capitol in support of science, scientists, and science funding.
I really enjoy my life these days, even if it’s not where I imagined my science degrees would lead! I like to think that my work is just as impactful, but in a different way…and honestly, I feel grateful that I am not in academic science anymore. Yeah, it’s not as impressive not to be a scientist, but I have learned that being fulfilled is more important than looking impressive to other people (an impossible task for women in science, anyway).
It took me a while to process the loss of my academic neuroscience career, but I did it
When I look back and think about all of the things I was doing while pining over the loss of my academic neuroscience career…I was really doing a lot.
My dismissal from my PhD program was unceremonious but resolute. My name disappeared from the program website, and along with it, so did the mention of my recognition as a National Science Foundation Honorable Mention of the prestigious Graduate Research Fellowship Program (which I actually got before entering grad school!) which recognizes scientists for their potential.
It took me a decade to process the loss of my science career. Everything had gone so well for years.
First, I felt devastated. I had alllmost made it through my PhD! Up to that point, I had also graduated from MIT and spent a few years working at Harvard, and now my PhD candidacy was rescinded.
Next, I assumed that just because I was no longer a scientist, I could make myself feel like my time in science did not happen. That turned out to be completely false. I still had the rather unusual worldview that an addiction and developmental neuroscientist has that other people do not have (a weird realization for me).
I went into my neuroscience PhD as someone who, as a young girl, had watched brain surgeries on The Learning Channel for fun. So, when I left grad school, that part of me did not change, and I got more curious about the brain by the day. After leaving grad school, I never stopped reading neuroscience news and journal articles, though I stopped talking about science to people because I thought it might be “weird.”
On the rare occasions that I did open up about science to science-minded people in my small, post-job loss world, I actually had surprisingly interesting conversations with people.
As a freelancer, I learned to sell my skills to get writing clients. Over time, when I realized that I still loved to do science despite losing my academic science career, I decided to “sell” my skills as a scientist, even though I no longer had the opportunity to do actual science in a lab.
In the end, I did not care whether people thought I “looked like a scientist” or “had the skills” (what does that even mean, pray tell, for someone who already got into six or seven grad schools for a PhD in neuroscience?).
I would just pursue science anyway, while they told me I could not. This was not because I wanted to prove them wrong, but to continue doing something I really enjoyed: being a scientist.
My grad school research topics had been following me around, anyway, living rent-free in my brain, so I transferred all of that onto a series of Google Docs, and got to figuring out which of my colleagues still in science would want to help me get my insights out to the world.
To my surprise, everyone I reached out to said they wanted to work with me!
At first, it was tough to revisit my science academic identity…but I persevered. That’s how I published my first peer-reviewed article in a major journal 12 years after leaving science. Now, YOU can explain to me how that is possible if I am not a scientist or “scientist material” (I do not even use this phrase because it is so subjective — anyone can be a scientist). Hah!
I’m still a scientist after leaving science, and so are you
While I do not wish the experience of being forced out of academic science on anyone, job loss is a standard part of life for people outside of science. Life isn’t always fair, and to add to that, politics, too, is, far too often, heartbreaking. Given that in the US, the vast majority of science is federally-funded, the current times are not great for the careers of people working in academic science.
These times are the most dire times for science post-World War II, if you ask me. Even the Great Recession was a mere blip on my radar (WWII-era science and technology pun intended, I guess). I recall being employed as a research assistant and then grad student in the 2009 recession — I barely had any idea it was happening until years later.
Leaving academia a few years later (when unemployment was at a historic low, ironically), I faced a new kind of job insecurity I had never experienced as an MIT grad. It was up to me to figure out how I could leverage my science background, a seeming rarity in the non-academic science circles, to support the idea that I should be employed doing…something?
The life of the mind can feel so safe and insulating that when you leave, it’s such a rude awakening. Though as a woman in science, I had never felt competent or smart in science, the loss of my academic career made me seem like even more of a failure to myself and other people. It was tough.
I didn’t realize that just over a decade later, what happened to me would be happening to US scientists en masse. My heart goes out to everyone affected by the federal nickel-and-diming of US science. I am really, really unhappy about it, too.
Here’s a lesson I’ve learned from my experiences: Like most other things in life, your scientific identity doesn’t come from the government or your colleagues. It comes from you doing actual science.
So, cash me on Google Scholar, howbow dah?! (in case you don’t get the reference, improve your knowledge of this meme here)
5 Things I’ve Learned about Leaving Academic Science
Something that makes a difference amidst all the chaos is that you can be proactive in the face of circumstances beyond your control. Here are some things I did to rebuild my career (and life) after leaving science. You can do these things, too. They are not complicated or technical in any way.
1. Remember that you take your skills and experience with you after you leave science.
Your past experiences were valuable. Even if you can’t continue in the same job, you can take your past experiences with you to a new job. In my experience, having a science background is an amazing asset in the so-called “real world.” Nothing beats being in a room full of your fellow scientists, but knowing that you have a unique skill set that you can use to tackle real-world problems is also a great feeling.
2. Find ways to find joy and awe in the everyday.
I got this tip from a seminar for laid-off journalists. One of the advice the speaker had was to look for joy in the every day: in other words, pay attention to the little things. For me, that could be drinking a good cup of coffee, taking a peaceful walk, listening to an awesome playlist while I run errands, reading a good news story, or even just chatting with random people in my life. Life doesn’t have to be super impressive and important to be fulfilling. Maintain a healthy dose of perspective and be grateful for the good things happening in your life.
3. Use the opportunity to rebuilt your career in a way that makes more sense for you.
One thing I did not like about science was how much time it took and how bad it was from a mental health perspective to work for so little pay, in such a toxic environment, with so much structural inequality. I feel happy that I now get to set my own hours and can take on projects of my own choosing. I did not get to do that in science.
4. Other people’s actions do not decrease the magnitude of your skills and experiences as a person.
One thing I have learned about life is that sometimes, events that happen to you are out of your control and do not even relate directly to you personally. When I left grad school, there was nothing I could do or say to convince my program that I should be retained by my program. At first, I felt that this was an indictment of my skills and experiences as a scientist, but over time, I learned: this was just the way the cookie had crumbled, and it had very little to do with me personally. Just because someone tells you that you are not qualified does not mean you are not qualified. You could just as easily have been told you are qualified by some other scientist or even by a collective niche of researchers, but of course, that is a lot more rare in the science world. People’s opinions don’t pay the bills, as I learned as a freelancer, though it is unfortunate that in academic science, the opinions of your supervisors do in fact contribute to your employment status.
5. Learn about new things and upskill. Think about ways your skills could be used in novel ways that they haven’t before.
We talk a lot about inventorying of soft skills and hard skills here at Fancy Comma. Beyond scientists taking stock of skills they already have, they can also learn unexpected skills through working as a science communicator, as Aimen Arshad has written for our blog. We have FREE resources on our site for scientists interested in gaining science communication and science policy skills.
Remember that just because you think your skill set is “weird” or “does not make sense all together” does not mean it is so. The most powerful skill sets are unique and versatile!
The Bottom Line
Leaving a career you have had for a decade or more feels difficult, but it is really a new beginning. Humans are resilient and adaptable, and while job loss puts one out of their comfort zone, it is a great opportunity for personal growth and achieving greater life fulfillment. Adopt a “the best is yet to come!” mindset. The reason the best is yet to come is because you are a talented scientist that never gives up on working towards their goals. Leave what is not meant for you in the rearview mirror on the way to your best, happiest life. As Aristotle said, “happiness depends on ourselves.” It doesn’t come from a p < 0.5 or that (unobtainable-for-most) Nature publication.
What would you add to this list, my fellow ex-academic scientists? Comment below!
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