Here’s some quit lit: Friday will be my last day in academia. I can't announce where I'm going just yet, but it's a great job and I'll still be doing research on a vitally important topic. I am very, very lucky that things worked out for me as well as they did. 1/x

My heart goes out to everyone on the job market this year. It’s not fair what happened and it’s not fair you inherited this industry in the state it’s currently in. Even before COVID19, academia wasn’t great, but now it just seems unsalvageable. 2/x

There’s going to be a lot of great people leaving academia very soon. That means lots of research that gets cut short, lots of projects that go unfinished and lots of careers brought to an abrupt halt. It’ll be a rough time for many and a horrible time for our discipline. 3/x

I wish I had something more encouraging to write, but I’ll put this out there for people on the market. Before academia, I spent about six years as a journalist. When I had to leave journalism b/c of the Great Recession, I was very sad to lose such a big part of my identity. 4/x

But leaving journalism took me on a winding path into academia where I spent the last 7 years. And the skills I built up as a reporter helped me be a better academic, I think. Now, I’ll be taking both skill-sets into doing research and advocacy. 5/x

It’s utter garbage what academia has become, but none of this is your fault. Don’t view leaving as a personal failing. We academics develop valuable skills that many orgs doing important work would kill for. There is more out there than just wallowing in academia's scraps. 6/x

It’ll be tough—your departments have no idea how to get you a job outside of academia. But good news, you are already used to rejection. Start early and apply to everything! In the real world, no one will be meaner to you than you're already used to with R2, I promise. 7/x

If you’re still in grad school, take every single methods course that’s offered. I wish I’d done more of this, but the best decision I made in grad school was blowing off and getting B-'s in our Foundational Theory series to learn Python instead. Sorry UCSD. 8/x

So speaking as someone who’s had his career derailed twice already before the age of 40, I understand how much this sucks. But I’m also confident that for many, this will be the beginning of a bright new chapter in life.

Strength and love everyone, I’m pulling for you all. 9/9