Sometimes I refer to myself as an "ex-scholar" in conversation, and academics rush to reassure me that, no, even without an academic job, I'm still a scholar! And I know they're trying to tell me they still respect me as someone smart with ideas that matter...

... but what I hear is that they fundamentally don't respect the choice to willingly stop being a scholar and leave the academy. I'm not a scholar not because I'm outside the academy; I'm not a scholar because I don't want to be one.

There's no shame in trying multiple rounds on the market, not landing anything, and choosing to cut one's losses rather than keep going. But that's not the only way to leave academia! Sometimes people... just don't want to be academics.

And that choice should be acknowledged and validated, and not have negative value judgments attached to it. I never tried the job market even once, because I didn't want an academic job.

I feel like this is important, not just because, as people are increasingly recognize, the odds are so stacked against new Ph.D.s ever landing a TT job.

It's also that the academy, it's clear now more than ever, has been impoverished for its failure to recognize that there are valuable forms of knowledge that exist outside the academy, and are better for it.

Academia doesn't hold a monopoly on intelligence and knowledge, and it's evident how being beholden to the institution of the university and of academia curtails and limits knowledge and knowing.

Anyways, leaving academia is a valid choice, even when one has other choices, not just as a last resort. Grad programs need to recognize that, not just because not all their Ph.D.s can or will get TT jobs -- but because they shouldn't have to want to!