01 November 2012

Tenure and the Culture of Failure in Academia

Why are career paths that aren't tenure track considered failures by so many of us? Why do we use expressions like 'abandon the academic job search' or 'plan b' even when we're trying to explain that non-academic jobs are good outcomes of graduate studies? The easy answer is to blame the conveyor belt model of academia, and the lack of non-academic perspective of most academics. The reality is probably more a case of individual priorities and goals.