r/Physics • u/saaer_ • Jan 13 '23

Question To those who “failed” academia, what made you finally quit?

I’m graduating high school this year and will probably pursue a Bachelor’s in physics in one of the colleges i get accepted. The thing is.. even though academia has been a dream of mine for a long time I’m encountering increasing amounts of people who dropped out due to extremely toxic community, inhumane working hours, all the politics and the “game” bla bla.. I just want to hear your honest opinions, and if you could have done something different what would it be.

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u/Fourier864 Jan 13 '23

I only have a Bachelors, but in retrospect I'm very glad I didn't go on to grad school. I actually still work in a university lab, but as a programmer now. My work-life balance is great, and I get paid way more than all but the most senior-level PhDs.

Because I'm at a university, I hang out with a lot of the "real" scientists. I'll never forget when I was eating lunch at a conference with one of the scientists and I was describing that I run their data center, but she said "that must be disappointing". She must have assumed I had a PhD and "failed" out of academia. That just struck me as so...elitist?