Thanks for sharing your experience and this article. The fact that the interviews occurred in summer of 2020 suggests to me that there's so much more to the story. It would be so fascinating to see longitudinal follow up with those people. If you had interviewed me in the summer of 2020 I would have told you I was doing great. I'm an ER doctor and our ER was crazy slow. I had a ton of time for outdoor activities and exercise. I lost a bunch of weight without trying from all of that. My daughter had just turned 1 so motherhood was getting easier too (that first year always kicked my butt). If you had interviewed me 2 years later after wave after wave of COVID and feeling totally abandoned, I was scaling the walls desperate for a way out.
Yes! I had the impression that the authors had hoped to do a longitudinal study but weren’t able to for personal reasons. My trajectory was a bit different even than yours. It would be interesting to see if there are a few different patterns to the ways that people responded.
Yeah, it could be fun even to have people draw a line graph tracking how they were doing at various points in the pandemic. One could be a qualitative researcher about it or combine it to make some cool art :) My husband is a stay at home dad and our kids were preschool age and I worked in a hospital, so the beginning (possibly all) of the pandemic was quite different from most people's (at first in good ways then not so good)
I was fortunate in that I had a 'good' lockdown. In many ways I miss those days. I only had myself to take care of, and as a non-tenured member of academic staff I was able to work from home efficiently and effectively. I was reaching a significant crossroads in my career and life; I was coming to the end of my visa allocation in the US (did I want to apply for a green card and stay on?) or return to the UK and deal with the final (and fine) points of the recent death of my parents. That move would be essentially irreversible if so. Fortunately I had the financial means not to need to return to full-time employment, so the decision made itself. I was happy working from home, away from the academy, so I crossed the Atlantic and settled back into my family home. I was lucky enough to secure a visiting fellowship with a nearby university to keep my hand in with academia, and earn a little money consulting, writing, teaching and doing editorial work on my own schedule. I don't miss being a full-time academic at all, and the lockdowns gave me confidence to reach this point in my life. I've never been happier.
That does sound pretty idyllic! What was it about the lockdown that made this possible? Just he realization that you were happy and effective working from home?
I realised that I didn't need the personal validation of being an 'active' academic; somebody who goes to the office every day, running experiments, sitting in meetings. It was the only professional life I'd known until then, and I was frankly very nervous about abandoning all that, but the lockdowns (coupled with the loss of my parents) enabled me to sit and reflect, and I came to the realisation that I'd be perfectly content without it. I'm exceptionally lucky in that I have the means to maintain a (frugal) lifestyle outside of the academy and that certainly helped sway my decision. I'm also getting on in life (I'm in my 50s) and have survived on soft money in academia up until this point; after a while you realise that you're better off out of it really.
This is fantastic. I've been saying similar things since the beginning of the pandemic, all of which remain true. I even lost a couple friends through the process, because I turned inwards to grow and heal while they did not. When we emerged from lockdown, it was really obvious, and although we tried to get back to our usual hanging out, it just didn't qork for me anymore. And the same goes for academia - all the things I could overlook before are now obvious as things I shouldn't have to overlook. It's always rough talking about the positive effects of the pandemic on me, but I'm glad there are academic papers talking about it. It's not about privilege, really. (I lived with a really vulnerable person for part of the pandemic, someone who couldn't afford to even catch a cold, so I know intimately how bad some people had it even if they didn't get Covid.) It's about a different kind of non-privilege, maybe - it highlighted the lack of privilege many of us had in "normal" times.
"it highlighted the lack of privilege many of us had in "normal" times." is a very interesting insight:: If you care to discuss, I'd be interested to hear more about what changed for you both with your friends and with academia.
Sorry I'm just seeing this now! What I mainly had in mind with academia was the ease that came with online teaching meaning I didn't have to commute. I had extreme anxiety on public transit, and my neurodivergence meant that small interactions with people I bumped into in the hallways drained me so much. Being at home, being able to let the "public" face slide off the second I exit a Zoom room was amazingly freeing and let me have so much more energy for my writing. I was able to finish my dissertation because of that. Re: friends, I'd be happy to talk with you about that, but maybe not sharing on a public platform :) Feel free to send me a message or email me at dainybernstein(at)gmail(dot)com.
The pandemic enabled so many of us to step off the treadmill, and the thought of going back was devastating. It absolutely accelerated my departure from academia as well. It gave me time to see myself outside my roles as well because I wasn’t driving to and from work everyday. My daughter was in high school and did fairly well with online classes, so I know I was extremely fortunate there.
Thanks for sharing your experience and this article. The fact that the interviews occurred in summer of 2020 suggests to me that there's so much more to the story. It would be so fascinating to see longitudinal follow up with those people. If you had interviewed me in the summer of 2020 I would have told you I was doing great. I'm an ER doctor and our ER was crazy slow. I had a ton of time for outdoor activities and exercise. I lost a bunch of weight without trying from all of that. My daughter had just turned 1 so motherhood was getting easier too (that first year always kicked my butt). If you had interviewed me 2 years later after wave after wave of COVID and feeling totally abandoned, I was scaling the walls desperate for a way out.
Yes! I had the impression that the authors had hoped to do a longitudinal study but weren’t able to for personal reasons. My trajectory was a bit different even than yours. It would be interesting to see if there are a few different patterns to the ways that people responded.
Yeah, it could be fun even to have people draw a line graph tracking how they were doing at various points in the pandemic. One could be a qualitative researcher about it or combine it to make some cool art :) My husband is a stay at home dad and our kids were preschool age and I worked in a hospital, so the beginning (possibly all) of the pandemic was quite different from most people's (at first in good ways then not so good)
I was fortunate in that I had a 'good' lockdown. In many ways I miss those days. I only had myself to take care of, and as a non-tenured member of academic staff I was able to work from home efficiently and effectively. I was reaching a significant crossroads in my career and life; I was coming to the end of my visa allocation in the US (did I want to apply for a green card and stay on?) or return to the UK and deal with the final (and fine) points of the recent death of my parents. That move would be essentially irreversible if so. Fortunately I had the financial means not to need to return to full-time employment, so the decision made itself. I was happy working from home, away from the academy, so I crossed the Atlantic and settled back into my family home. I was lucky enough to secure a visiting fellowship with a nearby university to keep my hand in with academia, and earn a little money consulting, writing, teaching and doing editorial work on my own schedule. I don't miss being a full-time academic at all, and the lockdowns gave me confidence to reach this point in my life. I've never been happier.
That does sound pretty idyllic! What was it about the lockdown that made this possible? Just he realization that you were happy and effective working from home?
I realised that I didn't need the personal validation of being an 'active' academic; somebody who goes to the office every day, running experiments, sitting in meetings. It was the only professional life I'd known until then, and I was frankly very nervous about abandoning all that, but the lockdowns (coupled with the loss of my parents) enabled me to sit and reflect, and I came to the realisation that I'd be perfectly content without it. I'm exceptionally lucky in that I have the means to maintain a (frugal) lifestyle outside of the academy and that certainly helped sway my decision. I'm also getting on in life (I'm in my 50s) and have survived on soft money in academia up until this point; after a while you realise that you're better off out of it really.
Yes! This makes so much sense. I’m glad that you had this experience, and thank you for sharing it.
This is fantastic. I've been saying similar things since the beginning of the pandemic, all of which remain true. I even lost a couple friends through the process, because I turned inwards to grow and heal while they did not. When we emerged from lockdown, it was really obvious, and although we tried to get back to our usual hanging out, it just didn't qork for me anymore. And the same goes for academia - all the things I could overlook before are now obvious as things I shouldn't have to overlook. It's always rough talking about the positive effects of the pandemic on me, but I'm glad there are academic papers talking about it. It's not about privilege, really. (I lived with a really vulnerable person for part of the pandemic, someone who couldn't afford to even catch a cold, so I know intimately how bad some people had it even if they didn't get Covid.) It's about a different kind of non-privilege, maybe - it highlighted the lack of privilege many of us had in "normal" times.
"it highlighted the lack of privilege many of us had in "normal" times." is a very interesting insight:: If you care to discuss, I'd be interested to hear more about what changed for you both with your friends and with academia.
Sorry I'm just seeing this now! What I mainly had in mind with academia was the ease that came with online teaching meaning I didn't have to commute. I had extreme anxiety on public transit, and my neurodivergence meant that small interactions with people I bumped into in the hallways drained me so much. Being at home, being able to let the "public" face slide off the second I exit a Zoom room was amazingly freeing and let me have so much more energy for my writing. I was able to finish my dissertation because of that. Re: friends, I'd be happy to talk with you about that, but maybe not sharing on a public platform :) Feel free to send me a message or email me at dainybernstein(at)gmail(dot)com.
The pandemic enabled so many of us to step off the treadmill, and the thought of going back was devastating. It absolutely accelerated my departure from academia as well. It gave me time to see myself outside my roles as well because I wasn’t driving to and from work everyday. My daughter was in high school and did fairly well with online classes, so I know I was extremely fortunate there.
"time to see myself outside my roles" is absolutely part of it! Thank you for your comment!
I DID enjoy that essay! And took notes! I relate so much to this idea of a brain as a car stuck in drive mode.