There is a black hole at the end of a PhD of which perilously little is said.

I wasn’t always the best or brightest student but around the age of sixteen I got my act together and started producing work that put me at the top of my class. From that point on I got used to a reality wherein academic success was a norm. Straight “A’s” in the Caribbean equivalent of GCSE’s, three more A’s at A-Levels, a first-class Bsc, a Distinction for my MA along with an award for academic excellence and finally an excellent review of my PhD thesis by two distinguished scholars who had only a few minor corrections to suggest. This represents over a decade of studying; including quiet nights spent alone and reading, early mornings at the library, skipping meals and social events, 80+ hours of work per week; all in an attempt to achieve something called academic excellence.

When I finished my PhD I started applying for lectureships in my field. Cognizant of the fact that my publications are still in the pipeline I focused on relatively junior faculty positions like Assistant Professorships, Teaching or Research Fellows; the kind that don’t mandate having a completed PhD. It never occurred to me that being clever or being a good teacher would not be enough to get a post.

The first few rejection letters hit like a truck.

Fast forward six months and Universities that I have applied to and been rejected without being invited for an interview include: Bristol University, University of the West of England, Birmingham City University, University of Surrey, Queen Mary University, University of the West of Scotland, Bath Spa University, Cardiff University, Lancaster University, Liverpool John Moores University, University of Bath, Swansea University, University of St Andrews, University of Lincoln, University of Leicester (this one hurt more than the others), University College Dublin, Maynooth University, Leeds Trinity University, York St John University, University of Leeds, Anglia Ruskin University. Quite an impressive list and one that I imagine I will be adding to before I find a post.

Needless to say, I was not prepared for the extent and scope of rejection and had cause to reflect recently on my time as a PhD and whether or not anything in the last few years of my life had prepared me for this.

We acknowledge the psychological stresses of doing a PhD and that there are more people doing PhD’s than there are academic posts available for them (i.e., competition is fierce) but perhaps we still aren’t doing enough to prepare academics-in-training for the realities of the job world; particularly that they might be facing, for the first time in their adult lives, failure. Just talking about it is a huge step. Johannes Haushofer’s “CV of failures” is a great example of this and reading it recently made me feel decidedly less awful about my situation.

However, I strikes me how problematic it is that this is the naturalized and generally accepted reality of academic life. Some advice for post-PhD’s from a leading jobsite is particularly chilling: “Being successful at this stage of your career is all about having the drive to push forward even during times when you may be struggling financially or when permanent, secure jobs are not available.”

Is this really all that we can offer our brightest scholars? A disposable future?