今天，我要分享为什么我退出学术界成为企业家并开始成功的业务。

一年前，我做出了不可能的决定将我的工作辞去了英语赛道学术教授。这不是因为我在我的位置不满意 - 我一直没有一年多。

这不是因为我缺乏在纪律中合作的惊人机会，我以前曾经爱过。这不是因为我希望更加惊人的同事或更多来自学生的参与。这不是因为我部门的令人发指的期望或缺乏支持来实现任期期望。And it wasn’t so much for personal reasons either, as I had the unthinkable luck of landing a tenure-track job in the same city where my PhD husband found work he loved in the field of chemistry AND where my dissertation research took place AND where all of my immediate family lives.

In case you’re unfamiliar with the academic job market: That kind of luck does not happen in highly specialized university positions. From the moment I began my Master’s program, it was impressed upon me that: You don’t get tenure-track and family and what amounts to a partner hire and an opportunity to continue your region-based research. You will most definitely have to choose from among those desires, and hey, if you have to live apart from your spouse for a couple years and keep applying to jobs until you hopefully land in the same place, that’s expected and worthwhile, so dial down your expectations from the start. Getting that call on December 12th, 2014 with my dream academic job offer was one of the happiest and most surreal moments of my life.

那么在地球上为什么我退出了学术界并留下了如此完美和不可能的教授的职位？

将我从学术界带走以及作为企业家和小型企业主人的力量让我感到惊讶和喜悦。The universe’s calling for me to become a writing consultant–one who works with clients outside of academia at that–resounded softly at first, with a few neat client projects, and then grew louder over time as my professional identity expanded beyond the walls of the classroom.

对于我们这些在academia-whether终身professors or new graduate students–we understand that what we do is not just a job. Our scholarship and disciplinary knowledge become increasingly part of our identity as professionals, community members and human beings. We believe strongly in what we do: in the value of analytic thinking, historical study, pedagogical insights, creativity and communication with other scholars. By the time I began work as an Assistant Professor of English, my professional identity was tightly bound to the disciplinary knowledge of the field of Rhetoric and Composition. I was my research. I was my writing. Taking a different path–like working constantly with people outside of my discipline, outside of the university–seemed not only impossible, but sacrilegious. For starters, I felt immense guilt about the personal sacrifices my new colleagues made in order to hire me–the campus visit dinners, the other amazing scholars they could have hired, the many other interviews they held before choosing me–and the impossibility of entering back into academia after choosing to leave, all made my decision to resign that much more complicated and heart-wrenching. On top of that, within academia, entering the corporate world is not so subtly deemed “selling out.”

在我有痛苦之前，我首先要摔跤，所有关于企业家精神和公司系统的纪律假设，我如此深入的内化。

This is truly a key part of my alt ac (alternative academic) quit lit story: It had become a core part of my professional identity to limit the scope of my work to that which would benefit students, and–because I am fortunate enough to be part of a field invested in community engagement–local communities. Yet as my consulting business continued to grow, and the interdisciplinary clients I worked with continued to express gratitude for my efforts and my projects continued to excite and challenge me, I started questioning whether a professionally trained scholar could, indeed, thrive beyond the university.

我们的纪律的见解可以更广泛地分享吗？通过我们的学术出版物，可以在我们自己的纪律理解范围内深入了解了多少影响？我们如何全面研究故事权力，语言的社会构建，语法选择的影响，以及思想的组织对从未听说过Francis Bacon或Peter肘部或贝尔钩的观众阐述？每天早上超过8000万美国人在私营部门工作。我们是一门纪律吗？我们的见解是否会影响他们如何讲述组织的故事？他们如何表达他们的知识？他们如何与另一个人合作和沟通？

我退出学术界并从完美的学术工作中辞职的主要原因是因为我想探索大学超越大学的修辞和构图的纪律知识的价值。

在咨询三年之后除了教学和研究外，我还知道需要在私营，公共和非营利部门中写作专业知识，文件开发和组织讲故事。而且我发现了这一点，将我们的专业知识翻译为作家和研究人员是我遇到的最具挑战性的，有价值的工作。（如果你很奇怪地了解这项工作对我有什么看法，请查看我们的技术讲故事项目或我们的技术案例故事！）

我退出学术界的第二个原因是因为我想以一种在就业主持下的方式创造自己的经济未来 - 无论是由大学或组织，企业还是其他方式。

正如我在我的大学的最后日子作为一名教授，我经常想到罗伯特弗罗斯特现在几乎勇敢的诗歌“没有采取的道路：”“我会用叹息态说。在某个时代和年龄的地方：两条道路在木头上发散，我 -我花了不少旅行的人，这使得所有的差异。“

下降一个较少旅行的道路要求为未知的独特激情和饥饿。看书三，五，十五年作为教授的未来，这条路似乎是非常可预测的。是的，学术洞察力和出版物和合作我会追求都会令人兴奋和未知，但我将在表演教学的大学生，写作学术出版物的作品的本质，向我提供书写计划 - 感到非常可预测对我来说非常可预测。虽然我知道这是禁忌在学术界谈论资金，但我觉得大学教学的经济效益是同样的限制。

我知道未来十年，我可能会在每年50-60克之间进行，除非我从事行政工作，我很兴奋，并赚了几千。理解这种薪水是一种令人难以置信的祝福，特别是当如此多的MA和博士学位在远处颠覆颠簸时，较少的福利较少，我很激动我的收入和其他人的收入和其他人收入的可能性有一天雇用。（更新！自写这篇文章以来，我已经雇用了八个全职写作顾问和数十名承包商！了解有关我的Powerhouse专业作家团队的更多信息！）

虽然企业家精神肯定是令人羞化和不太可预测的经济上，但到目前为止，我的经验教会了我额外的创造力，额外的承诺和出色的表现可能导致即时和高度有益的财务成果 - 最终影响我如何度过我的时间，我可以祝福通过亲自社区工作，并成为雇主自己。让窗户进入创建咨询业务的潜在财务和社会影响，最终给了我所需的信心，以便在留下学术界的难以决定。这是一年的内部摔跤和与我最近的知己谈话。

如果您还有深刻的愿望，为外部受众翻译纪律解，可以实现广泛的影响和建立一个独特的经济结构，以提供您的专业知识，开展业务可能是对您的正确决定。

Independent consulting is often a great first step–or even a rewarding add-on to your academic career (so long as you work within your university’s restrictions and put your students first)–as it allows you to gain experience articulating the value of what you can provide as an expert writer before taking the leap to working it full-time. I worked as an independent consultant (aka sole proprietor) for three years before deciding to become an LLC and build a company that could create jobs for other amazing writers.

What I’ve found is that, despite the lack of scholarly articles on the topic of consulting and the palpable tensions around corporate work within academic circles, there are many scholars out there who are taking “alt-ac” (alternative academic) paths and becoming entrepreneurs or small business owners. Because the work of building a business is new to most of us trained in the Humanities (and not in MBA programs), I’d like to conclude by sharing some of my favorite PhD entrepreneurs who are running successful consulting businesses. Get inspired by these creative academics or former academics who are making waves in the corporate, government and non-profit sectors:

其他鼓舞人心的学者变成了顾问/小企业主：写好那哈蒙娜休斯顿那学者工作室那内容花园。

如果您喜欢这篇文章并希望了解更多关于成为写作顾问或开始自己的小企业，您肯定会加入我们的社区！

We share advice and articles on entrepreneurship, thought leadership, public intellectualism. By j我们的社区（免费！），你是第一个听到新思想，文章，课程，智库和研讨会的人。对于我来说，我们追求Alt-AC职业的人继续参与学术界是非常重要的，以便我们可以共同努力，以与我们的学科价值一致的方式表达和传播我们的知识。正如Daveena Tawber所挑战的那样，让我们​​不仅追求学术界的替代方案，而且还扩大了我们对成功的定义。