&gt;&gt; That&#x27;s the problem with graduating so early and following your initial studying path. You didn&#x27;t have time to think about what you were doing, was it the right thing, was it what you wanted, etc...<p>This is a great point and one I think clearly happened to the author and to a lesser degree myself.<p>I was all about going into academia, being a professor, travelling the world on other people&#x27;s money and studying romantic cultures in far away places. I was warned about the environment then (early and mid 00&#x27;s) and the lack of pay, but I wanted to experience it so bad. I had blinders on and all I wanted was my doctoral degree and then kickstart myself into a PhD program.<p>I burned out in epic fashion and took a few years off and regrouped. In the meantime, a half dozen of my friends graduated and landed teaching jobs, and others started in their doctoral programs. Within a year, they were all out. Either pivoting and going back to school for a completely different major, or pivoting into some other field and out of academia completely.<p>I was lucky and avoided most of it - but without my burn out, I&#x27;m afraid I probably would have been in the same place as the author. Without a real examination of where I was going and what I <i>really</i> wanted to do with my life, I almost lost several years finding out academia really wasn&#x27;t the place I wanted to be. I look back and see I really dodged a bullet.