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Everyone Wants to Be an Academic Until They Learn the Reality
Ali Hindi
November 22, 2025
It’s been ten years since I started my academic journey. Along the way, I’ve met many researchers, each with their own path and challenges. We all ended up somewhere meaningful, even if it wasn’t exactly where we imagined.
One thing was common: we all entered academia with a bit of naivety about what to expect. Many of us thought earning a PhD was the finish line and that the hardest part was over. Here’s the truth: a PhD is just the beginning.
Staying in academia brings a very different set of challenges, and the sooner you understand them, the better prepared you’ll be.
1. Securing research funding
Funding is the lifeblood of academic work. You must generate ideas that are both innovative and competitive, and you must present them in a manner that aligns with funding criteria.
The system does not always favour early-career researchers. Eligibility rules, reviewer biases, and intense competition mean that months of work can end with a polite “sorry, better luck next time” email. It is frustrating, demoralising, and also… strangely character-building.
My learning: Great ideas take a lot of time to build, so start as early as possible. Also, you cannot do it alone so expand your team and go with others.
2. Teaching and mentoring
Teaching is not just delivering the lecture itself. Preparing lectures, leading workshops, and mentoring students takes serious time and energy.
Supervising PhD, master’s, and undergraduate students is incredibly rewarding, but also exhausting. You learn quickly that mentoring is less about showing off your brilliance and more about guiding someone through their chaos. It is emotional labour, whether you like it or not.
My learning: Embrace the chaos and accept that you cannot make everyone happy.
3. Administrative responsibilities
Ah, the hidden “final boss” of academia.
Reports, forms, committee tasks, endless paperwork…it never stops. You can be in the middle of a brilliant research idea, and suddenly you are filling out a form for the tenth time that week. Most of us enter academia thinking we will spend our days in the lab or library; instead, we also become part-time bureaucrats.
My learning: Admin time will eat up all your time if you respond to everything right away. Learn to prioritise.
4. Meetings and departmental interactions
Meetings with senior colleagues are unavoidable. They can feel pointless or tedious and yet missing them can quietly sabotage your career.
Over time, you realise that these meetings are less about the agenda and more about understanding the politics, personalities, and unwritten rules of your department. It is irritating but oddly fascinating once you stop fighting it.
If any of my senior colleagues are reading this… sorry.
My learning: Do not hate the player or the game. Understand it and deal with it.
5. Achievements become expectations
Early milestones such as publications or small grants feel significant. In academia, these soon become baseline expectations. Excellence is assumed, not celebrated. Researchers are expected to consistently produce work, secure funding, mentor students, and contribute to departmental life.
My learning: You are the best indicator of your self-worth. Do not wait for anyone to give you a pat on the back
Reflections for aspiring academics
Listen, this is not meant to scare anyone away.
Academia still has its joys: intellectual freedom, and collaborations with brilliant people. But if you think a PhD is the finish line, you will be frustrated.
Ask yourself:
Do you enjoy mentoring and teaching as much as you enjoy doing research?
Can you handle the administrative chaos without losing your focus?
Are you ready to compete for funding in a high-pressure environment with barriers stacked against you?
Academia may be an ivory tower, but to sit in that tower and drink your tea, you need to understand its quirks, politics, and relentless demands. If you survive all of that… it can be a pretty great view.
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