How I’m a proven example that people nowadays grind hard for the long game, and that we have no other choice.

It took me a decade to finish higher education. During that time, I undertook many unpaid or underpaid research appointments at Harvard, Stanford, UC Berkeley, the United Nations University and elsewhere as a PhD candidate at Cambridge.

Like the healthcare and entertainment industries, academia looks glamorous, but in reality, most people within it are struggling. If you are a top 5% or top 10% early-career researcher (measured by proxies such as citation numbers or your affiliated institution’s reputation), you can still barely make the cut. To be brutally honest, I have no other choice but to publish dozens of academic publications, undertake numerous pre-doctoral fellowships, and provide free labour as an academic reviewer or undergraduate supervisor.

During my 50 months of PhD candidacy, I published over 20 journal articles, signed six academic book contracts (five published and one forthcoming), undertook four pre-doctoral fellowships in the US, Taiwan and Southeast Asia, worked as both a journal reviewer and undergraduate supervisor at Cambridge, and received a scholarship.

Yet, I still barely made the cut for an above-average career path. For PhD graduates who want a research-track instead of a teaching-track career, there are two main routes: first, becoming a Principal Investigator; and second, securing a postdoctoral fellowship.

There is a list of research funders (at least in the UK) who annually accept PhD graduates’ applications for research funding either as a prospective Principal Investigator or postdoctoral fellow. For postdoctoral fellows, the earnings are often barely enough to cover their living and miscellaneous costs. I have often heard that postdoctoral fellows at MIT or Ivy Leagueuniversities suffer from substantial financial stress due to the high living costs but modest salaries. Similar cases happen at Oxbridge and London universities too.

I, in a rather fortunate position, worked hard enough to build a research profile that met the standards and expectations for a few top London universities to support my applications for Principal Investigatorship as a fresh PhD graduate. Unlike a postdoctoral fellowship, a Principal Investigatorship not only provides basic salary and welfare packages but also a substantial amount of research funding.

While I am optimistic about my chance to secure at least one Principal Investigatorship offer in the coming months, to be brutally honest, the success rates for applications for Principal Investigatorship and postdoctoral fellowship are usually between 8% and 18% in the UK. That means at least four out of five applicants in any given research funding scheme fail to secure funding per application cycle.

Many parents and young adults naively think that once promising young adults get into top universities, either as PhD candidates or postdoctoral fellows, then success is guaranteed. However, the hidden truth that academia won’t tell you is that getting into any big-name institution is just the beginning of a financially stressful early-career path. Like the old saying goes:

‘For whatever industry you are in, you need to crack into the top 1% to thrive.’

Similar things are happening currently in the healthcare and entertainment industries. Those who appear in Hollywood movies seem to be living a life. Yet, the harsh truth is they are very often struggling to make ends meet unless they have parental support. In the healthcare industry in the UK, doctors and other healthcare professionals have been protesting against extremely long working hours and very modest financial compensation.

Unfortunately, this is the world we are living in. Everyone around seems to be doing an outstanding job. Yet, if they are in their 20s and early 30s (especially those who are rather new to the long game), it’s very likely they are all struggling to figure out their lives, regardless of the ways they present themselves publicly/professionally.

I’m one of them. Very likely, we all are.

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