This is your periodical warning that graduate school is a fucking mistake to anyone who respects themselves and their value. Academia underpays its workers. It is well known and can fact-check online that post-docs earn just as fast-food employees. The statistics are horrible on their own but it feels even worse when you experience it in reality. Recently, sitting with a couple of my peers from my undergrad, it was sad to hear that those of them who had stayed in academia were earning half of what I earned in finance. It really is this fucking horrible. RUN AWAY.

But perhaps even more telling than any statistics or personal experience is the well-documented story of our good old friend Jonathan W. Tooker. You can see from the left that he was the perfect academic good boy. He was willing to put in the work for shit pay, no recognition, no love. Then you can see on the right what he got in return: immediate termination after he was no longer useful (he wasn't female or brown enough to keep, so he was framed on sexual assault and kicked out). Then he worked a couple of industry jobs but with his life being devoted to academics and also having been thrown aside, his mental state was not fit for the real world anymore. Soon enough he was jobless, then homeless, then getting jailed for

>breaking into homes and sleeping there (this is the one in the picture)
>jerking off in public
>stealing to eat

And probably many more. This is your daily reminder to get the fuck away from academia and find a better path. I also hope to attract some people who maybe got into an academic-focused job but then ran the fuck out and also found positions elsewhere.