This is the End My Friend: Pulling the Final Trigger

It has been nine months since I left my Ph D program.  As we gear up for another academic year, the day is fast approaching when I would have been returning to school.  A year ago it was difficult to fathom what leaving would look like, or even that I would ever get out. I had a hard time imagining myself no longer wandering the halls of the University--either via graduation or some other path.

While I said my good byes last December, and even paid off that $10 library fine that finally got mailed out to me in April, there is still one last step that awaits me:  filing the form ending my degree progress.  I've known it was coming all summer long.

When I quit my faculty still wanted me to leave the door open to returning.  Quitting graduate school gracefully meant my adviser wanted me to find the least permanent way of exiting, which I accomplished by simply withdrawing from classes and failing to register.  If I decided I didn't want to come back, or thought I would be out for longer than a year, it was suggested I end my degree progress.  That would stop the clock on my degree, and if I wanted to return later I would need to reapply to the program. While this wouldn't hold my place, given my status, relationships with faculty, and timely degree progress the odds were high I would be reaccepted. The benefit of reapplying included that they would budget a teaching position for me, which would mean my funding was more secure.

Having been out of my program for nine months, it makes sense to file the last and final form.  If I do decide at some point to go back, filing now preserves my eligibility to return since I would have at least a year left on my degree clock.  The reality is that I am enjoying my life outside of academia.  My career path is leading me further and further away from finishing, and even in the short six months I have been out of school big changes have hit my department through retirements, and recruitments and loss of faculty. My own advisers are all senior faculty who are starting to look at retirement, and even if I did want to return in five years it is not entirely clear that any of my current committee members would still be around.

Filing the end to my degree status  suddenly feels very final.  Driving the forty minutes out to the University to do so also seems like a pain.  But I have thirty more days to procrastinate.  Instead of going back to school this year, I will be officially severing all ties.  Leaving is always a gradual process, but even it eventually comes to an end.