Coping with "survivors guilt" in Academia I managed to get a tenure-track academic job in the last month. While I'm thrilled and relieved to have secured employment, I feel somewhat guilty about it. The current employment situation is dire, due to the Covid-19 pandemic (it wasn't great before...). Many of my friends and colleagues are extremely worried about their career prospects, facing unemployment, or being forced to leave academia. I don't think I'm necessarily more deserving of a job than any of them. I can see that my experience fits well with the department I was hired by and was fortunate that they were pressing ahead with hiring.
Perhaps calling it &quot;survivor's guilt&quot; is too extreme. I certainly don't intend to minimise the experience of those suffering due to much more severe circumstances. But I don't think Impostor Syndrome quite describes it. I suspect this feeling may be common in academia, in particular at the moment.
How can I support my struggling colleagues/friends and mentally handle the guilt that comes with surviving in academia (at least so far!) when so many others are facing an unprecedented crisis?
Congrats on your new job! One way you might be able to turn these feelings into something positive is to use whatever influence your position affords to help the students or non-tenure track faculty in your department. You can't fix the limited availability of positions, or competition for them, but maybe you can play a role in making your department as supportive as possible for those experiencing stress from this situation.