Sad story short: My neighbour, and my good friend, works in data science for some medium size company. We are both phd in econ. I am a lecturer at the business school. I enjoy spending time with him and his family but I really struggle. He and her wife often invite me to play tennis with them at the Lloyds club (and boy it hurts when the membership is 150 pounds a month). Then afterwards they usually invite me to a dinner at a nice place (another 100 gone in one day). At night I sometimes cry because I don't know what I did wrong. On the other hand, he is always so busy and his kids don't see him much. I am sure if I leave academia, I will not have that much 'freedom' or 'time' anymore, but boy it hurts when I arrive in my old corolla and they in their shiny new bmw suv. We were "equal" pals in the grad school, now one simple job has created such a division. They asked me about my salary and the response I got was such a humiliating look...it wouldn't even be enough to pay their daughter's elementary school's fee which is like 9k per quarter. They say I should switch my job...I think I should leave the UK. What do you think?
UK AP's struggling life
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I think you should leave the UK. UK B-schools are going to die soon. Their faculties' publications are weaker than Chinese Universities' local PhD students. No Chinese students are going to their place in a few years and that's when most of their B-schools are going to collapse.
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I call bs 'cos you said elementary school. YOu got the spelling of neighbour right but then you kinda lost it, like flavour in a Morrison's kiwi. Anyway, watch Happy Valley and you'll see that all the private sector nerds get their comeuppance in the end.
Well also, "quarter" which no one in Britain would say. I wonder how many people who post about the UK on EJMR have ever been there?
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That's life. I finished a math phd in 2020, couldn't find a job, and got lucky with a swe job. My finance on the other-hand did a psych degree, job hopped for the last 8 years in tech and consulting and invested and she has a NW of 1M+ USD. Finally have about 50k in my bank account but it sucks to be there in your early 30s.
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What's a Lloyds club? I've only known Lloyd's in the context of the bank with a black horse as its logo.
David LLoyd was an almost successful tennis player in the 1970s who set up a chain of leisure clubs that were once aspirational. I'll give OP a point for that one.