architecture 604

Personally, I don't regret having gotten my PhD. I think I would have regretted more NOT getting a PhD. And that's really what you have to weigh here. Would your life really be better without your PhD? Would you honestly have made more headway during the last seven or eight years without one? Because I honestly believe that if I had decided to not get my PhD, I'd always have wondered "what if?" And even if things had flourished in my professional life, I'm sure I would have always secretly regretted not getting my doctorate. But that's just my personality. I'm the sort of person who just has to know.
 
Okay, what the hell, I guess I'll share my sob story in the interest of full disclosure. I went to an average program (ranked somewhere between #25 to #39). I have a ton of teaching experience, presented at all the national conferences, publications (one major). Because I went to such a lackluster program, I never really expected much for myself in terms of landing a sought-after TT job. I knew it was possible--other people at my program certainly did so, but I never really thought that things like that would happen for me. Moreover, most of the jobs that people landed were in the hinterlands--rural North Dakota, for instance, with 4/4 teaching loads. The *best* graduates landed those jobs. I was always on the fence as to whether I would take a position like that or try to do something else.
 
I went on the job market my first year as I finished my dissertation, and it was pretty disappointing. I didn't get any interviews. I didn't even get any requests for more materials. Then, suddenly, something came together for me, and it was a huge surprise. I interviewed for and landed a postdoc. A major national dream postdoc with a fancy name and no teaching responsibilities. I'd applied for it on a whim, thinking I didn't have a chance in hell. Anyway, when that happened, I began to actually think, hey, maybe I can do this. Maybe I can actually go on to become a professor. My advisor told me that the postdoc was a golden ticket that would put me squarely at the top of the list for a great TT job, and that there was no way I couldn't have like seven interviews at MLA. Everyone actually told me this--other postdocs and people who had recently landed TT jobs.
 
I didn't have one interview at MLA. I had two phone interviews and no campus visits. I think my advisor was more distressed than I was. I was just like, of course this is happening. I do honestly think it's time to pull up stakes and move on. My advisor--and a few other people--have told me to do the job market again, and that this was just an extraordinarily bad year, and that there's no way someone "with my talent" could not someday get a job. But every year is worse than the last, and I'm guessing that next year will continue on with the downward trend.
 
The university system really doesn't want us. They're dismantling English departments as we speak. And unfortunately, I don't think that any kind of organizing or advocating will turn that around. The demand just isn't there right now for English professors. English enrollments are falling because people don't want their kids to major in English, and no one sees the usefulness of a liberal arts degree anymore. Other people here have advocated "talking about" or "raising awareness" about these problems, but we've been talking about them for a while. Unfortunately, we live in a very cruel world where capitalism has been allowed to carry the day. People here have accused me of being a neo-liberal; really, I'm a realist. It doesn't matter whether or not you believe that free markets are right; free markets, tragically enough, have been allowed to take their course. The basic fact of the matter is that there is no demand for what we do because no one perceives the English degree as having value. And yes, this is all a confidence/perception problem, but it's a perception problem that runs deep. We can't force people to think that English departments are necessary and English degrees are important. That might not happen ever; if it does, it'll happen because something external to us changes in the market. That's just the way it goes anymore. We used to regulate our markets, but we don't anymore. Our society used to set aside taxes to support English and liberal arts, regardless of market value, because it believed that a well-rounded education was a right. It just doesn't do that anymore.
 
Despite all that, I can't say I regret getting my PhD. I also don't think it's my place to tell anyone what to do with their lives. Getting a PhD certainly wasn't a terrible thing for me, even though my job searches were completely unsuccessful. I learned more than I ever imagined I would, and I published (a lifelong dream), and I wrote a dissertation that other people think is really good. But really, I don't think that anyone here has the right to tell anyone that getting a PhD in English will shatter their lives and destroy their dreams. That's making a huge assumption about how other people handle setbacks or how they value their education. Some people here might be coming from a much different perspective. Some people here might have spent the aughties pulling sand out of their ass in Afghanistan, so getting a PhD and launching an unsuccessful job search might seem pretty minor in comparison.
 
Personally, I'm trying to look at my failure on the job market as something of an opportunity. As I detach from the idea of being a professor, I've started to think about doing the things and taking the big risks that I'd always thought about but didn't have time for. I've also sought out career counseling. I'm trying to meet with ex-PhDs who can give me some advice for how to market myself for other careers. In a weird way, it's also kind of freeing. I've been thinking of all the things I DON'T have to do anymore--because there are always things about our jobs we're not wild about. I think, "Oh God, I don't have to live in North Dakota if I don't want to." At the end of my academic job search, I realized I was applying for jobs that I never in the world thought I'd ever apply for--5/5 load in the middle of hot nowhere like six hours from a medium-sized city and all for the pleasure of $29,000 a year--and I realized that this was the definition of insanity. The problem with this entire profession is that we have all indeed become slaves to this kind of market, thinking of ourselves as not having any choice in the matter, and as a result, our expectations are completely off-kilter. This leads universities to take advantage of us in terrible ways. To break this cycle, we really do just have to walk away from it.
 
Did the job market shatter my world? Kind of. It has been extremely disappointing. You do invest yourself in a vision of living an academic life. Worse things have happened to me, though. In the long run, not getting my dream job is a set-back but not a tragedy. The post-doc was what got my hopes up, not really the PhD in general. I am irritated about my program, though--it has a terrible placement record but still manages to recruit 15-18 new PhD students a year. I think it should really come with a warning label.

I'm surprised that artist isn't included in this thread title, haha!
 
I was very much hooked by a Canadian indigenous artist, Brian Jungen - he had a show at the MAC here in Montreal in 2006 and I have a distinct memory of feeling exhilarated by what I was seeing and it was a lightbulb moment for me that art could be more than landscapes and still life paintings (nothing wrong if that's your thing, but it's just not for me). After several detours in various programs, I ended up applying to a joint Art History & Film Studies program figuring that Art History would be my "back up" in case I hated Film Studies at uni and it's a good thing... here I am!

Hmm.. let's be blunt, here. If your GRE scores were higher, you probably wouldn't be entering an MA program in art history (or, very likely, entering this field at all). Sad, but borne out by the stats. Definitely not a field for the best and brightest. 

I'm moving back from two years in Asia, and am excited to finally be around real books again! After living through my Kindle since books in English were hard to come by, the thought of access to a library seems like the biggest luxury in the world. 

Hey guys!
I don't think this thread has been started yet, but how is everyone doing in terms of gearing up for the next application season? Personally, I've picked out my schools, am studying for my second GRE (ugh) and working on my writing sample. 
 
How is everyone else doing? 

Hello!
Does anyone know of any funded Masters degrees in American Studies? 

I'm a pretty bad writer, so I was really nervous about taking the Writing GRE portion. The night before the test I looked over the Writing sections in Princeton Reviews book. The Argumentative Essay is a pretty strange format, however my prep book gave me a word for word template for structuring the essay. Practice this! I wrote the template out a few times by hand to practice it and went over it on the train the next morning. Also, for the Issue Essay, all of the possible Issue topics are listed on ETS website so it may be helpful to do a few test runs, practice coming up with examples really quickly. 
 
I actually ended up getting a 6 on the Writing so I think these strategies really helped me (especially memorizing the Argumentative template). However, I also got a 140 on the Quant, so my scores are pretty all over the place. 
 
Good luck!

I thought I'd start a new thread since some of the other ones have taken a nasty turn and I don't want to be involved with them. I anticipate that this week will be the start of big news for most of us, so I wanted a place to post it, ask questions, etc. Good luck to everyone, and fingers crossed for a big week with lots of (positive!) news. 

I'm a pretty bad writer, so I was really nervous about taking the Writing GRE portion. The night before the test I looked over the Writing sections in Princeton Reviews book. The Argumentative Essay is a pretty strange format, however my prep book gave me a word for word template for structuring the essay. Practice this! I wrote the template out a few times by hand to practice it and went over it on the train the next morning. Also, for the Issue Essay, all of the possible Issue topics are listed on ETS website so it may be helpful to do a few test runs, practice coming up with examples really quickly. 
 
I actually ended up getting a 6 on the Writing so I think these strategies really helped me (especially memorizing the Argumentative template). However, I also got a 140 on the Quant, so my scores are pretty all over the place. 
 
Good luck!