Jump to content

staggerlee

Members
  • Posts

    15
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    1

Everything posted by staggerlee

  1. "The race to the bottom of saying that you can only complain if you are below a certain threshold of poverty or hardship is a conservative argument that wouldn't be out of place at the Republican National Convention. There is no question that PhD students are in a cycle of economic oppression with very limited resources and support. Are PhD students Sudanese Lost Boys or Cambodian refugees, on the very bottom? No." Yikes. I would never say that people can't complain about something--- people can (and should) complain about anything they want as much as they want. I just happen to think that framing this as systematic oppression undermines the point by seeming histrionic. And I acknowledge that it's important to talk about the exploitation of Ph.D.s for adjunct labor at unlivable wages. I think it's important for adjuncts to form a community and find a way to stand up for basic working rights. However, I also think that people make the choice to go to graduate school and then make the subsequent choice to stay in academia to fight for teaching jobs afterward. They make the first choice (if they take it upon themselves to be informed as they make decisions, and the information is easily available) knowing that the academic job market sucks. They make the second choice knowing that they could leave academia and pursue other jobs at any point (and it may not make direct use of their degrees, but that possibility should have been considered during choice 1).They could step out of academia and get one of the same jobs from which the majority of reasonably fortunate people end up choosing. That element of choice is what (for me) distinguishes this from the situations of people who are born into environments with no educational opportunities, no job choices, no chance for economic achievement, and no personal support. I don't think we have to agree, but I think it's significantly a matter of perspective. I also don't think making that point insinuates that people must race toward a threshold of misfortune so as to be permitted frustration. I wouldn't have brought up Sudanese Lost Boys for contrast, and I suppose it may be a trite point, but I do still think that if you're worrying about educational decisions instead of raw survival, you're doing okay. If you have even just the resources necessary to participate and be invested in this discussion, there is an element of choice and volition in your professional life. It may not be the choice that you want, and from there it's up to you. That's why I definitely do acknowledge that pursuing a doctorate is a huge career gamble and many people shouldn't take it, for personal and emotional and family and health and age and other reasons. And if I seemed to suggest that the academic job market is no worse than other job markets, I hadn't intended to. I just think that these days people get into the embittered-post-grad position after having had all the information at their disposal during decision time. Additionally, though this really doesn't matter--- I suspect the Republican National Convention might in fact be a perfect place to claim victimization from a position of relative privilege. I've been through a lot of shit myself, and I've been in an array of different economic and personal situations, some of them entirely desperate, and only one of which is several years of grad school with a measly stipend. I've spent a long time in a state that's at the most extreme end of the extremely bad academic budget problem, and I see the reality of it. I'm sure entering the college job market will be worse than I can imagine, though I've spent some time making sure I've imagined it. But I've considered all the possible outcomes, and if all else fails, the educational/developmental aspect of it, on a personal level, is worth it to me. All I encourage others to do is weigh that same question as they make their own decisions, and not get caught up in the neurosis. But we're all grown-ups here and it goes without saying that we'll do and feel as we like. I don't underestimate how much more difficult it is to consider leaving academia after a decade of entrenchment, but I also don't underestimate the power of striving to maintain a mindset of flexibility and reasonable expectations throughout grad work, or the benefit of making an informed decision and then owning that decision as a free agent rather than a victim of the system.
  2. I, um, echo echo449. This whole discussion, like all the million identical ones, is pretty much an anxious/doubtful/defensive feels-party. I understand the impulse towards it, and I don't ever slight people for involvement in it, but there's just no real point. If this--confusion over pursuing a terminal degree-- is the central problem you face, I hate to (be the 19th person to) break it to you, but you are not a member of the genuinely downtrodden in this world. You sound seriously goofy when you seem to compare yourself to people who are stuck in inescapable cycles of economic oppression with no resources and no support. Everyone already knows there's an enormous problem with the American college educational system and enormous problems with job availability and security. As a result, "advice" bits that demonize academia always come off like excuses to vent embitterment. And the blogs and articles about it just make the authors look... sad and pouty and privileged. Nobody on the application end needs to be informed of the job issue (or further convinced of it) "for his/her own good," because if he/she is seriously considering applying, he/she already knows. Or he/she will have someone closeby in the field tell him/her soon... because he/she is not actually getting admitted to a program without supportive letter writers... and a supportive letter writer would certainly offer that information. The grievance that I believe isn't real-- and yes, I mean I believe it's imagined and alleged-- is the part that suggests academia is an unstoppable machine of misinformation and systemized, intentional deception of students. In my own experience, nothing has been further from the truth. All professors and advisors have shot completely straight with me and helped me to work out my decisions in the context of clear facts. If some individual students were completely misled or kept in the dark about the job situation in academia by the professors and advisors that surrounded them in early college years, the bone they have to pick is with those professors (and I'd like to know where these wildly neglectful or cruel and twistedly motivated folks are. If the schools we're talking about are good, reputable schools, then which ones are they? They're not the ones I've attended or visited, and I can vouch for that. This kind of concrete clarification would be worlds more useful to a prospective applicant.) Those aggrieved should stop generalizing this bizarre deception to the entirety of college faculty and go confront whoever managed somehow to blindfold them from reality. Additionally, if a current/prospective applicant doesn't research enough to know the full state of the job market before he/she applies, or simply refuses to believe the job market is a real problem, then maybe it's an issue of not being too concerned, or having different job plans. If it's not a case of different plans, then frankly he/she deserves the surprise coming later. Life and making a living (in any field) is about educating yourself, making the best decisions possible, and then taking what comes. It's easy to get sucked into this spiral on a mental level, and it feels falsely productive to hash it out over and over. I had a professor intervene in one such spiral of my own and offer the only advice that's ever truly useful here, IMO... If the research and writing and learning is important enough to you-- if you're really, consistently passionate enough about it-- for that alone to truly justify the time and effort of pursuing the degree, and if you can live knowing that the professional outcome is uncertain and will simply be what it'll be, then do the Ph.D. If not, don't. If you think you'd ultimately regret spending ~7 years reading and writing and studying were it not to get you a tenure-track job, don't do it. If you need a guarantee of a certain type of job to feel that those ~7 years would be truly worth it, don't do it. If (the likely outcome of) graduating from a program only to be shoved into a faceless teeming crowd of Ph.D.s fighting for drastically fewer jobs than there are people would make you feel bitter and taken advantage of, don't do it. If anxiety about future finances is a debilitating thing for you, don't do it, and for the sake of your mental health go into a field with more job certainty. If you have staked your sense of self-worth on a longterm academic position and would never feel successful as a human were that not to materialize, don't do it, reconsider the odds you're relying on, and choose a different goal accordingly. If the amount of teaching you'd be taking on as a graduate instructor in order to receive funding during your Ph.D. work would make you resent the system and feel that you were crushed beneath the heel of a soulless master, don't do it, and seek out a different offer. If a school you'd like to go to (for a Ph.D. or an MA) doesn't offer you funding throughout your degree work, don't do it -- go to a different school that offers full funding/a liveable stipend. ...Unless you can afford it through independent means and you've got your heart set on it and you're entirely sure it's worth it to you. As hokey as it sounds, time spent at this level of education should justify itself as a means for personal development and enrichment. It's a commitment beyond simple financial terms-- it's a decision about a big fat chunk of your life-- and if the practical cons compromise it being a good self-actualization path for you, then it's up to you to know that for yourself. If you were to get the degree the day before all colleges suddenly ceased to exist, would you count it as a waste and wish you could have your ~7 years back? If so, don't do it. Personally, I'd be grateful that I'd had the distinctly first-world opportunity to spend ~7 adult years dwelling on the literature that I love and the ideas that fascinate me, and I'd put a bow on it and start searching for a different career. (I'll qualify that by saying I have no direct dependents and enough of a family safety net that I wouldn't be left immediately to starve if absolutely no jobs in any field presented themselves... and maybe that qualification is one to check for.) Having finished my master's, I feel that way about the 3 years I spent doing that regardless of where it goes from here...and if I have a change of heart about all this when faced with the pressure of the Ph.D. (which I highly doubt), then that's on me. Many, many career fields are uncertain now in terms of job availability. The economy sucks. The government's handling/budgeting of education sucks and has for a good long while, but so do a lot of other things. All careers, especially those pertaining to the humanities, involve a lot of gross bureaucracy and competition and an abstract system that doesn't always regard you as an individual human. But it's your life, and if doing Ph.D. work and having a Ph.D. would make you happy, all possibilities considered, then do it. I want very much to be a professor-- that's my preference-- and I'd like to stay in academia, but I wouldn't do this unless I was okay with the chance that I'd have to look outside of tenure-track positions to make a living (and there are plenty of good and worthwhile non-academic jobs out there). And unless some harsh, larger set of circumstances dictated it, I definitely wouldn't adjunct and live under the poverty line for 5-10 years before I flew the coop and got a decent-paying job at a high school or think tank or non-profit or publication or community college or library or tutoring center or arts coalition. Some people just desperately need to drop the entitlement, see a counselor, accept that they've been in charge of their own decisions, and learn to cope better with life. Pardon the essay, folks. You're all smart people (as you already know) and I think we're all going to survive, one way or another.
  3. I didn't take the subject test and I still had lots of great application options. Check the websites for the specific programs you're interested in and see if they require it. My plan was to give it a shot this year without it and to take it for the next cycle if I wasn't successful (so as to widen my app possibilities). From what I understand, studying for the subject test consists of a lot of reading and getting reasonably familiar with a lot of texts.
  4. Since it looks like this thread is wrapping up and the season is finally over... I just wanted to say good luck to you all. Those of you who accepted offers, have a great time at all the fantastic schools. And those of you that will be applying again next year, best of luck -- you'll do great. Thanks to everyone for being around and giving info and support!
  5. Thank you, kind folks!!! I'm so excited. Enormous congrats to echo449, ishmael, Radcafe, and InHac!!!! So much happy news.
  6. I've been admitted to UNC-Chapel Hill!!!! I accepted the offer and I couldn't be happier if ice cream and waffles and cappuccinos started falling from the sky. I'd been hoping *hard* since February. I'll be in North Carolina this fall. Go Tar Heels!
  7. This is pretty much my exact mental situation. Know that company exists for your misery, squankabonk.
  8. It's great that you got the reference! Fun old song and I love several versions. Thanks for the good vibes, too.
  9. Caroline -- don't be sorry! I'll PM you. Thanks for the reply.
  10. Is anyone here still deciding on whether to accept an offer from UNC-Chapel Hill? I'm on the waiting list, and having visited, I feel 100% totally certain in my soul that I'm *meant to be* there. I know the stipend isn't great, but I've got a personal attachment to the school. So I'm holding my breath. If you've decided to attend another program (or if you're really split 50/50 between it and another school), please, for the love of all that is good and pure, let go of the UNC offer. You will make my entire life.
  11. Congratulations, Caroline! I know that has to feel good. You're on quite a roll. I hope this doesn't mean the program is moving right through its offers already. I'm still on the waitlist and UNC is THE program for me. Were you told anything about the number of spots left or the waitlist situation, by chance?
  12. Congrats on the Oregon acceptance, Caroline. Did UNC happen to tell you how long the wait list is and/or how many admission spots aren't officially filled? It's my top choice program and I'm waiting with bated breath.
  13. Is anyone who's been accepted to UNC-Chapel Hill (English PhD) considering possibly turning it down for another offer? I'm on the waitlist and incredibly anxious.
  14. I was waitlisted at UNC-Chapel Hill as well. Does anyone know (approximately) how many people are on the waiting list? I'm very excited about this.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. See our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use