Ramus

The official rule is that the instructor has the final say on what distinguishes the S/U version of the class from the graded version. In practice, every S/U class I took at OSU was the same as the graded class except that I didn't have to write a final paper.

I could have just lucked out, at least for the time being, but my experience in corporate life hasn't been similar to this, to use your phrase, "capitalist hellscape." There is corporatese, which I find by turns annoying and amusingly preposterous, and some mundane work, for which I have a relatively high tolerance. More often, though, my day-to-day has me doing challenging, interesting work, collaborating with a bunch of smart people, and being given a lot of opportunities to learn knew things and deepen my industry knowledge. You're right about job security - nothing beats tenure if you can get it (government work is probably a close second). I'm perfectly willing to concede that my experience could be entirely unrepresentative of corporate life. After all, Office Space didn't resonate with so many people on a gut level for nothing. That's a fair critique to a a degree - you're right to point out my sample size is small and thus potentially unrepresentative. However, I don't think it's right to suggest that, because "a lot of people" writ large are struggling, that I should modulate my message that there are decent life alternatives to going to graduate school / pursuing an academic life. Corporate life isn't perfect, and it certainly isn't for everyone. But not all companies are awful, and many employ a smart folks working on interesting problems. (Perhaps one of the takeaways regarding this conversation could be: as far as corporate life goes, ymmv.) It just pains me that so often I'll hear humanities types flatten the prospects of working in the private sector to offhand dismissals: "The pursuit of profit is bad; corporations are bad; thus I will never go corporate." If you adopt that mindset, you're eliminating literally 50% of options for work. I pursued my internships with the feds first based on my belief that work in the government would be "more meaningful." And, at the highest level, I believed strongly in the mission I was doing (eliminating wasteful spending and practices in the DoD). But I found the day-to-day much closer to the mindnumbingly mundane work you link to corporate life: the work is unrelentingly focused on process and procedure; there's plenty of interpersonal drama; leadership is totally resistant to innovation and creativity; and there was a stupid amount of downtime. If you're someone like me, who likes being busy, government work ain't for you. I hope everyone here heeds this very good advice, especially the part about using your summers to build your non-ac resume. I'm about as sanguine about the likelihood of academic reform as @queenofkings7. I hope you and others work to prove my pessimism wrong. Amen. Good luck to all.

I agree with most of what you've said, @dr. telkanuru, though we'll have to agree to disagree on whether the PhD is "still a worthwhile experience" in spite of its problems. I will add, though, that working for $30-35k a year, while a pretty sweet deal by the standards of grad student pay, still means you're missing out on a good deal of income that you could have earned if you'd entered the workforce after earning your BA. Add to that missing out the development of skills and experience, potential promotions or raises, etc., and by the end of 5 years, you've lost out on a fair amount. I think we can have an honest debate about whether whatever joys one gets out of your PhD (and I enjoyed researching and writing, my dissertation too) are worth that trade-off. They weren't for me, but I realize they are for others. Good luck on the job market, by the way. Hope it works out for you.

This. I'm right there with you, @helloperil. I told myself I could have until the five years of funding were up and that I'd bounce if I hadn't finished by then. Now I wish I had yanked the cord earlier. My advice on this point was, alas, of the "do as I say, not as I do" variety. Yes, yes, yes. It really sucks, and I feel for those who throw up their hands and say, "I just don't have the time or energy." At one point, I was working 45 hours a week, TAing and working an internship at the same time (and commuting 6 hours a week to the internship, to boot). It was absolutely exhausting and, needless to say, I got virtually no writing done that semester. I wish more universities would experiment with different ways to get their grad students experience by way of their guaranteed funding. At OSU, we had for a time a one-semester fellowship you could apply for that hooked you up with a local alt-ac internship in lieu of teaching. (This is how I got connected with my non-profit internship.) I haven't heard of any other schools using this model yet, but I thought it was a great idea to get students alt-ac experience without forcing them to chose between taking on multiple jobs and ditching their guaranteed funding / tuition remission to work outside the university.

I'm sorry my posts have provoked in you such irritation and hostility. I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors, and I hope your education and career choices bring you peace and happiness.

Speaking of the "infamous thread," I'd encourage all the newer members of the forum to read the first half of it. While it's become infamous around here for how toxic it become on the back end, as I was reading it last night, I was really struck by the quality of the initial discussion more generally but also the astuteness of the senior posters and the predictability of the younger posters (I was in the latter group at the time). Here are a few of the gems: And a few of the snarky, smug, and dismissive posts by those who were applying to schools that year: If your first instinct was to scoff at my initial post, I'd kindly encourage you to read the thread I quote and ask yourself whether you're any different from the folks five years ago who said versions of "I already know the risks," "I'm smart enough to think this through on my own," "I don't really care about getting a job," "a PhD has intrinsic value," etc. I'd also encourage you to ask why, every few years, there are folks nearing the end of their PhDs that come on this site to warn applicants about the state of the field. Perhaps what they have to say is worth reflecting upon.

Eh, that other post wasn't the most generous or thoughtful thing I've ever written, but I don't think it was self-destructive. I don't see the basis for your attribution of defensiveness to me, though I don't see much value in litigating it. While I welcome healthy skepticism, your suspicions are misplaced. They seem to have arisen from your reading of what I say I "want": my intent was to express what I value now (in contrast to my undergrad days), not what I desire but am currently lacking. As it happens, my current position is precisely the job that allows me to pay a mortgage, go on vacation, and pursue hobbies and interests. I'm happy with my current situation, and I have a realistic development plan for my career and future (and thus have a decent enough answer to the question you assume I don't know how to answer). Regarding your second inference, I'll say two things. One, I'm not sure what counts as familiarity with "the demands of working in the private sector" apart from, well, working in the private sector, which I do. Two, I'm not sure why my signature has further added to your paranoia about my credentials, but it should go without saying that a signature on TGC is not a resume. If you want to read through my resume, I can send you a copy to allay your concerns further. Of course the first bullet is true, and I'd be happy to give a full list of pros and cons of working in the private sector based on my experience. I couldn't help but laugh as you explained for me the obligations of homeownership. As a homeowner, I know these all too well. (You didn't really think I meant "paying a mortgage" to be an exhaustive description of homeownership, did you?) Regarding vacations and hobbies, I'll just say that's not been my experience. I clock a firm 9-5 M-F, and I haven't had any vacations intruded upon due to work (though I have no way of knowing if my experience on this is representative). I've actually been able to pursue a new hobby, fly fishing, with the additional time that I now have during the nights and weekends. You're right, of course, on 401ks, which is why last year I also contributed the max allowable to my IRA and threw additional money into my brokerage account. My point in raising 401ks was that humanities grad students in their 20s aren't thinking about retirement but that they should. And regarding the last bullet, again, I'll just have to say that I haven't had to deal with the cult of personality in the private sector that I saw in the university. I'm happy to concede that this may -- likely is -- commonplace elsewhere in corporate America. Maybe that would have been better, though I've made several posts in the past to that effect. See below. As far as committees, I was only ever really involved in my subfield-specific grad committee. I fortunately didn't have any bad relationships with professors that needed remedying. I got along swimmingly with my committee members and those faculty members with whom I took classes. My assessment of the poor mentorship provided by my committee stems from my belief that they'd rather bury their heads in the sand rather than confront the fact that they're "training" their PhD students for jobs that aren't waiting for them. I talk about this experience some in this post: Like in many programs, my job market training came both in the form of 1:1 advising and in a series of job market workshops. I thought these were both fine, except that, again, they downplayed the likelihood that the department's PhDs wouldn't get TT jobs. The department also sponsored a voluntary, 3-hour workshop on alt-ac job seeking during my tenure. By the time a typical graduate student would first go on the market, I had resolved not to apply at all, so I can't tell you how competitive I was. I will say that I was completing my dissertation on a topic that would have been considered "trendy" in my subfield at the time I would have applied. Finally, there are no "sour relationships" between me and the professors I named. My assessment of those folks was based on my incidental interactions with them, hearing how they treat other graduate students, observations of their contributions to departmental communications, and, in the case of one of the named, their interactions with my wife. These people weren't on my committee, and I have no ongoing relationship of substance with any of them. I won't go too much further in what is already a very long post, but regarding "pivoting" I can only say that what worked for me was to pursue internships (against the advice of my professors). By the time I graduated, I had worked two internships with the federal government, one with an education non-profit, and one with the private sector company that is now my full-time employer. Not that I would have expected anyone here to remember this, but I've discussed my experiences preparing to leave higher ed in the following posts:

And I'm over here, virtually screaming, "For the love of God, think about your 401k!" In all seriousness, I think it's incredibly difficult to convince 22-year-old humanists that they should care about job security, or money, or work-life balance. At that age, I thought worrying about money and all that was so crass and small-minded. Now, I just want a job that doesn't drive me crazy and gives me the comfort to pay my mortgage, go on vacation (...eventually), and pursue my hobbies and interests. *Cue Progressive's "We can't protect you from becoming your parents" commercial.*

I definitely had flashbacks to "The Graduate School Ponzi Scheme" thread when making this post. Have I become VirtualMessage?! Maybe so, albeit without the vitriol. For the noobs:

While I caution y'all from placing too much stock in anecdotal data, allow me to share two brief examples of other recent PhD outcomes from my subfield. I imagine you all know the stories about those who end up in adjunct hell, but I wanted to share these two stories because they help illustrate what can happen even when you do everything "right." Person A: Graduated from the University of Michigan three years ago with two publications in hand, had participated in one of the keynote panels at the national conference in our field, and was well connected with all the big names in our historical period. A brilliant, brilliant guy. Person A won the lottery in his first year on the job market: he got a TT position at one of the better programs hiring that year (an R2 in the Midwest). But Person A has been absolutely miserable in his job. He lives in a place without the intellectual life he enjoyed in Ann Arbor; he lives in a place without any kind of city life; and he's stuck with students who aren't terribly smart or engaged. Every time I talk to person A, he talks about how he wishes he could leave his job but that he feels like he has no way to escape. The takeaway: even when you get achieve "the dream," you may realize that, in reality, it's not quite all it was cracked up to be. Person B: Is graduating this year from Yale University with two publications and multiple national conference presentations. Person B struck out entirely on the academic job market this year (which isn't saying much, as there were three jobs posted in our subfield). Person B is now scrambling to accomplish the transition to an alternative -- which he had always thought would be an easy one. He's now in a position to graduate with no job lined up, having struck out thus far on "alt-ac" jobs, too. Person B, who had dreams of being the next Stanley Fish, resorted to calling me a couple months back to ask how to break into technical writing, and he now seems resigned to volunteer to gain experience, taking on personal debt in the process. The takeaway: don't buy into "you can just do something else if it doesn't work out," as though employers are waiting around to hire English PhDs. Moving out of higher ed takes time, dedication, and hard work, often requiring you to seek and participate in internships or learn new skills before you can find a job. Though it often gets framed as the easy back-up option, it can take months or years to develop the kind of resume that would make you competitive for the jobs that can put you on a path toward stability.

Sorry you feel that way. Feel free to ignore and continue on the path you're on. I wish you well, and I hope you end up in a stable, well-paying position that brings you security and happiness. Unfortunately, the likelihood of you or anyone else on this forum finding such a position in the professoriate is next to nil, which is why I'm compelled to "proselytize." I'm not looking for an apology, as things worked out fine for me. Please reserve your condescension for someone else. I think you're missing the point. It's not that people aren't intelligent. I was a smart undergraduate, too, just like many on this site. I read about how bad that the job market was before I went. And that wasn't enough to deter me (though it should have been). The issue, I think, is that there is this impulse on the part of professors to encourage their smart undergraduates to pursue PhDs because, well, that's what smart undergraduates should do. They tell their undergrads (as I was told) that they're smart enough to be the exceptions to the trend, or that they can always do something else if it doesn't work out (and you don't need a PhD to do any of the alternatives). The truth is that virtually none of you will be exceptions to the hiring trends, and, if we can agree that's the case, I would argue that pursuing a PhD in the humanities at this time is a mistake. But, as your reply evidences, most will ignore such warnings anyway (and, for good measure, will likely look on such warnings with derision). Again, I can say that from experience! I was stubborn and self-assured then, too, similarly arrogant in my refusal to listen to those who made it through the process and came out the other side cynical or defeated (so I perceived them then). For those who are like I was then, I reckon there is no getting through. My hope is that if there's someone out there on the fence, wondering if pursuing a PhD's worth the extraordinary degree of personal risk and uncertainty, that that person will simply pursue another option for their future.

Whether you think she's a saint or a skeez, Karen Kelsky is more forthcoming about the fucked up state of academia -- its people, its job prospects, and its insane value system -- than any of the professors I had in undergrad or in my PhD program. For all those considering a PhD, I recommend you spend ten minutes of your time on this video: While I imagine most of you have heard the horror stories of the job market -- which really has gotten vastly worse in the last year -- I think Kelsky does a better job than most other explanations I've seen in presenting how the whole psychology of the academy works and how professors groom their underlings into trying to stick the whole thing out. Fwiw, I got out and am much, much happier now. I only wish those of you out there would make the decision that I was too cowardly to make: don't do a PhD at all, and if you're in a PhD now, get out ASAP for your own sake (just say no to the sunk cost fallacy!).

OSU '20 grad here, and I'll say that OP ain't wrong. Lotsa big egos and asshole vibes from Macpherson, Brewer, and Wheeler (sorry not sorry to be shady and name names), the kind of people who may be very smart but can be insufferable on an interpersonal level. My wife was a staff member in the department during my time there, and several times she came home talking about how Wheeler had badly mistreated her. So, obviously I have some bias here, but I do think how someone treats those beneath their station is pretty revealing of their personality. If you're unwilling to be kind to staff, chances are you're not going to be great with grad students.

Tbh, that's usually a bad sign. Programs that fund fully are vocal and transparent about it. Don't wait. If they don't fully fund, you should turn them down immediately. There is no good reason to even consider a humanities program that isn't fully funded. It shouldn't feel weird to you, because it's not going to be weird for them. They get this same thing every cycle. Be direct: "Can you please tell me about the nature of your funding package? How many years of funding do you offer? Are all years guaranteed? What's the annual stipend? What are the health care benefits? What, if any, fees are students expected to pay?"

Most MA programs in literature are structured so you complete your degree in four semesters (excluding summer terms). Unless there's something unusual about your situation (e.g. part-time enrollment), just put down four semesters from the semester you began. If, for example, you started in Fall 2019, put Spring 2021. Also, don't worry about anyone holding you to the expected semester. Programs don't care when you graduate so long as you can prove you have your MA in hand by the time you start the PhD. I ended up taking an extra summer for my MA, graduating a mere two weeks before starting my PhD at a different school, and my PhD program didn't bat an eye. So, there's really no need to sweat this.