thinkingandthinking

Thanks! Yeah, I tend to overthink all things (perhaps hence the username.....), and also am not the most experienced in formal-type email exchanges. But this is very helpful.

I'm getting to the stage where I'm about to accept an offer, and I figured it'd probably be best to send out emails both accepting and declining all at once, just so I get it all done in one go. I'm sort of lingering (just by a few days.....I know that waitlisters are waiting), though, because I'm not sure how to go about sending the decline emails to programs I've visited. There were a few early on that I declined before making a visit, for various reasons, and those were easier, because there was little direct connection yet: "Thank you for your consideration and generous offer, however, after much thought, I have decided to decline, etc." However, I'm having a bit harder of a time with the others--I've seen threads on here that suggest sending an email to POIs you met with, as well as the program overall, which I guess makes sense, but there are some programs where I met with 5 or more people during my visit, sometimes closer to my interests, sometimes farther away..... Should I email all of them? Just the DGS? (Just worried that writing 10-12 will end up with them all seeming form-lettery?) There are a few that I definitely would like to keep the door open with for potential future correspondence (as in, just making sure not to be too brusque, or come off as rude): is there any way to best go about trying to do this? ("Dear Prof. X, I wanted to thank you again for taking the time to meet with me while visiting and to answer my questions about X University's program. After considering my offers, however, I have decided to attend Y University, which I believe is best suited to my research interests at this time. I hope, nevertheless, to meet or work with you again, if such an occasion or conference arises. Thank you again, and best wishes for the coming year, --Hal"?) Ultimately, that still seems a little formal to me (which, yes, this is a formal occasion--but there's one prof I've had pretty frequent and as-casual-as-this-can-get emails with, and this language ends up feeling too terse......and yet I can't think of another way to phrase it. Any suggestions?)

Yeah, I'm with you on the LA/NY analogy--though, tbh, when you find yourself actually headed that way, the advice you get from many (often not actually inside the industry, though, which I guess is the major difference) is about the same as it is here. I was one of those fresh-out-of-HS kids that deeply wanted to go to art school and pursue that path, but was convinced out of it by the "but it's not practical" crowd (aka my parents). Now I'm on a different path (one that I'm also deeply passionate about, though), but look back and regret that choice: I realize that although I would never have (probably) been able to be just a painter--in the same way that a TT job might be an illusive dream--there are jobs, many of them, adjacent that I could have pursued and made work with that background. I'm not going to let the same discourse that persuaded me out of an arts career persuade me out of this. I'm not going to make the same mistake I did before about whether or not to follow a passion. I'm not going to leave the chance to do one of the things I deeply care about for at least a few years behind, only to realize that there are things I would have been set up to do, even if not the ultimate dream, again. As I said before, where I work now, I know lots of people who have very recently graduated with humanities PhDs--aka, they, and everyone they've graduated with that didn't find academic employment, have found fine enough jobs. Maybe I'm wrong, or have a one-sided image (though it's not like these people are coming from a top-top-tier program, so I'm guessing it's somewhat representative) but I don't see it as a line between employed and out-right unemployed--just employed or not-academically-employed. Some of these colleagues are the excessively bitter ones, but, I'm also lucky that many of them are supportive of what I'm doing, many of them don't regret having taken that detour. Maybe, though, I just remain the overly idealistic artistic type that wouldn't particularly mind living sparsely to pursue a passion--and have realized that having slightly more to spend on living space/etc., but w/o work I'm dedicated to, is more depressing than the other side. (Not for everyone, of course, I realize--with kids, etc. depending on you for stable income or so on. But I'm happy to sacrifice, and in a place to do so without hurting anyone in doing so, so, certainly not a norm.) (Not to mention, my dad, who was the main force in the "do it, because it's practical" has recently been backpedaling hard on that: realizing that he spent so long chasing a "practical" career--some of it definitely important for family support, but also definitely not all of it--and missed out on doing anything particularly meaningful. I'm not going to follow that, and he doesn't want me to, anymore).

Happy to see that my interpretive skills--thanks, English courses and close-reading/rhetorical analysis practice therein! Hey: world! We need more people teaching these and with these skills! --are working and coming in handy...

@ProfLorax, I definitely understand what you're saying, but I think the line in this thread is less that there's stability as such in grad school, but rather that there's no more or less security there than a lot of other places for people recently out of undergrad. Funding's being cut, insurance is being dropped, and people are underpaid in academia, but at the same time we're seeing the rise of exploitative zero-hour contracts, "gig" work, un- or under-paid but long-term internships--almost required these days for "experience"--, fixed minimum-wage in the face of stark inflation elsewhere, and employers that are trying to squeak by the "30hrs/week or more requires employer's provision of health insurance" rule in the ACA by limiting hours to 29/wk, while still insisting on split-shifts and other strange hours that make finding a second PT position (where the manager probably also wants to squeeze the full 29hrs out of anyone they hire) a stressful mess. Almost anywhere you go, you have to deal with similar things, which is to say I deeply agree with your point: we need to make institutional change, which is why we need to be aware of these issues, and discuss them. Not to just dissuade people from pursuing such a career, but to create informed cohorts that come in already thinking about issues that can be addressed, both institutionally and personally--'fixing' anything is clearly a pretty Sisyphean task, but, the more people talking and thinking about it within the system the better. The "just don't go" narrative isn't really helpful in terms of actually salvaging higher education--which I happen to think is an important thing to do--as then the only people there with the potential to make that change will be the naive ones who don't really understand there to be a problem at all; nor is it ultimately helpful, though, for the individual who "gets out" under the assumption that academia is a particularly or uniquely exploitative place to be, though, as institutional change is needed almost across the board; almost no matter where you find yourself, you're going to have to be on your toes about this. The treatment of academic labor, it seems to me, is symptomatic of more systemic, much more pervasive issues that need to be addressed irrespective of your particular place in the economy. It seems, I think, for example, that the fact that people with PhDs often have trouble finding employment outside of the academy is less a problem about actually having the PhD than it is a problem with the non-academic economy itself. It's an extension of the increasingly pervasive "you need 2 years of experience for this entry-level position!" issue that recent graduates face everywhere. Some unpaid internships require applicants already to have industry experience. I'd be a few years ahead in the "getting 'experience'" game if I skipped the grad school detour, for sure, but that's not a system I want to find myself uncritically participating in, either. So yes, we need to keep talking and thinking about this issue--but not as if our suffering as academics is unique (which I don't think you were really saying at all, but rather seems to be the assumption of the "just leave!" people like [but maybe not specifically] OP.) The whole thing needs to be fixed, or else nothing will really ever recover.

This was just the example that I got from one of my profs, who graduated from the institution I'll be going to just a few years ago--as in all of his cohort and the two behind that didn't find an academic job wound up in such a position, so, at least where I'm going, this is something that the job placement office has a support system in place to prepare you for, if you decide to take that course, so it seems a bit more likely. But, again, just an example among many. I'd be fine back in publishing, too, or like a friend of mine, in government work (apparently the fed. gov. is always looking for people with editing skills--they loved his cultural anthro PhD, which is a field way worse as far as the doom and gloom "you'll never find a job ever" discourse goes, even more so than English. He had some super basic technological skills to go along with it, which I'm sure helped, but, I was planning on picking some of those up, anyhow--pretty helpful for an academic career these days now, too.) The overall point, though, for me, beyond specific but varied possible plan-b's is as DerPhilosoph basically said: I know I'd regret it down the line if I don't try now, even if it means knowing I'm missing other opportunities.

And might I add, too, that it's not all shiny outside academia, either, despite how persecuted people who've never been outside it seem to act (as if a PhD ever guaranteed you the job you wanted?). Is it better in the '~real world~'? Yeah, somewhat. But I have plenty of friends who are the age now that I'll be when I finish my PhD who are still cobbling together crappy part time jobs, working in food-service (not that there's a single thing wrong with this), struggling to make it financially, even w/ a college degree. There are some that are doing well, in engineering or finance (not even law, anymore--that path's starting to look a fair bit like it's headed the way of the TT job. You might land one of the relative handfuls of good positions still left, over the legions more people getting JDs than there are available jobs, but still only if you're fanatically dedicated, and committed to working ridiculous hours for little pay for the first 5 years or so even after school. I sense similar anxiety among friends who are going to med school.), but there was never a time that I could have gone down any of those paths--it's just not my skill set, plain and simple, and my early STEM education was too poor to set me up for something in the hard sciences. Do I have friends outside of those things that have jobs they actually enjoy? Who actually feel like they're doing what they wanted to? Yes, but, with similar sacrifices to those I'm making now. Are there others that have something more comfortable? Also, yes. But when I look at the relative numbers, it seems as much a crap-shoot as getting a TT position after the PhD. At the very least, I'll be set up to teach English in a prep school somewhere, which is much more than I can say about the track I or many friends are on now. It's not the dream, but, I'm okay with the fact that each of the programs I'm considering have 100% full-time employment 2 years out. Not hardly 100% in TT, obviously, but, stable, well-enough paying jobs nonetheless--which, again, is a lot more than quite a few people I know.

wrote an obnoxious, long thing, but, nevermind: just: I'm not in it just for the job. I'm doing it for the same reason all sorts of people sacrifice hours and sleep and other stuff for things: it's what I'm passionate about. I realize there are complications that come from letting a passion/'hobby' become a career, become the center rather than the periphery. But, you know, I spend all my free time in a library reading and writing already, even when not in school, writing things that I hope are actually important, working on thinking about how to teach in ways that are actually important. Basically, I think parts of this are more important than me. Other parts are tedious and worthless. Certainly no part is, as some people have wandered over to this board to say in the past, as immediately important as working on a cure for cancer, but, you know, the humanities are pretty important to the whole living part of living longer, so, I'm keeping on with the idea that they're an important thing to know about, understand, and teach. So I'm going to do that--and, if I hate it in 5-8 years, or if I end up in the very likely position of no academic job: I'll go back to doing what I'm doing now (which is publishing, which is where many people who leave this particular part of academia end up), and, I'll be as deeply bored by it as I am now, but at least I'll have spent a time, however brief, doing what I wanted to at the time I decided to start doing it.

Sorry - I'm in English Lit. The first two years are coursework, then 3rd for exams, then dissertation. With this particular program, at least, the advisor in the first year is just the DGS for everyone, so this wouldn't be an issue for that purpose, I guess, though I was mostly just worried about making sure to start building a relationship early (also I'm just very excited to work with this person--and a tiny bit disappointed when I saw the course list!) But: what you say here definitely makes sense, thank you!

I recently went on a visit, met with a potential advisor who seemed very excited about my work, and very excited about the prospect of advising my project--to the point of saying "so, if you come here, you'll clearly work with Prof. X, Prof. Y, and me." (Which could come off, I suppose, as problematic/arrogant, but considering how big a name they are in the field, how excited I am to work with him, and the tone of his saying it: it's a good thing.) Yet, he'll be on leave, or at least won't be teaching, my first year. My initial idea of how to go about forming a working relationship with an advisor was to take courses with them, so I'm a little worried about committing to somewhere where I wouldn't have that clear a path to access to a POI for the whole year. Presumably, he'll be teaching again the following year, and, again, he seemed pretty set on advising my project or at least being part of my committee, so I'm not overly worried that I just wouldn't end up able to work with him. But, then again, I have a pretty limited idea about how this whole process of finding and selecting an advisor even exactly goes, so, essentially: any advice in this situation? Is this a normal thing to deal with? What are some other good ways to maintain contact with a prof between admission and the 2nd year? Any help at all is welcome.