MandarinOtter

This is about political science, but I think it applies to anthropology too. Leaving it here for any future applicants. Good luck!

Thanks! I've spent weeks now reading and thinking seriously about the job market, and I feel I've come up with a much more realistic set of goals, expectations, and plans than what I had about a month ago (R1 tenure-track job only). I will prepare my CV for academia (R1 or liberal arts ideally) but I'll also work on my own to prepare my resume for post-grad industry work (user experience internship, integrative medicine fellowship, or something) as an "escape hatch" if academia falls through.

@AnthroScout Thanks for your response! Since my subfield is medical anthropology, I'm planning to do two things in graduate school to make myself marketable for industry if academia doesn't pan out: 1. Take a stats class during my coursework and apply for user experience research (UX) summer internships towards the end of my program. That way I'll have UX work experience if I need to go into that industry. 2. See if I can land a predoctoral fellowship in "integrative medicine" or "narrative medicine" in a US biomedical hospital setting and make connections - maybe they or someone they know will have work for a medical anthropology PhD after I graduate. All the while, trying to publish, present, and network in academia to try to land an R1 TT or liberal arts job. Does that sound like a reasonable plan?

I want to plug this 2015 study in Science. Tenure-track hiring networks are highly hierarchical, *not* meritocratic as *so many* people in academia claim. Observed differences are so steep that they cannot be explained by "best schools attract the best students." The old one "It doesn't matter where you go, it matters who you work with" also seems to be untrue given this data. If you want an R1 tenure-track job, you need to go to a top 10 institution by placement - or even better, top 5 (its that steep). Fit and advisor still matter, but institution name is clearly king. http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005

@rising_star Thanks for your advice! I do think I could be happy at a liberal arts school, but my understanding is that the market for that is only marginally better than R1s. honestly with the program I got in to liberal arts and R2 and industry would be the two most realistic options, though I'm not sure how the department regards pursuing non-academic work - the lack of prospective advisor response to my email is not encouraging. The institution does have Career Advising and Versatile Phd membership, and you are right that prepping my CV for liberal arts and industry would mostly need to be done on my own. And regarding law, I know the market is not great but to be honest the rate at which T14 law schools place people in full time jobs requiring a JD is a hell of a lot better than where ANY anthropology PhD program places people in full time jobs requiring a PhD. It's just a lot to think about.

@anthropologygeek that's incredible, congrats!! @yzo damn, thanks for the link. Those Cultural Anthropology posts articulate exactly what I've been dreading, and I'm not even a graduate student yet. At this point I'm probably just gonna decline grad school, take another year off, take the LSAT, and shoot for a T14 law school, since at least then I'll have a decent shot at a stable career....the two prospective advisors at the school where I was admitted didn't answer my email about non-academic professionalization, and the director of grad admissions gave very uninspiring answers. Now I'm just trying to decide what the best way to spend the next year would be...

@anthropologygeek wow, congrats! Would you mind sharing how long you were on the job market? How many postdocs did you do? Did you go to a top ranked program in your subfield?

@rising_star @phyanthThanks for your replies! Although my ideal career would be a tenure-track position at an R1 university, and I'd like to still shoot for that, I know anthropology tenure-track positions are disappearing fast and are almost impossible to get in the current job market, regardless of pedigree, publications, presentations, etc (thanks, neoliberalism!). If I can't get an R1 tenure-track position a year or two out of graduate school, I plan to go into industry - definitely *do not* want to toil in terrible adjunct positions indefinitely. So if I did go to grad school I'd try to prepare my CV for both academia and industry work (probably doing "cultural competency" work for medical organizations, since my subfield is medical anthropology). The other industry fallback is to do corporate user experience (UX) research. But I don't know enough about the job markets for those either of those options to say whether it's a reliable enough backup...? And I also don't know what preparing my CV for academia/industry would entail...? I emailed my two potential faculty advisors four days ago asking what they know about non-academic work, and neither has responded... If neither backup industry is promising, and if things look hopeless a year or two in to the PhD, I might just "master's out" and shoot for a T14 law school. ?

Bump! For someone considering an anthropology PhD five years later, I don't think the market has improved at all. Current grad students on or near the job market have told me it's miserable, with 10 R1 positions opening up a year - not even all tenure-track. What to do...

I was looking at overall placement, but because of the program's strengths quite a few of the PhD recipients do medical anthropology. And I should add that this anthropology program added three super-famous medical anthropology faculty in 2017 (and that's three of the five star faculty I'm interested in working with), so perhaps historical placements aren't indicative of future placements in this case. Hopefully!! And a prestigious R1 TT job or postdoc is definitely the dream, but I have been told not to matriculate without a backup plan. My backup plans are to either try to get a position at a liberal arts college or go into industry and do "cultural competency" work for medical organizations. And I should clarify that this program is *one of* the strongest programs for medical anthropology, not *the* single strongest program (not quite sure what that would even be). But I see your point, going somewhere with a lot of famous faculty in the subfield will offer me better connections and research opportunities than going to a school with a bigger name but not as many exciting faculty for my subfield.

Bump! I'm in a somewhat similar position for an anthropology PhD, except I've only been admitted to one PhD program and got a consolation admit to an MA program with 2/3 tuition scholarship. The PhD program I've been admitted to is a *fantastic* fit for what I want to do, and I've been told my faculty at my undergrad that the program is top in my sub-field in anthropology (medical anthropology) in terms of faculty strength (lots of famous faculty). However their job placement rate for prestigious R1 tenure-track and post-doc jobs isn't that good. Faculty from my undergrad have told me that R1 job prospects are determined by who you work with and the quality of your dissertation, not the name of the institution. But I don't know if I should go to this PhD program, or do the one-year Master's and reapply for Fall 2019 admission with a reworked research proposal that's a better fit for the schools I re-apply to?

This has got to be a troll, right? University Of Chicago (Sociocultural) Anthropology, PhD (F18) Accepted via E-mail on 7 Mar 2018 ♦ A 7 Mar 2018 Damn feeling good but hard to make my final decision! Accepted: Chicago, Stanford, Boston, Virginia, Emory, Brown, Pennsylvania, Australian National University, Toronto, Indiana Bloomington, Clark University, Cambridge, Leeds, Amsterdam, Uni Heidelberg, Universitat Hamburg, Max Planck Institute, St. Andrews, Manchester, and École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. Wait-listed: Yale, UCLA, Columbia, Rutgers, Georgia, Vanderbilt, Duke, UC Berkeley, North Carolina, and Cornell. Rejected: Harvard, UC Santa Cruz, UC San Diego, MIT, Oxford, UCL, Edinburgh, Michigan, Leiden, London school of economics, Sussex, SOAS London, Alberta, Aberdeen, Sydney and Uni. British Columbia.

I just went through the PhD application cycle for Fall 2018 and am wondering what the reputation is for the program I got into. But so as to not bias anyone, which programs would you say are the top 10 North American PhD programs for medical anthropology and STS?

Is it top 10, top 20, top 30? Especially relative to places like Berkeley, MIT, Chicago. I was recently accepted to UCI's anthropology PhD program with full funding (I will research medical anthropology and STS), and I was wondering what the program's reputation is in that field, especially on the R1 academic job market? Their recent PhD's don't do *too* great at getting R1 positions, though the faculty are amazing, so I'm just curious.

Any word on what's going on with UC Santa Cruz? They seem to be trickling out admissions and rejections over the last few days, but I haven't heard anything?