Reality808

I remember myself many years ago in this forum letting people know about my acceptances to top graduates programs and getting ready for graduate school. I am writing this not to discourage people to follow their dreams, but just to let them know what they are getting into before they dip into the waters of academia or doing a Ph.D. After years of hard work and writing your dissertation, you think you'll be rewarded with an academic career and job stability doing what you love. However, I am sad to inform you that nowadays the academic job market is brutal and a lot of people are forced to look for employment outside of academia despite merits, qualifications, etc. Not even a "famous advisor" will make miracles for us. As a person who is on the other side of the river, I urge you all to do a Ph.D. without any type of expectations. The profession is dramatically different from what most professors experienced during their time as students and I can say without hesitation that most graduates now are either grossly under-employed in eternal temporary positions or simply unable to find academic employment. Yes, there is a small number of graduates that do reach the coveted goal of tenure-track positions, but those are a really small minority. To back up my assertion, I invite you to visit the wiki page of Spanish and Portuguese academic jobs for the last 5 years, and you can read the dire situation and feel the desperation of recent graduates trying to look for jobs. I have even read comments of Ph.D. graduates asking for information about teaching high school due to lack of opportunities. And I didn't need to read this from anywhere to know is true, I saw it in my own brilliant colleagues desperate to defend their thesis and find whatever position they could get. Needless to say, international students (a large proportion of grad students in Spanish and Portuguese programs) are affected even harder since they rely on an official college job offer to remain in the US after graduation in a moment when those offers are scarcer every year. Even when I don't doubt that people on this page are brilliant minds who deserve success, consider that Ph.D. programs need you right now to teach undergrads, to keep graduate seminars open, to organize conferences, and be research assistants, but once you're in the job market and depleted your years of funding things change drastically. Then you'll be fighting for a tight spot with hundreds of applicants with excellent qualifications as you probably will also have. I am not writing this to be negative or instill fear. I do it because I'd have loved that someone would have told me this when I was first thinking about going to grad school. The academic job market is dire straits, and it is not going to change anytime soon. Go to grad school, enjoy your years to read, teach, and do research, but be mindful that the lofty professor life of your advisor or your department professors is in extinction, and it may not a possibility for you. Be mindful that you can be a really successful grad student, and still not be able to find a job as a professor after graduation. Even departments are now giving workshops and help graduate students transitioning to careers out of academia. This is the new fad: alt-ac jobs. This is good, but take in consideration that you took 5 or even more years of your life getting skills to get a better job, not to land in a job you probably could have gotten without a graduate degree. If you don't believe me read this article from the MLA https://profession.mla.org/the-sky-is-falling/ or when you go visit your graduate school of choice ask the professors about the possibility of having a successful career like theirs after graduation. If they are honest and decent people, they won't be able to reassure you. Or they are way too disconnected from reality in their ivory tower to know how most graduates struggle these days to find opportunities in a profession that is in crisis and decline. And another piece of advice, do your homework and contact senior graduate students to know about what kind of graduate program you're getting into. Sometimes you will get positive reassurance, but at other times you will realize that you may be better off in some other program (do research on this before it is too late). I know of many nightmare stories and toxic departments. However, if you want to go to grad school because you are passionate about literature or because you love to read good books and study in amazing libraries, but have no intentions whatsoever of having a job in academia after graduation then disregard my long tirade. You've been warned.