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doobiebrothers

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  1. Upvote
    doobiebrothers got a reaction from GREman in you lucky ones   
    Hey! so I wrote the post last night in a REALLY bad place, so first of all, apologies to those who found it condescending. I guess what I was trying to say, but said it in a really bad way, was that I'm not some stupid, unqualified hack (which is honestly how this makes me feel most of the time, and how I'm afraid people will think of me, or already do think of me). Before I started this program, I was a more or less happy, healthy, sane individual, with a lot of love and friendship and support. Like many of you, I honestly believed that this was my passion, and that my dedication to my field would mean something once I entered a PhD program. What I think I said really badly, but still truly believe, is that you do not have to be a martyr to this career choice. This is not the only thing in the world you can do. If you have not yet started, really walk into this with open eyes: it is the dirtiest game I, or anyone I know, has ever played. Perhaps we are the unlucky ones--hence the title of the post. Listen, I'm looking at a group of people who was where I was last year. And if anyone had told me last year how bad things would be now, I hope I would have believed them, and looked for other opportunities. Maybe all of you on this thread are truly cut out for the loneliness, precariousness, pretensions, and vicious competition that this life requires. You have my full admiration. I was very idealistic, and now I had a tough learning experience, and I think last night I wanted to share some of the lessons of the last year. Again, apologies if I did it in a clumsy way.
  2. Upvote
    doobiebrothers got a reaction from Paper Moon in "Never ever pursue a PhD degree if you are not 100% sure" -- Thoughts?   
    no!! I don't think you're shallow at all. These people who judge you for wanting economic stability are the worst kinds of hypocrites and morons--many of them COME from enough money that they don't have to worry, and then hate on those of us who have real financial obligations and concerns. A phd at Oxbridge (is it funded) in STEM carries alot of weight--depending on your debt load, that might be a good place to go! 
    also congrats!
  3. Upvote
    doobiebrothers reacted to AbrasaxEos in you lucky ones   
    I think what I am talking about is the notion of your job being something that you have be "passionate" or "fulfilled" by.  I'm not going to pull punches here, I'm knocking it.  I think it is a stupid way to make a decision about what you are going to do, and usually ends up being a quixotic pursuit.  I bring it up because it is in many ways the sine qua non given for pursuing something like doctoral studies.  It becomes an easy way to willfully disregard the grim, meathook realities of employment, academia, and what these actually involve.  For instance, go and scan this and any other forum here for statements to the effect of "I know the job market sucks/I know that my chances for getting a job are really low/I know how shitty academic life, even in the tenure track often is...BUT...I'm just so passionate about this field/I would be unfulfilled by just working a 'regular' job/I love what I do so much."  My issue with this narrative is that it makes it seems like your options are to either go through the process of getting a PhD (kind of hard), getting a TT job (really hard), and then being fulfilled/passionate/etc. about it (how the hell do you quantify, or even qualify this calculus?), ~or~ doing some proletarian, workaday 'job' where you have to go in from 9-5, have to do budgets, have to manage people, etc. 
    What I'm arguing is that I have passions and things that fulfill me - yes, everyone does, but I don't need to do them for my job to have a good life, and I think I could make a convincing argument that many people who mistake their passions for what they need to be employed at might recognize the same thing.  This is to say that I don't think that doing a PhD for the sake of doing it, or because you are passionate about the subject is a good enough reason to engage yourself in the process.  It is part of it, but if you aren't doing it to get some kind of employment at the end, I think there should be a careful look at why you are actually putting yourself through this process.  I say this with such conviction because I didn't examine these motives very carefully going into my program, I made a lot of excuses for myself that were built on notions of the 'inherent worth' of what I was doing.  One doesn't necessarily need to have academic, or tenure track employment in mind when doing a PhD, but if you don't why do one?  You can read every book you read in a PhD by yourself.  You all have M.* degrees, you know how to find every book on the subject you are interested in!  You can listen to podcasts, go to lectures, and even go to SBL/AAR if you want - I did this year, and it was a lot of fun, because I (1) didn't have to network with anyone unless I wanted to (2) had plenty of money to attend, eat out, and enjoy Atlanta (3) could go to a panel on post-structuralism without having worry whether it was going to somehow advance my dissertation or other research. 
    I don't know if this is convincing, it just want to be a voice that says you can just do a job that you generally enjoy.  I'm not passionate about what i do during the week for work, I like it, I like my co-workers, I'm good at what I do, and I get paid a lot more money than I probably could have expected to make as an academic outside of a tenured prof at a top-tier institution.  I read Derrida, Butler, and every book I own on Late Antiquity during my ample free time, I go to SBL/AAR if I want to, and I guess I could probably even give a paper if I so desired (which i don't, because I also think these are mostly for people who need CV lines, and I have no need for such).  It isn't all about money, or about pure pragmatics, but I just think we ought to be sure we're not calling skubala Shinola.
  4. Upvote
    doobiebrothers reacted to sacklunch in you lucky ones   
    I agree with most of what Doobie said. I'm also in a top PhD program in religion and much of what I imagined this life would be like turns out to be dead wrong. 
    I'll just add that the excitement surrounding academic research is more rare--and much less funded--than most people think. Know that the excitement and money commonplace in the top religion departments and divinity schools is nowhere else to be found. It's easy to forget that places like Harvard, Yale, Duke, Chicago, and so on are the exception. Their professors are smart, well-connected, and, of course, lucky. As students we look up to our professors and mentors and assume that we too not only should follow the same path, but we will. "It will all work out in the end." "What else am I going to do with my life?" These are naive. But, I said the same sort of things; hell, I still do. The funny thing about the job market being so awful is it actually makes me more optimistic about the future. If I don't get a decent job, oh well. It was a hell of a ride. In any case, I have bad days like anybody else. But most days I am happy in this life. Oh, and thanks for the free therapy session <3.
  5. Upvote
    doobiebrothers reacted to AbrasaxEos in you lucky ones   
    @marXian Don't get me wrong, not that you were getting me wrong necessarily, but I don't want to come off as suggesting that the Humanities are useless or worthless.  I don't think this this the case.  What I'm talking about is a getting a terminal degree in the humanities, which I would argue represents exactly the kind of collapse of vocation and utility that you are talking about.  It is a commodity, and you become an extension of that commodity.  It is the story that everyone has been talking about on GradCafe, and in the Chronicle, and everywhere else.  You get utterly dissolved and recast into the mold of your degree - you become an 'expert' in a 'field' and gain some kind of capital, both symbolic and economic (ha-ha) from it.  I'm not a philosopher, and Adorno, Horkheimer, and Marcuse were some time ago for me, but a terminal degree in the Humanities sounds exactly like what they are talking about.  
    So, I think it is one thing to regard the abstract concept of 'critical thinking,' reading about Livonian werewolves, and being sure you understand the difference between Foucault's archaeology and his genealogy as inherently worthwhile.  I still won't agree to them having worth that inheres, because I think that's really a theological argument, and I rightly pass as an atheist.  However, I am glad to give you that argument, as I think it makes sense in a certain way, and I generally find the Frankfurt school convincing, if a bit Freudian for my taste.  What I think needs some consideration is exactly what you identify above, the collapse of vocation and utility that I think is inevitable within a PhD.  You don't need to get into the PhD game to study the humanities, or read good books, or to learn to think critically.  By engaging in a terminal degree, one where you are (hopefully) being paid something, one where your "work" is exactly the reified commodity that you note as a problematic element.  I think the degree is designed to get you to shift your thinking about your vocation as I'm Odysseus-tied-to-the-mast-safely-listening-to-the-siren-call-while-his-men-row-with-their-ears-plugged-to-his-frenetic-cries into commodities of various sorts, be they actual things, like monographs or peer-reviewed articles, or something abstract, like "an original contribution to the field."  
    My posts aren't designed to denigrate the humanities, just the notion that doing your PhD somehow gets you around the utilitarian calculus of homo oeconomicus simply because you are doing what you are passionate about, or feel called to do.  As Žižek so wonderfully puts it, we're all already eating from the trash can all the time. 
  6. Upvote
    doobiebrothers reacted to Joseph45 in you lucky ones   
    This is a nice conversation, all around. I've largely stopped commenting on the cafe, or going to it, but I occasionally surf here in order to remind myself of what it was like to be so excited about applying and getting into a PhD program. (I had quite the difficulty getting into one myself). Just to give people an idea about where I'm coming from, I'm defending in May (at an Ivy).
    First, about the job market. This past year (applications for jobs that will start in the fall) was worse than usual in my field. That said, there were five jobs to which I could apply--one open rank Stanford, another at Yale, another at a small liberal arts that was open field, and then two more regular job openings for assistant profs. I want to stress that I was not limiting myself to elite schools or a specific geography. I applied to every job that was a conceivable fit. (Very religious schools were not an option, but, if you are very religious, that also limits you to a very few set of schools in another way.) All of which is to say, there were basically two jobs in the entire country that were hiring in my area. Think about that for moment. It makes getting into a PhD program looking like a F*%$* joke. Think of all of the people applying for those jobs, from people in the Ivies and Chicago, Duke, Stanford, etc., people who might have inside connections, people at great programs with slightly less prestigious RELS programs (Virginia, UNC, Indiana, Syracuse).
    Also, depending on your field, very few people actually graduate in five years. This means that you're not just sinking five years of your life into a program, you're more likely sinking 6-7 (and many people can't finish, so there's that.) And it's one thing to be okay with doing this when you're younger, un-partnered, without kids--it sounds basically like doing a second round of college. It's exciting, you'll get to read so much. If, however, once you're in your 30s (probably) you might end up married and with one or more kids. Now, all those evenings reading and writing seem so much less exciting and important. They instead feel selfish and somewhat pathetic. At best, you're getting a stipend that covers your living cost. You'll likely run out of that for your last year or two. Your partner has to pay for the rest, and your partner suffers as you read another $Y(**#*() book on that topic that you find so much more important than spending time with him/her or your child(ren) (or at least getting paid).
    Again, it's different for everybody, but there are a lot of high costs that go into getting a PhD.
    Additionally, at this stage, there is passion, but it's not just reading what you want to read. With or without partner and/or kids, it's about producing extremely competent work. (And it will never be good enough.) I appreciate the person (above) who doesn't want to write a book or lecture on a topic without a terminal degree. Chances are, however, that you won't write the book you want or have anybody who wants to listen to you when you do have the terminal degree. You'll be trained so intensely that nobody will want to read the monographs you write, becasue they won't understand what's at stake in the first place. I don't know how to put this without sounding harsh, but it's really not about reading or writing for fun at this stage. There's a very slim bit of scholarship that I find interesting right now. The rest I need to know to properly bolster my arguments, to footnote. And that's the stuff of scholarship. Most of it is pretty pedantic and predictable. Most of the interesting stuff is BS. Even if you publish early, it's still no guarantee of getting a job. You will almost assuredly not present enough, publish enough, or do such outstanding work that you'll feel okay about yourself.
    Again, I don't want to be harsh, dispiriting, or condescending, but, for me, it does not seem like a decision between following my passion for academic quesitons (which I still have) and the job-risk it entails versus just getting a "normal" job, it's that very little of doing good PhD work involves following your passion. It's a job. There are moments of glory. There are good things about it. It's also intensely competitive. Your work will never be good enough. You'll soon see that most of what you read as an M* student was the best of the best in your field--most of the rest of it is sh*t. Then you'll start writing and realize you are part of that sh&t. Then you will start teaching, and you will realize almost none of your students find your area interesting at all. They view you as the enemy, because you are a teacher. They will not read. Even though you thought you would love teaching, you realize it is much harder when the students are not excited to be academics, and they do not care about your field. [or they have the most simplistic understandings of the field, but will not listen to you, even though they've never read so much as a single book on the topic under discussion.]
    And all of this is assuming that your advisor is helpful and supportive, that s/he doesn't leave or retire, or get arrested because he hit a prostitute (true story for a friend of mine). If you have a bad advisor, or even an average one, there are whole other nightmares with that.
    I can't say whether anybody should do a PhD or not. And it's certainly a better experience for some rather than others. What I will argue though, is that it is rarely primarily about pursuing one's academic passions. It's a job at best. You get to read about as much in your area of academic passion as you would if you were outside of the academy. You do have people pushing you on your reading, people who will call out your BS, which does have great advantages, but that's about it from my perspective.
     
  7. Downvote
    doobiebrothers reacted to DaniB23 in Questions for Current PhD Applicants   
    I'm doing this because I'm getting paid good money (considering my cost of living) to do what I enjoy.  I'm fully aware that my options may be limited to instructor, lecturer, or adjunct when I go on the market, and because my passion is teaching, and not driven by a capitalist impulse to excess, I'm completely okay with that.
    Btw- your bitter is showing.
  8. Upvote
    doobiebrothers reacted to js17981 in Questions for Current PhD Applicants   
    Point taken, but then you are being obstinate and foolish in a way that can seriously ruin your life. I'm one of the lucky ones, relatively speaking, and I still feel the need to point this out as an anonymous dissenter on an internet forum. That should tell you something. 
  9. Upvote
    doobiebrothers reacted to js17981 in Questions for Current PhD Applicants   
    This is paranoid, and is also exactly how I responded to these type of threads/articles for the entire time I was in graduate school. 
    The 'why' is simply that because maybe one person will listen, take it to heart, in the way that I wasn't able to, and that most of you don't seem to be able to, either.  
  10. Upvote
    doobiebrothers reacted to js17981 in Questions for Current PhD Applicants   
    Actually it would mean a great deal to me if I were able to convince one person considering this path to choose some other way to spend the next 6-8 years of their life. I really wish someone had tried to convince me of it. 
    Furthermore, I believe that PhD programs are pretty shameful in their inability or unwillingness to address this issue with current and prospective students. Recently I was asked to attend my school's admitted students day (I work as an adjunct at the same school I got my degree from). Couldn't do it in good conscience. By the same token, I can't just sit here silently and watch others walk right into the same disaster that I did. Of course you're free to ignore what I'm saying, but maybe someone else won't. 
    What the person in the 'ponzi scheme' thread was trying to say, it seems to me, is true, and worth considering: These universities will exploit you, and that's all they'll do.
    For what it's worth, I'm going to be fine. I've carved out an alternative path, and my life isn't ruined forever. I'm lucky that I don't have debt. But I regret getting a PhD. The whole system is set up to damage people, and I wish I'd known that going in. 
  11. Upvote
    doobiebrothers reacted to js17981 in Questions for Current PhD Applicants   
    Hey all,
    I just read the "Grad School Ponzi Scheme" thread. To be honest, I haven't visited this site since 2008, when I was applying to grad school. I came here to make a post pretty similar to the OP of that thread. 
    After reading the thread, it's clear that all or most of you understand that there are no tenure track jobs available.
    So rather than post a long rant or plea, I'd like to sincerely know: What is it you all plan to do when you graduate with your PhD? Are you just doing the PhD because it amounts to (paid) time spent pursuing the subject you love? Or do you have career goals for post-graduation that do not involve a tenure-track job? Just genuinely curious to know why you would pursue a PhD knowing that you won't get a tenure track job. Because you won't get a tenure track job. If you're interested in 'alt-ac,' that's something you need to pursue from day one of grad school. It doesn't really work as a plan B. At least it didn't in my experience. 
    I graduated from an English PhD program ranked somewhere between 5-10 last year. Started my PhD in 2009. I was naive and dumb did not do my research then, and the 'crisis in the humanities' wasn't quite as dominant a discourse as it is now. I'm in the process of leaving academia. I spent two years on the job market. This school year, I adjuncted. Adjuncting is a miserable, degrading experience. Since July 2014, I've applied to over 200 tenure-track jobs, and I was invited to zero interviews. During my grad career, I published in top journals and was the instructor of record for multiple classes. My professors told me I would be the exception to the job market rule; that there are some TT jobs, and someone has to get them. Obviously that didn't turn out to be the case. 
    Many of you are making a huge mistake, and it's the same mistake I made.
    "We already know the job market sucks" is, I guess, a response to my point, but then it begs the question of, if you know that, why on earth are you doing this? It seems insanely self-destructive. 
  12. Upvote
    doobiebrothers reacted to AbrasaxEos in you lucky ones   
    @dramos2016, you may be in a slightly better position than some here, in that you will have the academic admin experience that you've cultivated thus far to back you up.  What I mean is that if you spend five or so years doing a PhD, and have great difficulty finding a job, you could probably combine your existing experience (it would be a bit old by then - but unlike tech or something, doing a budget or managing doesn't change drastically in a few years) with the "inside" track you developed via a PhD to find a pretty good alt-ac job. 
    In the interest of full disclosure - I almost finished a PhD, which I started for all the reasons that have been outlined here (almost finished, as in half a dissertation), including that hazy notion of 'fulfillment,' and experienced many of the same things as @doobiebrothers first outlined here.  I just quit though.  I had a lot of cultivated skills that I leveraged to find a new job pretty quickly, and I realized that much of the talk of passion and fulfillment that I bought into and appropriated for my own reasoning was a pretty clever way of masking the operation of robust sunk-cost fallacy that was going on.  I don't actually regret my time in a PhD program, it was fun and interesting.  What I regret is more who I became as part of the process, and the clever excuses I employed for myself and to others as part of the process.  So, I don't blame my program, or my advisors, or that reified thing we call 'academia' because I don't thing blame is really what anyone needs.  What I advocate is something far more positive, which is just the courage on the part of anyone considering this route to be ok with saying no to the whole narrative at any point in the process.
  13. Upvote
    doobiebrothers got a reaction from jenrd in you lucky ones   
    To those who did not get in this year, and who are mourning: you are the lucky ones. Go be with your friends and families, enjoy the sunshine, if you have an alternative path that excites you TAKE IT. Doing this PhD has been a nightmare.  I currently have a 4.0 in one of the top programs in the world, I'm a graduate of a few 'big name' universities and my resume is a fancy piece of shit that looks good to committees, but if I had to do it all over again--knowing then what I know now--I would tell myself to get out of the game, and do literally anything else. I'd rather be cleaning bathrooms at Starbucks (I did it for five years, it is good, honest, physical work.) Academia is a dirty, disgusting game when played at the high (Ivy/flagship) levels; grad school life is beyond isolated, cut-throat, and competitive, and worst of all, what nobody tells you, or they tell you so much but you refuse to believe it: THERE. ARE. NO. JOBS. And the jobs that are there go to one of three types of people: geniuses (which few of us are), the well-connected in academia (ditto), the absurdly lucky (double ditto). Every single friend who is in a PhD (from schools like Yale, Princeton, Harvard, etc) told me that the first year of their PhD was the worst year of their lives. Yup. It is. Please, I beg of you, if you were not accepted this year really take a second look at your job options, your passions, your priorities, and rethink this path. See this website if you want more confirmation, or feel free to pm me--I'm very happy to do for you guys what nobody did for me last year. http://100rsns.blogspot.com/
    If you want to know why I'm sticking with it, its because I'm genuinely in love with the work, and I get to do it on a high level where I'm at. But my life is fading daily, and all that there is now is the work. And honestly, I think that's what academia wants from you--a brain free of soul and bodily distractions. Its a good way to be an academic, but a bad way to be human.
  14. Upvote
    doobiebrothers got a reaction from Paper Moon in you lucky ones   
    Hey! so I wrote the post last night in a REALLY bad place, so first of all, apologies to those who found it condescending. I guess what I was trying to say, but said it in a really bad way, was that I'm not some stupid, unqualified hack (which is honestly how this makes me feel most of the time, and how I'm afraid people will think of me, or already do think of me). Before I started this program, I was a more or less happy, healthy, sane individual, with a lot of love and friendship and support. Like many of you, I honestly believed that this was my passion, and that my dedication to my field would mean something once I entered a PhD program. What I think I said really badly, but still truly believe, is that you do not have to be a martyr to this career choice. This is not the only thing in the world you can do. If you have not yet started, really walk into this with open eyes: it is the dirtiest game I, or anyone I know, has ever played. Perhaps we are the unlucky ones--hence the title of the post. Listen, I'm looking at a group of people who was where I was last year. And if anyone had told me last year how bad things would be now, I hope I would have believed them, and looked for other opportunities. Maybe all of you on this thread are truly cut out for the loneliness, precariousness, pretensions, and vicious competition that this life requires. You have my full admiration. I was very idealistic, and now I had a tough learning experience, and I think last night I wanted to share some of the lessons of the last year. Again, apologies if I did it in a clumsy way.
  15. Upvote
    doobiebrothers got a reaction from dramos2016 in you lucky ones   
    I think you're on the right track to be asking these questions, and I wish I had done so myself before starting. I think your admin-game theory is incredibly intelligent, and if I could go back to last year that's probably the path I would have chosen. Let me ask you, as someone working in admin, are the professors that you meet happy/good/sane people? how are the PhD students? alot also depends on school and department, which people were right to ding me on when I made the first (admittedly hyperbolic post). It may be you will have an exceptional experience at a great school. Its just that I know very few people (maybe 5% of my circle who are doing a PhD) who are thriving in their programs.
  16. Upvote
    doobiebrothers got a reaction from sacklunch in you lucky ones   
    To those who did not get in this year, and who are mourning: you are the lucky ones. Go be with your friends and families, enjoy the sunshine, if you have an alternative path that excites you TAKE IT. Doing this PhD has been a nightmare.  I currently have a 4.0 in one of the top programs in the world, I'm a graduate of a few 'big name' universities and my resume is a fancy piece of shit that looks good to committees, but if I had to do it all over again--knowing then what I know now--I would tell myself to get out of the game, and do literally anything else. I'd rather be cleaning bathrooms at Starbucks (I did it for five years, it is good, honest, physical work.) Academia is a dirty, disgusting game when played at the high (Ivy/flagship) levels; grad school life is beyond isolated, cut-throat, and competitive, and worst of all, what nobody tells you, or they tell you so much but you refuse to believe it: THERE. ARE. NO. JOBS. And the jobs that are there go to one of three types of people: geniuses (which few of us are), the well-connected in academia (ditto), the absurdly lucky (double ditto). Every single friend who is in a PhD (from schools like Yale, Princeton, Harvard, etc) told me that the first year of their PhD was the worst year of their lives. Yup. It is. Please, I beg of you, if you were not accepted this year really take a second look at your job options, your passions, your priorities, and rethink this path. See this website if you want more confirmation, or feel free to pm me--I'm very happy to do for you guys what nobody did for me last year. http://100rsns.blogspot.com/
    If you want to know why I'm sticking with it, its because I'm genuinely in love with the work, and I get to do it on a high level where I'm at. But my life is fading daily, and all that there is now is the work. And honestly, I think that's what academia wants from you--a brain free of soul and bodily distractions. Its a good way to be an academic, but a bad way to be human.
  17. Downvote
    doobiebrothers reacted to theophany in you lucky ones   
    I want to echo @sport01, and say that the OP's experience is not generalizable to how everyone experiences a PhD program. Most mornings, I wake up and count my lucky stars that I am able to read, think, write, and talk about things that interest and matter to me deeply. 
    That is the point of doing a PhD. I was told as by a professor as an undergraduate that the point of doing a PhD is to get a PhD, not to get a job. Jobs are not promised you. They never have been. If you think it would be a waste of time to do a PhD if you don't have a job on the other side, then you are likely in it for all the wrong reasons. Those reasons will not tide you over when the going will inevitably get tough. But if there are books that you want to read that haven't yet been read, questions that keep you up at night, conversations that need to be had that are not—those are the things that can get you through. That is not to say that you shouldn't prepare for the job market as you go, that you shouldn't actively pursue opportunities to set you up best for when you do. But don't think that even getting a job is going to suddenly be a utopian existence: assistant professors have teach full loads, meet with students, serve on faculty committees, revise their dissertations for publication, write an entirely new book and get it published (not to mention a major article per year, at least), and so on, in order to even qualify for tenure. This is a marathon, not a sprint.
    Of course, you need to be in therapy from day 1; if you have a spiritual practice, you should make space for and cultivate it diligently; you should work out—you have to make sure that you maintain yourself as a human. If you don't, academia will grind you down faster than you can blink. But then again, so will the corporate world. If you've done all that and you're still miserable, then you should have the courage to walk away. Part of this is just being a grown-up, and taking accountability over your own life.
     
  18. Upvote
    doobiebrothers reacted to sport01 in you lucky ones   
    I'm sorry to hear how difficult this year has been for you, and I do agree that it is really crucial to look into one's options. Academia can suck, as the burgeoning genre of quit-lit tells us. 
    But, just to even out the stories here, I'm in my first year at a top-tier program after a couple years waffling back and forth about whether to choose this path, including a stint in 'the real world.' I love it. It is really hard. It requires therapy. It sucks your soul if you let it. But I am happy - happier than usual, even! - and I think(?) my soul is intact. I guess I wouldn't know if it wasn't...? But I've been reading the Chronicle of Higher Ed since I was a freshman in college, so I was expecting the worst, and this isn't it (yet! much time ahead).
    I hope that posting this doesn't come across as trying to invalidate your experience. Academia's MO is to grind your ego into sand and see if you reintegrate in its image. And it does its job really well. It can suck. :/
  19. Upvote
    doobiebrothers reacted to emmm in you lucky ones   
    @nevermind -- You are right about rejection, and I agree that hearing from someone who has what you want saying it's not worth it, etc. is not going to help at all. But I also assumed the intent behind the post was good. It can be especially hard being in a grad program that is making you miserable. You know you're "lucky" to have the opportunity, which can make things feel even worse and make it hard to move on to something else (even if that might be best). There are so many variables, however, that yyou really can't generalize from someone else's experience -- yours could be completely different. So, I would never discourage anyone from going after their own goals. For people who did not get accepted this round, I would probably recommend trying again, and doing whatever possible to present an even stronger application the second time.
  20. Upvote
    doobiebrothers reacted to marXian in Comparative Religion   
    You're likely not going to find people at any of the big name schools who are going to be interested in a "straightforward" comparative project--especially one comparing Christianity to anything. 
    That's not to say a project like that is completely outside the realm of possibility but here are a few things you need to get abreast of as soon as possible:
    1) The history of the academic study of religion (especially in the beginning at the turn of the 20th century) is fraught with instances of lots of well-meaning Christians trying to understand other religions "objectively" but just end up inscribing Christian categories onto them. An emphasis on "interiority" or interior, ineffable experience is an example of that. The heyday of comparative projects (~1940-70) is a period that a great many contemporary scholars of religion would like to pave over and forget about and its main figures (esp. Mircea Eliade) are used as foils to symbolize all that is wrong with religious studies. You're going to need to show an awareness of this history and explain why what you're doing is different in your SOP. So if you're not familiar with this history, you'd be wise to start familiarizing yourself with it now.
    2) People who study Buddhism or Islam in RS departments typically know Chinese, Japanese, or Tibetan, etc. (for Buddhism), Arabic (or other languages depending on the region for Islam) and, depending on the time period they're studying, they know the classical/medieval versions of those languages. So, for example, if you wanted to compare Zen Buddhism with some period of Christianity and you didn't know any Japanese, no one would take your engagement with Zen Buddhism seriously, and instead, they'd probably see you as part of the above problem (a Christian understanding Buddhism through Christian categories.)
    3) I say these things to either help steer you in the right preparatory direction for RS programs or toward a theology program/theology track where this kind of thing seems to be more common. Lots of people with MDivs go into religious studies departments. But your success is going to depend largely on your expectations of what is feasible and what's not. 
    I would add Iowa to the above suggestions. I met a student from there a few years ago doing comparative theology (Catholic theology and Buddhism). 
  21. Upvote
    doobiebrothers got a reaction from dramos2016 in you lucky ones   
    To those who did not get in this year, and who are mourning: you are the lucky ones. Go be with your friends and families, enjoy the sunshine, if you have an alternative path that excites you TAKE IT. Doing this PhD has been a nightmare.  I currently have a 4.0 in one of the top programs in the world, I'm a graduate of a few 'big name' universities and my resume is a fancy piece of shit that looks good to committees, but if I had to do it all over again--knowing then what I know now--I would tell myself to get out of the game, and do literally anything else. I'd rather be cleaning bathrooms at Starbucks (I did it for five years, it is good, honest, physical work.) Academia is a dirty, disgusting game when played at the high (Ivy/flagship) levels; grad school life is beyond isolated, cut-throat, and competitive, and worst of all, what nobody tells you, or they tell you so much but you refuse to believe it: THERE. ARE. NO. JOBS. And the jobs that are there go to one of three types of people: geniuses (which few of us are), the well-connected in academia (ditto), the absurdly lucky (double ditto). Every single friend who is in a PhD (from schools like Yale, Princeton, Harvard, etc) told me that the first year of their PhD was the worst year of their lives. Yup. It is. Please, I beg of you, if you were not accepted this year really take a second look at your job options, your passions, your priorities, and rethink this path. See this website if you want more confirmation, or feel free to pm me--I'm very happy to do for you guys what nobody did for me last year. http://100rsns.blogspot.com/
    If you want to know why I'm sticking with it, its because I'm genuinely in love with the work, and I get to do it on a high level where I'm at. But my life is fading daily, and all that there is now is the work. And honestly, I think that's what academia wants from you--a brain free of soul and bodily distractions. Its a good way to be an academic, but a bad way to be human.
  22. Upvote
    doobiebrothers reacted to juilletmercredi in Advice to your past self!   
    Honestly, I'm not sure I would tell past-me to go to a PhD program, if I had the chance.
    Assuming that I would, though, I would tell past-me to apply to more PhD programs. I only applied to one, because I was afraid I wouldn't be competitive anywhere (I was planning to get a master's first).
    I'd also tell past me to take 2-3 years off after undergrad and before graduate school to work in my chosen field (public health). I think then past-me would've had a better handle on her own research interests and been better prepared to hit the ground running in graduate school wrt publications.
  23. Upvote
    doobiebrothers got a reaction from neat in you lucky ones   
    Hey! so I wrote the post last night in a REALLY bad place, so first of all, apologies to those who found it condescending. I guess what I was trying to say, but said it in a really bad way, was that I'm not some stupid, unqualified hack (which is honestly how this makes me feel most of the time, and how I'm afraid people will think of me, or already do think of me). Before I started this program, I was a more or less happy, healthy, sane individual, with a lot of love and friendship and support. Like many of you, I honestly believed that this was my passion, and that my dedication to my field would mean something once I entered a PhD program. What I think I said really badly, but still truly believe, is that you do not have to be a martyr to this career choice. This is not the only thing in the world you can do. If you have not yet started, really walk into this with open eyes: it is the dirtiest game I, or anyone I know, has ever played. Perhaps we are the unlucky ones--hence the title of the post. Listen, I'm looking at a group of people who was where I was last year. And if anyone had told me last year how bad things would be now, I hope I would have believed them, and looked for other opportunities. Maybe all of you on this thread are truly cut out for the loneliness, precariousness, pretensions, and vicious competition that this life requires. You have my full admiration. I was very idealistic, and now I had a tough learning experience, and I think last night I wanted to share some of the lessons of the last year. Again, apologies if I did it in a clumsy way.
  24. Downvote
    doobiebrothers got a reaction from neat in you lucky ones   
    To those who did not get in this year, and who are mourning: you are the lucky ones. Go be with your friends and families, enjoy the sunshine, if you have an alternative path that excites you TAKE IT. Doing this PhD has been a nightmare.  I currently have a 4.0 in one of the top programs in the world, I'm a graduate of a few 'big name' universities and my resume is a fancy piece of shit that looks good to committees, but if I had to do it all over again--knowing then what I know now--I would tell myself to get out of the game, and do literally anything else. I'd rather be cleaning bathrooms at Starbucks (I did it for five years, it is good, honest, physical work.) Academia is a dirty, disgusting game when played at the high (Ivy/flagship) levels; grad school life is beyond isolated, cut-throat, and competitive, and worst of all, what nobody tells you, or they tell you so much but you refuse to believe it: THERE. ARE. NO. JOBS. And the jobs that are there go to one of three types of people: geniuses (which few of us are), the well-connected in academia (ditto), the absurdly lucky (double ditto). Every single friend who is in a PhD (from schools like Yale, Princeton, Harvard, etc) told me that the first year of their PhD was the worst year of their lives. Yup. It is. Please, I beg of you, if you were not accepted this year really take a second look at your job options, your passions, your priorities, and rethink this path. See this website if you want more confirmation, or feel free to pm me--I'm very happy to do for you guys what nobody did for me last year. http://100rsns.blogspot.com/
    If you want to know why I'm sticking with it, its because I'm genuinely in love with the work, and I get to do it on a high level where I'm at. But my life is fading daily, and all that there is now is the work. And honestly, I think that's what academia wants from you--a brain free of soul and bodily distractions. Its a good way to be an academic, but a bad way to be human.
  25. Upvote
    doobiebrothers reacted to AbrasaxEos in you lucky ones   
    For all the questioning of essentialism, inherent worthiness (i.e. sacrality), and claims of authenticity on the part of their objects of study the reasons for doing a PhD remain curiously sacrosanct among those in the academic study of religion. 
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