US vs UK PhD Programmes - employment prospects?

[onerepublic96]

Hi! I'm an American student about to start an MA in modern and contemporary literature at one of the top universities in the UK. Since it's a one-year programme, I'm also starting to make plans for transitioning to PhD (hopefully entering in the fall of 2020). I'm researching universities both in the US and in the UK, and so far I'm finding UK programmes to be more attractive for me (a major factor is the shorter completion time due to the ability to specialise right away instead of spending 2 years studying a broad range of periods and disciplines). However, I'm a little confused as to how a UK PhD (or DPhil) will look, as opposed to a US one, when it's time to apply for jobs in the US. I'm painfully aware of the current state of the academic job market, of course, but it would be nice to maximise my chances of employment (and perhaps the quality of said employment)... My main concern is whether US universities may consider the relative lack of breadth of the UK programmes in any way a detriment to my application. Does anyone here have experience with navigating this transition between UK training and US employment? 

 

Edited July 16, 2018 by onerepublic96

[Warelin]

It's always easier to get a job from the country where one earns their Ph.D. from.

The USA considers teaching to be of considerable importance when entering the job market. You'll rarely find a Ph.D. degree in the UK which has teaching in it. The lack of teaching makes it hard to be taken seriously by the majority of colleges because 90-95% of American Colleges are teaching-focused. The 5-10 percent of colleges that aren't teaching-focused are schools that are R1 colleges. A tenure track position is hard to obtain at any college. But when a job opens at an R1 school, they receive several hundred applications from people who graduated from an R1 college. Most of these applicants have spent years engaging in research, attending conferences with some members on faculty, learning their way of how to publish in high-impact journals and some may already have jobs at lesser-known institutions.

[Indecisive Poet]

I'm curious where you'll be (though no need to share if you don't want to). I am also undertaking a 1-year MA in the UK beginning this fall and planning to apply to PhD programs for fall 2020.

The reason UK DPhils are only 3 years long is that UK students specialize in undergrad (and really even before this because of the A-Levels system). Unlike myself, who took general ed courses and generally messed around in undergrad before I figured out what I wanted to do (and even then didn't take that many literature courses), UK students have been taking intensive literature courses and generally only intensive literature courses since day one of undergrad. The learning system encourages very focused knowledge of the areas crucial to graduate school and it encourages that they choose and hone in on their area of specialty by the third year. This is especially true of students coming from Oxbridge; their personal tutor system (in place of what I think are rather useless undergrad discussion classes & seminars) and the intensity of work that comes with it ensures that they're extraordinarily well-versed in research and secondary literature (not to mention primary literature) and are operating at the graduate level by the time they leave university.

Then -- and here's the big difference between US and UK graduate school in English, though you may well already know this -- all hopeful graduate students in the UK complete some type of terminal MA. This is usually taught but with a dissertation component, like the programs you and I are doing. Some of them then go on to an MPhil after that, though not all of them, and then they go on to do the DPhil.

All this to say the reason the DPhil is much shorter and is pure research is that by the time UK students arrive to do it, they've already completed the coursework that the US PhD requires in its first 2 years. Most US students will not be prepared to jump into a UK DPhil -- it's the equivalent of being thrown into a US PhD during year 3 or 4. I was told by a very distinguished professor at my undergrad (which is a top 15 program) that he attempted to do just an MPhil at Cambridge (and he only got in because he wrote them letters about why he was able to do it even though he hadn't already done a significant research degree) and he felt wildly underprepared, having underestimated completely what it would be like.

I will also second @Warelin's advice. I have been told by most every faculty member I've talked to that a UK DPhil is not seen by hiring committees as the equivalent of a US PhD. A lot of this has to do with the lack of teaching component in the UK (it will be very difficult to get a job in the US without prior teaching experience), but there are other things missing from the UK DPhil that are frankly expected of any recent PhD in the US. UK (and most other European) DPhil programs are incredibly independent. There is minimal one-on-one support, minimal job market preparation, in most places no encouragement or preparation for conferences and generally no funding for them, and little preparation or encouragement in the way of applying for external (or internal) fellowships. US PhDs offer much more support, in short, but support in areas that are really crucial to the candidate's CV and job market-readiness.

Also, I'm not sure what your financial situation is like, but UK DPhils also very, very rarely fund US students. You would need to find external funding. And things like Marshall scholarships are not available to students who have already spent a year or more studying in the UK.

If your eventual goal is to do your post-doc in the UK and look for positions there, a UK DPhil might not be a bad idea. But these universities (like all other industries) will also generally favor candidates they don't have to sponsor for a visa, unless you have a strong connection there already.

You might also scout around some US faculty CVs at different programs and see where they've gotten their PhDs from. There are definitely more than a few UK degrees in there, but you'll also notice that most of those people are British. I don't believe it is very common for a US citizen to train in the UK and then return to the US for a university position, but maybe consider reaching out to those that have to see if they have an opinion to offer.

Personally, I think the UK terminal MA presents an ideal opportunity for those (like me) who went through undergrad not knowing graduate school would be the next step. It's a great way to work out your research interests and beef up your stats for PhD admissions. Because of it and before even starting it I am hopeful about my chances in the 2020 cycle but if I were applying to PhD programs straight from undergrad I know 100% not a single program would have accepted me. That said, I'll definitely be limiting myself to programs in the US for 2020.

Edited July 17, 2018 by indecisivepoet

[merry night wanderer]

@indecisivepoet: Do they fund terminal MAs? 

[Indecisive Poet]

@merry night wanderer Nope, also very rare.