Accepted, but now reality has set in

[jth]

Wondering if anyone else is feeling the same way:

I've spent three years getting my MA, all the while praying that I would get into a PhD program at the end of it. I had listened to all the warnings from my profs about the horrible job market, having to chase jobs all around the country, the extended poverty, the grueling workload--all of it. But in the excitement of applying I brushed aside all of those warnings. After I applied and time started to pass, a couple of things happened. 1) I really really liked not being a student anymore. Weekends were free to do whatever I pleased, I came home from work and rather than study I was able to go to movies, surf, read fiction--all guilt free. 2) When mid-February rolled around and no word had come in from potential PhD programs I assumed that I was not getting in anywhere. And shockingly, I began to happily plan for the future. The idea of beginning the rest of my life now, not in 5 years, was a liberating thought.

So now I have three weeks to decide to accept my offers, but I am terribly conflicted. On the one hand, the prestige of the PhD, the possibility of an academic job in a pleasant setting, and the culmination of my academic journey sound pretty good. On the other hand, I love living in California, and I (and my girlfriend) will likely never be able to live here again after I finish school and look for jobs all over the country. My girlfriend will have to accept living anywhere I can get work, and she has life and career aspirations of her own that don't involve living in the midwest or the northeast.

Am I the only one here that didn't react the way they assumed they would once they received acceptances?

[dflanagan]

Wondering if anyone else is feeling the same way:

I've spent three years getting my MA, all the while praying that I would get into a PhD program at the end of it. I had listened to all the warnings from my profs about the horrible job market, having to chase jobs all around the country, the extended poverty, the grueling workload--all of it. But in the excitement of applying I brushed aside all of those warnings. After I applied and time started to pass, a couple of things happened. 1) I really really liked not being a student anymore. Weekends were free to do whatever I pleased, I came home from work and rather than study I was able to go to movies, surf, read fiction--all guilt free. 2) When mid-February rolled around and no word had come in from potential PhD programs I assumed that I was not getting in anywhere. And shockingly, I began to happily plan for the future. The idea of beginning the rest of my life now, not in 5 years, was a liberating thought.

So now I have three weeks to decide to accept my offers, but I am terribly conflicted. On the one hand, the prestige of the PhD, the possibility of an academic job in a pleasant setting, and the culmination of my academic journey sound pretty good. On the other hand, I love living in California, and I (and my girlfriend) will likely never be able to live here again after I finish school and look for jobs all over the country. My girlfriend will have to accept living anywhere I can get work, and she has life and career aspirations of her own that don't involve living in the midwest or the northeast.

Am I the only one here that didn't react the way they assumed they would once they received acceptances?

Freaking out about the job market in European history. It's keeping me up nights. I won't turn down my offers, but I am losing morale dishearteningly swiftly.

[StrangeLight]

man... i miss surfing. and the pacific. a lot. it hurts my heart. i wasn't expecting to feel this way when i moved out to the rust belt. i also miss weekends. stopping work at 5 pm. not making notes in the margins of everything i read. i totally empathize with your situation. the feeling you're having now is the exact reason i walked away from a masters in journalism a few years ago. i applied for a PhD not completely realizing that the job market and the hours, even as a professor, are pretty much identical.

[breakfast]

I think everyone goes through the same thing you're feeling (or at least they should, if they're in the humanities). When I get nervous about what I'm doing/my future, I just remind myself of the following:

-I hate hate hate where I live. I've been wanting to get out my whole life, and this is my chance.

-I'm not going to have to spend any of my own money to do this and I don't have to take out any loans.

If I can't find a job after my PhD, I will be in no worse shape than I am now - unemployed and unable to find a job. So I'm going to see where my life takes me, and hopefully stop worrying so much about the future.

[limeinthecoconut]

Thankfully, I hate my day job. And it does help that I have been told repeatedly that I'll be graduating into no job prospects, so I am mentally prepared to take some job outside of academia.