Very Sound Advice on Academia (sharing from the Poli-Sci Forum)

[Chuck]

Having worked in academia for a number of years, I find the following text quite useful. It's from a professor and long time contributor to the Political Science forum, "The Realist"

I'm copying his/her words directly from this post.

Though the advice is for Poli Sci applicants, I think it applies across the social sciences. Just substitute "Sociology" for "Poli Sci", and perhaps "Top 15" or "Top 10" where it says "Top 25." Sigh.

This is reality, folks. We may know in our hearts that it's where we need to be, but grad school is far from glamorous, a sure bet, or an unequivocal good idea.

____________________

"I am a tenured associate prof in political science at a large state university. Around this time in the application season, I can't help but think about all the things that I wish that I had known before entering my PhD program. I posted this several years ago under the screen name "realist" when I first learned about this forum from a senior applying to PhD programs. Two years ago I posted it again. Now it's time for the third generation.

I've made a couple small changes from the original version but this is basically the same as what I wrote the two times before. While some of this may be hard to read, I offer it as-is, with only the thought that more knowledge is better than less knowledge.

I. Choosing Graduate School

Your graduate school choice is probably the most important choice that you'll make in your career. Do not take this lightly. There are many reasons, but they boil down to some uncomfortable truths.

The most important one is that only the best departments (say, the top 25) can reliably place students in academic jobs. And even among these "top" departments, less than half can expect to find themselves employed in a tenure-track position within 8 years of matriculation. While there are thousands of colleges in the United States, there are many many many thousand more political science PhDs. 5-7 years is a very long time to spend in a low-paying job (which is what graduate school is) only to realize that you have very little chance for promotion. Is it fair that this is the case? No. Are there very smart graduate students that are not at top departments? Absolutely, there are literally thousands of them. But this is how the world works. And you have no chance to change it from "the inside" unless you are already at a top department.

You should also be aware that advisers are fickle beings. Especially outside of the top institutions, they are busy and pressed for time, and they cannot offer you the type of guidance and support that you may believe that you are going to get. I had a very close relationship with a very influential adviser, and saw him for about 10 minutes once every two or three weeks. This is the norm. Do not assume or expect that you will have a different experience (although there is a chance that you will). Moreover, good scholars are often terrible advisers. I think that one of the worst aspects of our profession is that at middle-range departments, top scholars often will not even acknowledge graduate students.

You should also be aware that graduate school is an unequal partnership between students, who receive very little and give very much, and faculty, who have many other things to do but rely on students to do things that are in the university's best interests. Graduate students are (1) essentially powerless and (2) extremely cheap labor. Universities have an incentive to keep a lot of graduate students around to fill instructor slots and TAships. This means that they will keep on a lot of graduate students who will never have a chance at a tenure-ladder job. This is a pathological system of incentives, and I find it repugnant, but this is the reality.

So what sort of advice does this lead me to give? First off, above and beyond almost anything, you need to go to the best possible graduate school. It doesn't matter if you don't like Ann Arbor as much as Athens or Austin, graduate school matters tremendously for your future ability to get a job. It's not that hiring committees care exclusively about pedigree, although that does indeed matter to many people. Rather, the reason why you need to go to the best possible graduate program is because you need to surround yourselves with the smartest and most motivated students possible, because you will do most of your learning from them. You also need to surround yourself with the faculty who have been judged by the discipline as having the best reputations and connections. Those things are highly, highly correlated with the "rank" of the graduate program.

As a corollary, you need to think long and hard about graduate school if you do not have the opportunity to go to a top one. You should understand that even if you do, you may not have a good chance of landing a tenure track job. The ones available to you, moreover, will likely be at "directional institutions" (think Northern X State) or small, low-ranked liberal arts colleges in the middle of nowhere. Even there, you will be competing with Harvard and Berkeley PhDs for a job. It's hard. It's not as hard as English or History, but nevertheless it's really hard. You should know this and plan accordingly.

The academic job market has gotten much harder in the four years since I first wrote this. There are thousands of students right now chasing a couple hundred jobs, and every year it gets worse because most people who strike out in one year go back on the job market the next year. Do not assume that the academic job market will get easier in 5-7 years, when you are going onto the job market. First, there will still be a substantial backlog of unplaced PhDs. Second, trends in academia are leading to more adjunct and lecturer positions and fewer tenure-track positions in all but the very best schools (and it's starting to happen there too). The number of tenure track assistant professor positions in political science listed on APSA's eJobs site has dropped from around 700 per year in the early 2000s to about 450 in 2010. I would not still be in academia if I didn't have a tenure-track job.

Let's say you don't want to go be professor. Maybe you want to work in a think tank or a political consultancy. OK, fair enough: but in this case, I would recommend against getting a PhD in political science. There is little that you can gain from a PhD in political science that a think tank will find attractive that you cannot also have gotten from a good MPA/MPP/etc. program. Outside of academia, the PhD has little value-added over most professional masters degrees. Given the opportunity cost, the only people who should get PhDs in political science are people who have a passion for college teaching, or those who have a passion for academic research and who are willing to settle for college teaching if the academic research thing doesn't work out.

Do not choose graduate school based on one individual who you "want to work with." Instead, you should choose the best program (by subfield) that you can. Why? Let's say that you identify one faculty member whose research interests match yours perfectly. For this to be the person upon whom you rely for your entire PhD course of study, it must be the case that (1) your research interests don't change (which is rare), (2) that your potential adviser is a nice and approachable person (which is about a 50-50 shot to be honest), (3) that your own research is interesting to that potential adviser (which you should not assume, regardless of what is said on recruitment weekend), and (4) that that adviser doesn't leave (which is common, especially for productive faculty at top-50-ish departments). If you chose a program based on that individual and any of these don't work out, you're in trouble. If you've chosen the best program, you'll be OK because there are other options; if you've banked on one faculty member, you're out of luck.

You should be flattered by faculty who are nice and approachable during recruitment weekend. But recruitment weekend is not like the other 51 weekends a year. Remember, faculty are approachable during recruitment because you provide them with an unlimited supply of discount labor. They have their own worries and incentives, and these rarely align with yours.

Likewise, funding matters. You should not go to graduate school unless you have full fellowships (teaching or otherwise) for five years and a stipend large enough to live on. Without these, graduate school is a long and expensive process with little reward. There is a constant demand for doctors, so doctors can pay for medical school and still come out ahead. $200,000 in debt and only qualified for a very low paying job is a terrible situation that many PhDs find themselves in.

It is tempting to think that a potential adviser's kind words mean that you are special. You are special, but so are many many others. Wherever you are, you will likely not even be the smartest or most successful member of your cohort. Do not fool yourself into thinking that you are the one who will buck the trends that I have described. It's just not likely.

Finally, I have made a big point about top 25 schools. We all know that Stanford is and Purdue isn't, but what's the definitive list? Simply put, if you have to ask, your school is not in the top 25. And of course subfield matters more than overall ranking. Emory is not a top-25 theory department so think long and hard about going there for theory. JHU is not a top-25 American politics department but it's a different story altogether for political theory. If you need to convince yourself that your program is a top-25 program, it's almost certainly not.

II. Your Career

If you decide to go to graduate school, congratulations. I mean this sincerely. You are embarking on the most intellectually rewarding period of your life. Of course, intellectually and financially rewarding are not the same, but given this choice, here are some tipcs. The best political scientists are the following five things: smart, creative, diligent, honest, and nice. Smart is obvious. The rest are not.

The best political scientists are creative. They look at old problems in new ways, or they find new problems to look at. A good way to land a middling job (or no job) is to find a marginal improvement on an existing estimator, or take lessons from Paraguay and apply them to Uruguay. The best political scientists ask new questions, and they find new things to estimate.

The best political scientists are diligent. They think about problems for years and years, they rewrite their draft papers repeatedly, they collect giant datasets from scratch, and they go into the field, learn the language, and stay there until they have learned something. There are no quick research trips, there are no obvious philosophical points, and there are no downloadable datasets left to analyze for easy and quick results.

The best political scientists are honest. There are many points at which you might fudge your work: creating a new dataset fromscratch, during fieldwork, in writing up your results. You will be astounded at how frequent this is in our profession. Don't do it, for it always hurts you in the end. Being wrong and honest about it is OK. Being wrong and hiding it never works.

Finally, the best political scientists are nice. It is tempting to be prickly to make yourself seem smart or to protect your ego. But the same person you criticize today might be in a position to give you a job tomorrow. As they say, make your words soft and sweet, for you never know when you may have to eat them.

************

I hope this helps you all. I wish you the very best of luck with your careers."

[kbirch]

Wow. Ouch.

[SocHope]

I agree that a lot of what is written above would apply to sociology as well. The only thing I would somewhat disagree with is that PhD has no added value outside of academia. I think there are a lot of research organizations and think tanks that expect their researchers to have a PhD. The only exception would be folks who have years and years of field and research experience. A PhD can sometimes be a (semi) fast track to a senior-level research/policy position outside of academia for sociology graduates.

[Supernovasky]

What the OP is missing is that I am not in this hunt for the money, or the debt, or the jobs...

I'm in it because I actually truly do care for the discipline of sociology and seek to know people and how they interact as closely as possible.

[Supernovasky]

Put it this way. I can be 200k in debt and go bankrupt, but if I have a PhD and can do research, I'll be happy.

[unitname]

Reading this article was pointless. All I left with was feelings of negativity. My life will be what I make it, I don't care what a disgruntled PhD says.

Thanks for sharing though =)

[kbirch]

I totally agree, Supernova!

This article also made me feel down. Blech - I'm not ready to think about the fact that I might not get a job, on top of worrying about even getting in!

[sociology27]

It's a very practical way of looking at graduate school, a cost/benefit analysis that quantifies the whole endeavor. The problem is this: what about the non-quantifiable? (gasp!!) There is another way of looking at obtaining a PhD that is both more comforting and more applicable to myself. As someone who studies social theory, and intent on bringing deep philosophical questions into my research, I see these 5-7 years as an opportunity to explore the issues most elemental and important to my existence as a human being. This might seem grandiose, but I don't believe it is. How many people really get to spend large chunks of time thinking HARD about structure/agency, death, nationality, individuality, capitalism, materialism, the possibility of society, the structures of language, the pauses and power plays in basic conversation? Maybe I can't sell what I learn in the marketplace. Maybe I'll toil in a lecture position for decades and people will take coffee breaks when it's my turn to speak at a conference. But I'll have been given the time, opportunity, and guidance to explore the big questions surrounding our existences, individual consciousnesses, and socially constituted worlds. And that's an opportunity most people don't get (maybe most people don't want?) I just don't want to sit during my old age and then start thinking about these things, start questioning what the hell it was that I experienced, what is it that I am, and what is it that I might be after death. I'm young, unemployed, curious, and mentally healthy right now. So if all I get out of the next 6 years is a little closer to the answers to some of these questions, graduate school will have been worth it for me.

And if I don't... well, at least I can die knowing I was heading for shore (ray bradbury reference, anyone?).

[SocHope]

Not to hijack the conversation or stir up a hornet's nest, but I'm truly curious, how many of you are 100% certain that 1) you'll actually get to do the research you WANT to do and 2) you'll have the opportunity to do so?

It's all well and good to have something you are passionate about and would dearly love to research, but research costs money. Even if you accept a piddling salary, there are other costs involved in research - data collection, entry, and analysis, IRB, site visit costs, incentives, etc. that make it almost impossible to do acceptable research without funds. Whether you work in academia or in a private setting, what you research in your field can be very much determined by what government, corporations, and foundations are willing to fund - and they have their own agenda.

I'm not trying to be negative, and I know I can be quite a cynic, but I think there is enough collective wisdom in this board that we shouldn't discount these realistic assessments of just how hard pursuing a career in research can be.

[ThisSlumgullionIsSoVapid]

It's a very practical way of looking at graduate school, a cost/benefit analysis that quantifies the whole endeavor. The problem is this: what about the non-quantifiable? (gasp!!) There is another way of looking at obtaining a PhD that is both more comforting and more applicable to myself. As someone who studies social theory, and intent on bringing deep philosophical questions into my research, I see these 5-7 years as an opportunity to explore the issues most elemental and important to my existence as a human being. This might seem grandiose, but I don't believe it is. How many people really get to spend large chunks of time thinking HARD about structure/agency, death, nationality, individuality, capitalism, materialism, the possibility of society, the structures of language, the pauses and power plays in basic conversation? Maybe I can't sell what I learn in the marketplace. Maybe I'll toil in a lecture position for decades and people will take coffee breaks when it's my turn to speak at a conference. But I'll have been given the time, opportunity, and guidance to explore the big questions surrounding our existences, individual consciousnesses, and socially constituted worlds. And that's an opportunity most people don't get (maybe most people don't want?) I just don't want to sit during my old age and then start thinking about these things, start questioning what the hell it was that I experienced, what is it that I am, and what is it that I might be after death. I'm young, unemployed, curious, and mentally healthy right now. So if all I get out of the next 6 years is a little closer to the answers to some of these questions, graduate school will have been worth it for me.

And if I don't... well, at least I can die knowing I was heading for shore (ray bradbury reference, anyone?).

[abc123xtc]

I found this post helpful, but now I feel quite doubtful about my future... What other jobs in academia can you do with a PhD in sociology?

[sciencegirl]

I hate to come off as annoying in this situation, as everything people have said already is very commendable. I will however just add that one of the most memorable conversations I have ever had was when I was considering a phD and one of my masters advisors had an amazing heart to heart with me. She said "Listen, it's clear that you have a passion for academia and for your intellectual interests, but your goal needs to be doing everything you want to do, and not being poor. You can have a very rewarding life, both financially and academically - but don't get caught thinking its a decision between one or another. Otherwise you will be trapped trying to always fulfill what you want while being held back by not having the finances. Don't get a phD if you can't start thinking as if you will be a success in both. Almost everyone who has been a success in academia has believed in themselves that they can and will be able to do both."

The main message to me was to go after both a stellar academic career, and a great tenure track teaching/research job. To stop being high and mighty with the whole "I am only in this for the academic reward" - as almost everyone in grad school has this. But also be conscious that you need the financial part to work if you are going to keep doing the research you want to do.

After this conversation, my attitude really changed about going to graduate school - I still wanted to go, but it was more about the big picture, the whole process, and not just about "doing research that to me was amazing and meaningful regardless if I'm poor and don't get paid." I began to see how in some ways this is a destructive and almost self-fulfilling prophecy-type of thinking.

Sorry to be somewhat an a-hole in saying this and to ruin the spirit of this thread, but my go-get-em thinking has really changed my outlook and confidence in this really really crazy journey and someone else might also find this message helpful.

[SocHope]

Sorry to be somewhat an a-hole in saying this and to ruin the spirit of this thread, but my go-get-em thinking has really changed my outlook and confidence in this really really crazy journey and someone else might also find this message helpful.

I don't think you're coming off as an a-hole. And I think you're spot-on - do what you love, but don't kid yourself in thinking that that's enough to sustain you in a healthy and happy way. My take, anyway.

[abc123xtc]

@sciencegirl

Part of the reason I decided to pursue a graduate degree is that all of the great academics have started where we are now. Even if it's a long and hard process (and hopefully rewarding), you never know where you will be unless you try. Whether or not you get a job on a tenure-track, at least you gave it a try and hopefully had a good time of it.

[maximus82]

I think it's kind of cute how people think that graduate school is about doing research an the life of the mind and being an intellectual... it isn't.

Yes you get to do this things, but i would say that's only 20% (and that's being optimistic) of what you do. you also have to teach (many times classes you don't even like) and you have to RA for projects you don't care about and you have to take classes you don't give a crap about.

[sociology27]

It's not about being an "intellectual" or living a "life of the mind." I'm not being cute. I'm appreciating the material benefits of going to graduate school and recognizing the privilege of someone paying me to study things I will be studying anyway. I think I just conceptualize "material" differently than you do. I'm not some idealist who thinks they're going to be showered with cash because they like Kant or Foucault. But time itself is valuable, and as much as grad students love to complain about how busy they are, they're still given more time to think about these issues (and more incentive) than are other people. If you start to view schooling and education as a means to an end, then you'll start viewing research in the same way. Sadly, in my opinion, too many people have taken this perspective. So we arrive at a academic environment that's more concerned with status and privilege than openness and conversation. I don't believe in the pure intellectual or any such nonsense. I just think that you should do what you love for as long as you can. If someone is going to subsidize my curiosity and my hope to help others figure some shit out, I welcome it with open arms.

This is not to say I don't want a tenure-track position. I just don't see it as the end of the world if I come out making 40K a year as a lecturer. I'm not someone who says "money doesn't matter." (In my experience the only people who say that are those who have consistently had it). All I'm saying is that I don't think we need as much as we're taught to think we need.

Academia isn't perfect. It isn't all fun and creative exploration. But compared to other professions, it's as close as we can really get to have freedom to explore what we want. Maybe not all the time, but enough that it beats out journalism/law/policy/etc.

[RefurbedScientist]

Interesting conversation. I would echo ScienceGirl's perspective: academia is a career, and a competitive one at that. In order to enter the career and make a living, you do need to approach it strategically. This is not to say that learning for learning's sake isn't a valuable part of that career. It's similar to professional sports in a way. Yes, major league baseball players got into their career out of a love of baseball. But if they weren't competitive on the market, they wouldn't be professional ball players. That being said, if you are like me, you would rather be at a bottom rung in a career you love than a middle-management job in a career you feel so-so about. Moreover, we can expect that almost any job that requires a PhD (think research analyst at think tank or consultancy) will still pay enough to live comfortably as a young professional, especially since many of us would otherwise be in the non-lucrative non-profit or public sectors. And if your program is funded, then you may be better off than those people paying $100K for a MPA/MPP or what have you. Now, if you're seriously thinking about personally financing your entire 6 year education... you can read plenty of Foulcault in debtors prison.

I would like to contribute to this conversation that, it seems to me, we are increasingly afforded opportunities to make a PhD in sociology more than just a PhD in sociology. That is, many schools have certificate and dual programs and other research fellowships and opportunities that allow grad students to diversify their professional portfolio. I work now in a multidisciplinary research center that offers (albeit, highly competitive) fellowships to late graduate students and early professional academics. This fellowship attracts people from all fields, and it allows them to make connections and do work that can be "spun off" into a career in academia outside of their field of training. Sociologists can be found working in communications departments, public administration programs, public health programs, management schools, and other social science departments. So even in academia, there is room for the sociologist who is willing to move a little outside the formal lines of the discipline. My goal is to do at least one extra-departmental thing during grad school, if I can. That could be a fellowship or visiting scholar position at a center or a certificate program from another department or school (e.g. area studies, like Latin American studies). I know this is going to be tough, but departments will often let you take a year leave at some point, as long as you can find funding elsewhere. Whether this makes more more likely to get a job, I can only speculate. But I would suspect that any extra flexibility during job hunting is a good thing. Anyone care to weigh in on this?

So, yes my plan is to follow the risky road toward academia. But whether I am a professor in a sociology department or in some other capacity is mostly immaterial to me. I don't need to be publishing in AJS/ASR to feel positive about my research.*

*Edit: Recognizing that if you are intent on finding a research job in academia, publishing in top journals is the only way to do it. I'm just saying I would be happy publishing in, say, a media studies journal if I were someday in a comm. department. But that's later career considerations.

Edited January 31, 2012 by SocialGroovements

[sleepycat]

I would say all of his message is true and it is a stark reality we all must face.

I don't want to sound cocky or something, but I feel empowered by this guys assessment. I have the passion, the drive, etc. Strangely enough I actually believe in myself and my ideas. I don't think my thesis would have be as great or even would have finished if i didn't. I don't want to say that I will be the one to change reality because likely I won't. In theatre I was always the gofer and hated it. But for some reason being a gofer and working my way up in academia is much less of a problem. Sure there will be times that I can't stand academia, just like any other job, but I want to be the gofer because that will lead me where I want to go.

I'm certainly not becoming an academic because I want to be rich. I want to be comfortable like the next guy and finding a decent paying postion is a big priority. Sure I would love to have tenure right out, but that is just silly and i will take a lower paying job to get started. Pedigree is important factor, but it isn't a guarantee of anything.

[ThisSlumgullionIsSoVapid]

I'm surprised the age old words of wisdom haven't been spoken yet....

marry rich

[sleepycat]

I'm surprised the age old words of wisdom haven't been spoken yet....

marry rich

I was totally thinking that!

[msafiri]

Not to hijack the conversation or stir up a hornet's nest, but I'm truly curious, how many of you are 100% certain that 1) you'll actually get to do the research you WANT to do and 2) you'll have the opportunity to do so?

It's all well and good to have something you are passionate about and would dearly love to research, but research costs money. Even if you accept a piddling salary, there are other costs involved in research - data collection, entry, and analysis, IRB, site visit costs, incentives, etc. that make it almost impossible to do acceptable research without funds. Whether you work in academia or in a private setting, what you research in your field can be very much determined by what government, corporations, and foundations are willing to fund - and they have their own agenda.

This is SOOOO true. I know many professors at regional universities that are struggling to do their research since they have to self-fund it out of their $45K/year salaries, without the help of RAs or even necessarily being able to download the journal articles they need to reference. Do not discount this as it will affect you even as a graduate student. For example, I had to change the region in which I work due to funding availabilities. Am I happy? Sure but, I'm not doing what I had my heart set on doing when I applied to PhD programs.

I found this post helpful, but now I feel quite doubtful about my future... What other jobs in academia can you do with a PhD in sociology?

If you don't know, then do the research and/or don't pursue the degree. Seriously, there's a wealth of information about this available on the web.

I think it's kind of cute how people think that graduate school is about doing research an the life of the mind and being an intellectual... it isn't.

Yes you get to do this things, but i would say that's only 20% (and that's being optimistic) of what you do. you also have to teach (many times classes you don't even like) and you have to RA for projects you don't care about and you have to take classes you don't give a crap about.

Agreed wholeheartedly. I have NEVER taught a course in my field (much less my subfield) in 3+ years as a PhD student. I'm currently in the field doing research. And guess what? When I get back I will be teaching more courses outside of my field. (And, btw, I'm talking not even close. I study human-environment stuff and teach urban stuff from a non-environmental perspective.)

[sciencegirl]

So thank you everyone for not flaming me off this site... it was hard for me to post in a brutal type honesty sort of way.. but my main point was the attitude. Go into this like its a professional career. Set your goals and go for them. One of them is to not be poor (notice that I didn't say to be rich). Of course the economy is bad, but if you start making excuses now, before the process has even begun, you've already defeated yourself, imho.

[lovenhaight]

The best advice that I've ever gotten from one of my professors was this: "If you're going into a PhD program because you think that the three letters after your name will make you better than anyone else or somehow prove to people in your past that you're good enough, its better to save the money and spend it on therapy."

I'm hoping to go into a PhD program because I actually want to study society and not for a big paycheck. That being said, I understand that money is necessary to live in this society. I think that this type of honesty is good for some added perspective, especially for those who might be unsure as to what they're getting into. If reading this leaves you questioning why you're doing this...maybe you should look at other things.