Quit My Tenure-track Job to go to Grad School?

[librarian]

Should I quit my job to enter an English graduate program?

 

I'm a full-time librarian at a community college, where I have faculty status. I work closely with students during their research process and English faculty members who bring their classes to the library and I've realized that I'd like to be on the other side, teaching composition or literature courses. 

 

The problem is that I already have a good job with great pay at a wonderful institution.

 

One way to become an English faculty member would be to slowly take courses in a part-time MA program and then just slide over to the English department at the college where I'm currently employed. (They'd reimburse me for about a third of the cost). 

 

The other, more appealing, option is to quit my job and enter a full-time PhD program. The risk there is that I'd never be able to return to a full-time faculty position. I might be working as an adjunct forever, pining over my old, good faculty position.

 

Should I risk it all or should I play it safe and do the slow MA? 

 

I'd love to hear from current students or new graduates who are looking for work. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

 

 

[asleepawake]

A lot of people come to grad school and don't finish. A lot of people end up not liking it or getting overwhelmed with it. I think the MA is a good idea so that you can get an idea of whether or not you are willing to give up your job for it. After the MA, you can consider applying to PhD programs if you're still interested, or you could begin to teach comp classes at your current institution. 

 

I've heard a lot of people say "Don't get your PhD in the humanities unless you cannot imagine yourself doing anything else." This has always struck me as a weirdly privileged sentiment: Of course I can imagine myself doing all kinds of things. But this is my first choice. You have to decide if a life of uncertainty is worth giving up a stable job for. 

Edited December 31, 2012 by asleepawake

[pinkrobot]

Hmm. Just as a disclaimer, I write this with the awareness that I have SO much less experience than you do--I just finished my first semester in a PhD program; I don't have an MA; I haven't had an iota of your experience--so I may well not know what on earth I'm saying.

It seems to me that quitting the job to enroll in a PhD program may not be worth it. It sounds like you love your institution and you're compensated well, and that your institution has given you a way to remedy the problem you have--you feel that you'd rather be on the other side of the professional interactions you're having--without jeopardizing any aspect of what you care about. You mention that you find the PhD program option more appealing: can you say more about why? What do you think you'd gain from it that you wouldn't also gain from the alternative?

To me, this doesn't really strike me as an "uncertainty" v. "stability" issue, or a "risk it all" v. "play it safe" issue. It seems a little more like one method (the part-time MA) is a way to get what you want, whereas the other (the PhD program) is a way not to get what you want: as you write, you would not be able to be a faculty member at your current institution if you leave your job, and the statistics for likelihood of employment for English PhDs really are dismal and terrifying.

[Two Espressos]

Should I risk it all or should I play it safe and do the slow MA? 

 

My answer is emphatically "no" to your first question, and probably "no" to the second, considering that the M.A. is only partially paid.

[hashslinger]

It really depends on what your motivation would be for doing a PhD. What do you see yourself doing in ten years? Do you secretly imagine yourself at an institution that's more research-focused? And more importantly, do you have a burning desire to write conference papers, articles, a dissertation?

 

I'll be frank: The PhD is not a kind experience for people who *just* like to teach. To get through the "meat" of the PhD--exams, prospectus, and dissertation--you must absolutely LOVE writing and research. A lot of people ultimately end up at teaching-focused universities, but they still had to write and defend dissertations in order to get there. In that sense, a PhD is not the kind of degree you can just wander your way through in the hopes of getting to the other side. You really have to be intrinsically motivated and driven by your research.

 

If you are going to do the PhD thing, I would recommend doing it rather quickly. As you get older, it gets more and more difficult to leave a well-paying job for a stipend. And there is a lot of age discrimination with both adcoms and job search committees. (It's the dirty little secret no one talks about very much--programs prefer to accept younger candidates into their programs, and schools like to hire younger faculty.)

[PhDreams]

THIS...

 

If you are going to do the PhD thing, I would recommend doing it rather quickly. As you get older, it gets more and more difficult to leave a well-paying job for a stipend.

 

AND THIS...

 

the statistics for likelihood of employment for English PhDs really are dismal and terrifying.

 

Not only is it difficult to be in an English PhD program...it is extremely difficult to get into one.

 

Lots of really great advice here. 5-8 years is quite a time investment.

[DaisyAdair]

I am not sure I would go to a program if it weren't funded. I would think twice about quitting a job to take out debt for school that will end with a degree that makes it very difficult to find a job.

Is there any local program that would meet your needs?

[semicolon2013]

You could apply to PhD programs and see if you could get into a fully funded one before quitting your job.  

 

Also, as someone mentioned, a PhD is not really a teaching focused degree.  Is it possible you could do the part-time MA and get a teaching job with just that?  I know sometimes instructors at community colleges do not have doctorates.  

[Dark Matter]

If you're looking to work in your current institution and you have support from them for the MA, then it might make sense to take that approach. I wouldn't recommend leaving for a PhD. I can answer this at greater length through inbox if you'd like.

[Baudrillardist]

"The problem is that I already have a good job with great pay at a wonderful institution."

 

You will not have this after grad school.

 

I say this as someone who dropped out of a degree from one of the oldest and most prestigious institutions on planet Earth: I would never, ever, go to grad school for English Literature unless you found yourself living somewhere between the 15th to 19th century.  The dream-dusted days of being a wry don are over.  The capitalists have moved in, and if you can afford a tweed jacket right now before attending school, you better get it tailored long enough to sleep in because there is only horrible toil with no pay ahead.  There is no noble life of the mind where you are excogitating on first causes and the nature of things and then disseminating them to well-heeled, beautiful dreamers and the poetic geniuses of tomorrow.

 

There is no love of knowledge; it has been replaced with love of work.  (Thank you German research university.)  The essays you write will be the most willfully "erudite" rubbish and will require more masks than Nietzsche and every protean postmodernist ever born could ever summon in order to avoid dipping your toes into the icy waters of self-awareness.  Academics put vacuous pop-culture celebrities to shame when comes to disguising their emptiness from themselves.

 

Also I would suggest attending graduate school if you are massively wealthy, perhaps a potentate of some fairy kingdom or something.

 

This could be seen as a vile attempt at trolling, but I would earnestly admonish you to find something else to do.  I had (what I believed to be) sanctimonious professors give me the polite version of my sentiments above only to disregard them and attend anyway.  I romanticised noble poverty and esoteric conference papers with the best of them--technically as one of the best of them.  Being a professor *used* to be a noble and meaningful occupation, but those days are gone.  

 

Whatever you decide to do, bon chance.

[asleepawake]

There are lots of legitimate problems with the modern University, but this yearning-for-the-days-of-yore sentimentalism is getting old. The University has NEVER been a beautiful haven of the mind that was open to all. 

 

Regardless, it can be rough, and you should know that before getting into it.

Edited January 2, 2013 by asleepawake

[Two Espressos]

There are lots of legitimate problems with the modern University, but this yearning-for-the-days-of-yore sentimentalism is getting old. The University has NEVER been a beautiful haven of the mind that was open to all. 

 

Indeed!  No serious applicant really thinks that universities are "beautiful haven of the mind": they're closely tied with capitalist production, corrupted by money, and culpable of other ills as well.

 

"The problem is that I already have a good job with great pay at a wonderful institution."

 

You will not have this after grad school.

 

I say this as someone who dropped out of a degree from one of the oldest and most prestigious institutions on planet Earth: I would never, ever, go to grad school for English Literature unless you found yourself living somewhere between the 15th to 19th century.  The dream-dusted days of being a wry don are over.  The capitalists have moved in, and if you can afford a tweed jacket right now before attending school, you better get it tailored long enough to sleep in because there is only horrible toil with no pay ahead.  There is no noble life of the mind where you are excogitating on first causes and the nature of things and then disseminating them to well-heeled, beautiful dreamers and the poetic geniuses of tomorrow.

 

There is no love of knowledge; it has been replaced with love of work.  (Thank you German research university.)  The essays you write will be the most willfully "erudite" rubbish and will require more masks than Nietzsche and every protean postmodernist ever born could ever summon in order to avoid dipping your toes into the icy waters of self-awareness.  Academics put vacuous pop-culture celebrities to shame when comes to disguising their emptiness from themselves.

 

Also I would suggest attending graduate school if you are massively wealthy, perhaps a potentate of some fairy kingdom or something.

 

This could be seen as a vile attempt at trolling, but I would earnestly admonish you to find something else to do.  I had (what I believed to be) sanctimonious professors give me the polite version of my sentiments above only to disregard them and attend anyway.  I romanticised noble poverty and esoteric conference papers with the best of them--technically as one of the best of them.  Being a professor *used* to be a noble and meaningful occupation, but those days are gone.  

 

Whatever you decide to do, bon chance.

 

This isn't a helpful response.  I meant to down-vote your post but accidentally up-voted it instead. 

 

Anyways, English as an academic discipline arose in the late 19th century, so the whole 15th-19th century thing doesn't apply, even if it was only in jest.  As for the love of knowledge, it still exists, though of course one has to contend with the "research machine" of academia, which frequently puts production over the knowledge itself.  Your comment about writing postmodernist mumbo-jumbo doesn't apply to those who actually commit themselves to a love and search for truth.  And while it's true that professors lack nobility and respect in the 21st century, that's largely a result of modern anti-intellectualism, not a diminution in the value of academic research and teaching.

 

In short, I disagree with nearly everything you've written.

[hashslinger]

I have never liked tweed jackets.

 

I have always been okay with erudite rubbish.

 

Newsflash: The rest of the world works. I don't know why you thought that professors and grad students were somehow so exceptional that they could opt out  of capitalism. Moreover, I don't know anyone who goes to grad school thinking that they're going to opt out of hard work, low wages, and an unstable job market.

 

I think your expectations about grad school were almost as high as your opinion of yourself.

[Baudrillardist]

Indeed!  No serious applicant really thinks that universities are "beautiful haven of the mind": they're closely tied with capitalist production, corrupted by money, and culpable of other ills as well.

 

 

This isn't a helpful response.  I meant to down-vote your post but accidentally up-voted it instead. 

 

Anyways, English as an academic discipline arose in the late 19th century, so the whole 15th-19th century thing doesn't apply, even if it was only in jest.  As for the love of knowledge, it still exists, though of course one has to contend with the "research machine" of academia, which frequently puts production over the knowledge itself.  Your comment about writing postmodernist mumbo-jumbo doesn't apply to those who actually commit themselves to a love and search for truth.  And while it's true that professors lack nobility and respect in the 21st century, that's largely a result of modern anti-intellectualism, not a diminution in the value of academic research and teaching.

 

In short, I disagree with nearly everything you've written.

 

Wait are you actually in grad school or are you 549 posts into speculating on what life in the academe is like?

 

I'm not here to get into a snide quote war, I've already said my piece to the original poster.

Edited January 3, 2013 by Baudrillardist

[Two Espressos]

I don't have time to respond to Baudrillardist's post at present, but I do want to share the following, which provides a sober but not overly cynical perspective on graduate school in the humanities: http://www.dispositio.net/archives/586

Edited January 3, 2013 by Two Espressos

[gilbertrollins]

[hashslinger]

Great link, Two Espressos. I share the author's "so what?" sentiment. I worked throughout most of my twenties. I made good money and started a pension fund. But it was a dreadful job. I would be more upset with myself if I turned 35 or 40, locked in a career I disliked and possibly too old to go to grad school. (And I don't believe that 35 or 40 is old by any stretch of the imagination, but it becomes increasingly difficult to switch gears at that point--at 35/40 you might be talking about selling your home, uprooting your family, taking a huge paycut, and wading into a brand new job market that may not want you.)

And that's the question any prospective grad student has to ask themselves: If you forgo going to grad school, are you going to have huge regrets? At 35 or 40, are you going to feel good about yourself if you're still sitting at your desk at Bank of America? Will you be more embittered by not having a grad degree than a mortgage?

There's nothing wrong with wanting a good paycheck, a mortgage, and a pension. Many people have these priorities, and therefore they don't go to grad school, and I'm happy for them when they get what they want. I also realize that many people don't know what they want at 22 or 25 or 30, and therefore they can't foresee whether they will regret staying at Deloitte for 15 years. But for me, I felt like I was really missing something. I loved writing papers, so I tried a master's. And I found I was passionate about my area, so I went for a PhD. I've never regretted the fact that I don't have a mortgage. I would regret having sunk five additional years of my youth into a career I didn't like when I could have been making headway on a dissertation.

Most of the PhD naysayers--everyone from Cebula to douchey Thomas H. Benton--are extremely naive about what actually goes on in the working world. What do they think people do all day? They see a "steady job" in the "real world" as a quantifiable certainty. They see the non-academic world as the antithesis of the academic world. Everyone who's not an academic apparently has steady, stable work and a multitude of opportunities. No one ever gets aged out or transferred somewhere unpleasant. No one ever gets demoted, or fired, or put in a basement. Everyone has benefits. And, oh yeah, non-academic jobs are apparently extremely easy to get. Right. All you have to do is send out your application, and everyone will call. "Just go do something else!" they say. "Anything else!" As if "anything else" is just hanging from trees. (And Cebula's "just go work in a museum!" is the most hilarious thing I've read all week. You could get an academic job ten times over in the time in takes you to break into secure, full-time, well-paid museum work. And working for the government--seriously?)

What do these people think a job market looks like? When I was looking for work, the job market was for me much like the horrifying academic job market. Hundreds of applicants for each position. I would go to an interview, and I'd be the seventeenth person they interviewed that day, and it would be only noon. I'd go to a career fair, and the lines would be out the door. I'd send out fifty resumes, and I'd get one reply. And no, this was not during the recession. So ... why would anyone think an academic job search is any different? Why would I expect special treatment simply because I now have a PhD?

Unsurprisingly, most of these PhD naysayers went to grad school in their early 20s. Their first job market was the academic job market. They have an absolutely ridiculous attitude about non-academic endeavors. They romanticized the academic world before they went into it--and now they romanticize everything but.

Edited January 4, 2013 by hashslinger

[DontHate]

Being cynical for its own sake is not cool -- yet it seems to be the default position for lots of people doling out advice to would-be grad students. The kind of advice they often give is worse than useless and irrelevant, it's depressing and detrimental. The real questions you have to ask yourself before going to grad school have nothing to do with being a massively wealthy heir to a fairy kingdom. Please. Plenty of real people succeed in grad school.

 

Get your head out of your own ass, Baudrillardist, it's not a hat.

Edited January 4, 2013 by DontHate

[iExcelAtMicrosoftPuns]

Get your head out of your own ass, Baudrillardist, it's not a hat.

:-D

[Katzenmusik]

OP: Right now there's a danger that you're falling into "grass is greener on the other side" thinking -- so before you give up your secure position, you could test the waters a bit.

 

You haven't said anything about wanting to do research, but you have said you want to teach.

 

It seems to me like there are paths aside from the PhD to getting to teach at the college level -- like maybe doing that MA you mentioned, then picking up a few courses in the English Department?  Or perhaps you could teach some sort of library-oriented, research and writing course?  

 

It might be a good idea to talk to the people in the English department about your ideas.

[Stately Plump]

Being a professor *used* to be a noble and meaningful occupation, but those days are gone.  

 

Hmm. I'm not sure about this. Perhaps the problem is that your romantic vision of what scholarly life was like was misguided from the start. 

 

I don't know that there was ever a time when, as you say, there was a "noble life of the mind where you are excogitating on first causes and the nature of things and then disseminating them to well-heeled, beautiful dreamers and the poetic geniuses of tomorrow." Scholarly life is difficult, grueling, repetitive, at times idle if not inane, and often jejune.

 

That said, as a current graduate student, I find my life situation much more invigorating than some of my peers. Of the students with whom I graduated, I think my life is, at this point, the best: I get paid to read and discuss awesome books, basically all the people I hang out with on a daily basis love reading as much as I do, I'm never "late for work," I'm not physically worn out at the end of the day (though I'm certainly mentally exhausted), and I'm currently on the tail end of a four week break (some of my lucky peers had Christmas eve off, in addition to Christmas day). In four months I'll have a four month vacation, and if you try to tell me that summers aren't vacations for graduate students, I'll direct you to my friends who will be working 50 hours a week all summer. My life is really, really good right now.

I've worked in a grocery store since I was 14, periodically working full-time. Let me assure you: the erudite rubbish I've been producing as an attempt to disguise my own emptiness is infinitely more effective than admitting my own emptiness and tying up another prime-rib roast nonetheless, as I did at the grocery store.

As for the OP, I have no idea what you should do

Edited January 9, 2013 by Stately Plump