English Lit PhD

[thestage]

and you continue to be bad at reading

that article did nothing to refute anything I said. it's framed in apology. its point is not "you can get a job at a research institution with a degree from a lesser school," its point is "hey, getting a job at a smaller school ain't all that bad." ok, sure. and how many people who try to get PhDs at lower ranked schools have no research aspirations? and as the job market becomes more and more flooded, who is to say that even positions at these schools may not go to the plenty of graduates from top named schools? given how abysmal the job market is regardless of who you are or where you went, frankly more people should only be bothering with top schools with a track record of placing people in positions that both pay money occasionally and also allow you to do more than act as a caretaker of overprivileged idiots flooding upper-crust liberal arts schools A, B, and Z. I don't care if you hate the ivy league, I don't care if you don't think rankings are worthwhile--frankly I don't think I care about anything you think--but there are people who obviously do care about those things, and those people happen to be in charge of whether or not you get a job. luckily for you, Buffalo is quite highly ranked. so you and your frankly annoying milquetoast regurgitation of every platitude of academia are more than on track to pollute our educational institutions with your mediocrity. fifteen years from now I'm sure you'll happily tell little suzy english about all the wonderful paths a PhD from Bumfuck McNamedafteraphilanthropistnoonehasheardof U will open up for her, so long as there are enough Bumfuck U's holding enough conferences and running enough journals to ensure that you will look busy enough to secure tenure while you encourage people to follow their dreams all the way to foodstamps and suicide.

hey-o! the things you can say when you no longer plan on posting here!

Edited April 19, 2013 by thestage

[Swagato]

For what it's worth, I've a thing for browsing the CVs of faculty members I admire (for whatever reason) or who I just find interesting. This is regardless of discipline. So, I can say I've viewed at least more than a hundred CVs of faculty members who are doing exciting research (and, accordingly, are either at major public/private research institutions, or leading SLACs). I only know of one professor who did their highest level of work at a non-"brand-name" institution. 

[Phil Sparrow]

just as a side note from a curious bystander, unless one has a very specific subfield, wouldn't the T20 or bust advice be quite sound? 

 

Of course there are always going to be exceptions, but in general: yes.

[champagne]

and you continue to be bad at reading

that article did nothing to refute anything I said. it's framed in apology. its point is not "you can get a job at a research institution with a degree from a lesser school," its point is "hey, getting a job at a smaller school ain't all that bad." ok, sure. and how many people who try to get PhDs at lower ranked schools have no research aspirations? and as the job market becomes more and more flooded, who is to say that even positions at these schools may not go to the plenty of graduates from top named schools? given how abysmal the job market is regardless of who you are or where you went, frankly more people should only be bothering with top schools with a track record of placing people in positions that both pay money occasionally and also allow you to do more than act as a caretaker of overprivileged idiots flooding upper-crust liberal arts schools A, B, and Z. I don't care if you hate the ivy league, I don't care if you don't think rankings are worthwhile--frankly I don't think I care about anything you think--but there are people who obviously do care about those things, and those people happen to be in charge of whether or not you get a job. luckily for you, Buffalo is quite highly ranked. so you and your frankly annoying milquetoast regurgitation of every platitude of academia are more than on track to pollute our educational institutions with your mediocrity. fifteen years from now I'm sure you'll happily tell little suzy english about all the wonderful paths a PhD from Bumfuck McNamedafteraphilanthropistnoonehasheardof U will open up for her, so long as there are enough Bumfuck U's holding enough conferences and running enough journals to ensure that you will look busy enough to secure tenure while you encourage people to follow their dreams all the way to foodstamps and suicide.

hey-o! the things you can say when you no longer plan on posting here!

 

 

In all seriousness, other than the unfortunate vitriolic turn the above post took in the latter half, I agree. I went to a tiny teaching-based SLAC that no one has ever heard of, and the faculty fell into two categories: 

 

1) They had been there forever and no longer contributed anything to the field, and it didn't matter what program they went to; however, there really is only one professor in this category that I can think of that didn't graduate from a great program.

 

or

 

2) They had just been hired and had just as good of researching chops as they did teaching chops. The most recent hire had to beat out 800 other applicants: The only way to do that? Graduate from a great program. Be an awesome teacher. Have a book deal in place within your first year.

 

Regardless of what job placement you want, you're going to have to be impressive in every category. Research especially. That's just the nature of the numbers.

[antihumanist]

I mean, obviously you'll want to apply to quality universities thestage.  But to imply there's a firm "top 20" when there's so many different subfields and specializations is an impossible taxonomic task!

 

I mean, what is the "top 20"

 

I'd understand "top 20 early modern" but even then, are these top 20 for historicist/archival early modern or top 20 for theoretical/marxist approaches to early modern!  To imply that somehow there's a firm and set "top 20" that guarantees jobs is just silly.  I mean, how does one even qualify a general top 20!

 

It's more that I have a big problem with the very idea one can qualify a top 20 institution without a nod to subfield is just silly.  Like, sure you might be going to a "top 20" but if none of the scholars do what you do, you're gonna have a bad time.

 

This is to say, there's rankings for every subfield, but those rankings don't *always* reflect the standard "top 20."  This isn't to say the top 20 aren't strong in most areas, but you'll probably be better off doing your school search based on your strengths rather than general institution strength.

[asleepawake]

luckily for you, Buffalo is quite highly ranked. so you and your frankly annoying milquetoast regurgitation of every platitude of academia are more than on track to pollute our educational institutions with your mediocrity. 

 

I really appreciate your thoughtful feedback on my work, with which you are undoubtably very familiar. It will be so helpful as I work to grow into a better writer and scholar.

 

Why are you so fucking annoyed by me? Have a drink or go for a run, my gosh.

 

 

fifteen years from now I'm sure you'll happily tell little suzy english about all the wonderful paths a PhD from Bumfuck McNamedafteraphilanthropistnoonehasheardof U will open up for her, so long as there are enough Bumfuck U's holding enough conferences and running enough journals to ensure that you will look busy enough to secure tenure while you encourage people to follow their dreams all the way to foodstamps and suicide.

 

 

I'm actually more of a realist than you think I am. I think people need to understand the job market, but you just want to simplify that market. About half of us who just got into PhDs probably aren't going to even graduate, and then only half of those who do are going to get TT jobs. I think faculty should be honest with students about these prospects, and I suspect I'll still feel that way when I teach at Bumfuck McNamedafteraphilanthropistnoonehasheardof U. 

Edited April 19, 2013 by asleepawake

[asleepawake]

They had just been hired and had just as good of researching chops as they did teaching chops. The most recent hire had to beat out 800 other applicants: The only way to do that? Graduate from a great program. Be an awesome teacher. Have a book deal in place within your first year.

 

Regardless of what job placement you want, you're going to have to be impressive in every category. Research especially. That's just the nature of the numbers.

 

You can't look at the numbers backwards, though. You're finding a job, and then seeing who got that job, and that's a problematic methodology. Instead, you have to look more broadly at who is and who isn't getting jobs. It's hard to judge from these raw numbers, because some people search nationwide and others search more narrowly, but if you look at enough information across many programs, you'll see plenty of people getting jobs from a variety of schools. I don't dispute that you will find, generally, better results from higher-ranks schools. I do dispute that it's not worthwhile to pursue a PhD at a lower-ranked program, as long as you're aware of your position. 

[galateaencore]

thank you, thank you for a range of responses! #deliciousdrama

 

1. It goes without saying that one should aspire to work with the best specialist in one's area. However, if that specialist is at Schmuckville U, is that saying something about the prestige/reputation/hireability of one's chosen subfield?

 

2. I have always been hesitant about pursuing the humanities because there's this caveat, like in Hollywood and the professional sports circuit, that you're brilliant or mediocre (which schematically would look like Harvard and then Appalachian State with nothing in between). I think that this obsession with the T20 stems from people trying to convince themselves that they're not mediocre - when in fact, the difference between brilliant and really, really, really good is equivalent to the difference between brilliant and average. And so we end up with Ivy programmes that are mostly full of really, really good scholars who are nonetheless not quite It. Rockstar problem except exacerbated to ridiculousness by the job market.

 

3. re CV surfing: would that be a structural problem? Cos faculty seem to never leave (I mean, the average at my school is like an 80s PhD graduate, with the oldest faculty going back before the 50s). Given how the academic landscape has changed since the 80s, how many great programmes have risen and fallen but faculty have been kept in place by tenure, is the CV trend reflecting a 30-year-old reality? I am very ready to believe that the Ivies were indeed the research powerhouses in most humanities disciplines back in the day - but is that so today? That's one of the big problems with tenure. It creates a market with egregiously imperfect information. 

Edited April 19, 2013 by galateaencore

[antihumanist]

Given how the academic landscape has changed since the 80s, how many great programmes have risen and fallen but faculty have been kept in place by tenure, is the CV trend reflecting a 30-year-old reality? I am very ready to believe that the Ivies were indeed the research powerhouses in most humanities disciplines back in the day - but is that so today? That's one of the big problems with tenure. It creates a market with egregiously imperfect information. 

 

This is why the classical "top 20" programs definitely turns me off.

 

I mean, I'm biased a bit cus i'm going to UCI, but the theoretical environment there felt exciting and cutting edge - the people were talking about things that I found totally interesting AND socially relevant.  I mean, granted, I'm also biased because I'm very influenced by Marxist criticism, but I would never want to go a program that was really prestigious  but held a bunch of scholars that didn't do political as well as academic work.

 

And this isn't to say that the Ivies don't have scholars that do that, but I sometimes feel like their work (especially the big three) isn't as politically-theoretically exciting as some of the other schools (Michigan, the UC's, etc).  This is a bit biased, but still, it's my impression.

 

<edit> obviously, a program with a bunch of theorists will probably be in some form of top 20, and this post is totally infected by my political bias, but still.

Edited April 19, 2013 by antihumanist

[champagne]

You can't look at the numbers backwards, though. You're finding a job, and then seeing who got that job, and that's a problematic methodology. Instead, you have to look more broadly at who is and who isn't getting jobs. It's hard to judge from these raw numbers, because some people search nationwide and others search more narrowly, but if you look at enough information across many programs, you'll see plenty of people getting jobs from a variety of schools. I don't dispute that you will find, generally, better results from higher-ranks schools. I do dispute that it's not worthwhile to pursue a PhD at a lower-ranked program, as long as you're aware of your position. 

 

Definitely understood and I think mostly agreed with; however, I do think there is something to be said for making sure you're playing with a loaded gun when going on the job market.

 

Whether it's fair or not, going to a lower-ranked automatically changes your ammunition from shotgun caliber to a six-shooter. Both of them can be just as effective. You just have to be more exact with the latter.

 

Of course, all of this is moot, because I will NEVER be able to get into a top-20 program. Cheers!

[dazedandbemused]

Of course, all of this is moot, because I will NEVER be able to get into a top-20 program. Cheers!

 

Never say never. I did it, and I'm still not entirely certain how. Not complaining though!

[Two Espressos]

Of course, all of this is moot, because I will NEVER be able to get into a top-20 program. Cheers!

 

Never say never. I did it, and I'm still not entirely certain how. Not complaining though!

 

Exactly!  I did as well, and while I'm still like this a lot --  -- I do realize that fit was the critical factor for me: the department fits like a glove.  Thankfully my acceptance came after having visited the program in question, which helps kill any lingering it-was-just-a-fluke-and-you're-not-grad-school-material thoughts.

[champagne]

One of my professors did say I sounded like a PhD. student today.

 

 

[dazedandbemused]

Yeah, I should have said what Two Espressos said: it was all about fit. The DGS even said that they were convinced that I was a perfect fit for the program because that place fits my academic interests like a glove. I am a huge believer in the power of the SOP because the rest of my app was just enough to get me in the top pile, it wasn't changing any lives.