The Graduate School Ponzi Scheme

[Sigaba]

Sigaba, your post seems just as cryptic as you are accusing your professors of being. What are these institutional realities, explicitly, that we need to know about?

 

ToldAgain -- At the risk of sounding even more cryptic, there are "lessons" in the Ivory Tower that one can only learn through first hand experience. Only after going through those experiences will you have actionable knowledge of the underlying institutional reality. As a TA, the experience may be finding the distance between an institution's policies on  topic X and the actual "real world" enforcement of those policies. As a student preparing for qualifying exams, it may be finding out that no matter what you do, you may never be ready for qualifying exams. It may be the moment when you are shown where a department's skeletons are buried as you're given a shovel and a lump filled burlap sack that is squirming. It may be when you realize that your adviser doesn't give a fuck about you. At all. (And that could just be your February.)

 

Take another look at the OP and VM's subsequent posts, as well as the posts by rising_star, and a couple of others. Notice how members of this BB are reacting/responding to them. Group B, comprised of members who are farther along in the pipeline are saying "Yeah, I get what you mean. That's happened to me." Members of Group A, those who haven't been through the same types of experiences are saying "What are you saying?" and "Well, that's not going to happen to me," and "Well, that might happen to me, I don't have blinders on, so I have a back up plan. (But it isn't really going to happen to me)."

 

Here's the thing. Every member of Group B was once a member of Group A and as members of Group A, we in Group B said "I will never be in Group B." Yet here we are.

[kurayamino]

I don't think that much of what is being discussed here is useful or important honestly. It's just needlessly stirring the pot since this is literally a discussion that has been posted all across GC at least three separate times in the last three months.

What strikes me every time is a lack of perspective by some posters on how much "lost income" getting an English phd will cost us. This statement neglects the fact that the stipend offered may be more money than many have ever made. That it may provide them with a living wage.

There are benefits of getting a phd that are beyond landing an academic job, such as a sense of security for a minimum of 5-6 years with a living wage and health insurance. I'll certainly try to get a TT job after I finish, but if I don't my quality of life for those 5-6 years will certainly be better than it has been for the last 12 years of my working adult life or what it would be if I didn't do it at all.

[silenus_thescribe]

The people responsible for safeguarding this profession turned their backs on you long ago; don't turn towards them now.

 

Although the problems of nepotism and other preferential hiring practices are real, I also do think that some schools are actively trying to do their best to respond to the dwindling job market. For instance, I know when Iowa sent out rejection letters, they said they were accepting less people because of the job market. I hear my future home of UT is shrinking its cohort for similar reasons. Wanting to get a PhD to be a professor isn't a bad desire; however, an institution that preys on that desire without considering if the whole "professor" thing is plausible down the road isn't doing its students favors.

 

Grad schools have good reason to care about the job prospects of their PhDs. Good placement results in their being more regarded, and in general they want to show off that they're able to produce reputable scholars. While there are cases of respectable institutions (NYU, Chicago, UVa) who do stuff like have MA programs that charge steep tuition and usually don't amount to academic job success, there are plenty of cases of schools actively trying to combat the terrible job market. 

 

To be sure, if one isn't willing to weather the storm, don't hop on the boat. That isn't bad advice. But the changes in the PhD job market that need to happen require just as much reciprocation from grad schools themselves. As the institutions that are dwindling their cohorts recognize, taking on significant amounts of incoming PhD candidates is irresponsible. Of course, the downside of that is that acceptance rates drop and people don't get to realize their dreams. But insofar as the counterfactual is seemingly equally likely to not result in an academic job, it's a more reasonable way of conducting the admissions process.

Edited March 25, 2015 by silenus_thescribe

[1Q84]

I don't think that much of what is being discussed here is useful or important honestly. It's just needlessly stirring the pot since this is literally a discussion that has been posted all across GC at least three separate times in the last three months.

What strikes me every time is a lack of perspective by some posters on how much "lost income" getting an English phd will cost us. This statement neglects the fact that the stipend offered may be more money than many have ever made. That it may provide them with a living wage.

There are benefits of getting a phd that are beyond landing an academic job, such as a sense of security for a minimum of 5-6 years with a living wage and health insurance. I'll certainly try to get a TT job after I finish, but if I don't my quality of life for those 5-6 years will certainly be better than it has been for the last 12 years of my working adult life or what it would be if I didn't do it at all.

 

I really disagree. I think OP's inflammatory rhetoric is needed in this climate. We don't need anymore waffley "Yeah, it's bad but it's not that bad!" talk. That's the kind of rhetoric that got academia into the corporatized mess it's in now. We need to stir the pot because if we don't, we know that administration will just keep hacking away until nothing is left but a mass of overworked and underpaid adjuncts.

 

As to your second point, I don't really think I'm neglecting anything. No one's denying that a Ph.D. stipend is not a welcome and stable income (in fact, I am in the same situation where I've never made so much and for so long). Nowhere in my posts have I advocated for not entering a Ph.D. program. I myself am getting into it partially for the stipend money. I think it's important to point out, however, that people are so casual in thinking that they can simply waltz into another non-academic job after the TT job hunt is a bust. Let's remember that job prospects across all of society are generally crap. 

 

You get a stable income for 5-6 years. And then what? I don't get why people keep wanting to clamp down on this conversation. Let's talk and plan more about this instead of just saying "it is what it is."

Edited March 25, 2015 by 1Q84

[ToldAgain]

Sigaba, thanks for your thoughts. Do you think there is a group C (one that holds views different from group B, but have gone through similar experiences) or are they just deluding themselves (or are they the privileged/chosen few who are fast-tracked through this system)?

 

And, regarding the salon article (and it's obvious that the "socialist" in that article is laughably naive, and is it possible that the writer might be romanticizing her job a bit?), is it right to say that the private or non-academic job market/life is any better? I know lawyers are complaining about the same things being complained about on this board. My friend is in business analytics and she is having a tough time finding a job, and says some of the same things. I have personally been on both the losing and winning end of systems of bias in hiring/promotion in my government job, as well as in the for-profit sector. I have been a nepotism hire, and I have lost jobs to nepotism hires. I have even declined a completely unfair promotion that I didn't want and which should have been given to my co-worker, and my supervisor's reply was: "If you don't take it, I won't give it to anybody." Not to say that since this stuff is done outside of academia, it's okay for it to happen in academia.

 

So I guess my question, to anybody, is: To what extent are the problems of academia the problems of society, and not necessarily academia only?

 

Not to pick fights. I have been talking to everybody I can get my hands on about this.

[rising_star]

Take another look at the OP and VM's subsequent posts, as well as the posts by rising_star, and a couple of others. Notice how members of this BB are reacting/responding to them. Group B, comprised of members who are farther along in the pipeline are saying "Yeah, I get what you mean. That's happened to me." Members of Group A, those who haven't been through the same types of experiences are saying "What are you saying?" and "Well, that's not going to happen to me," and "Well, that might happen to me, I don't have blinders on, so I have a back up plan. (But it isn't really going to happen to me)."

 

Here's the thing. Every member of Group B was once a member of Group A and as members of Group A, we in Group B said "I will never be in Group B." Yet here we are.

 

Hahaha, so true, Sigaba. Again, out of upvotes otherwise I would've put one on your post. 

 

And yes, you get a stable income for 5-6 years. But, you're assuming that you would really be unable to find a job that pays you a cumulative... $90K in 6 years. To be quite honest, you would make at least that, if not more (because eventually you'd be promoted into management), if you started working at Wendy's for minimum wage right now. When I think about the lost income of grad school, I think about what my peers were doing when I was 3-4 years in and how much they were making. Most of my friends, even after adjusting for cost-of-living, were making somewhere between 2 and 15 times what I was making back then. A friend of mine got a job working in a brewery (making beer) and made more money than me each year that I was in grad school easily (plus, he got free beer from work!). Did I get to do things in grad school that otherwise I wouldn't have gotten to do? Absolutely, yes. But, there were costs to that, financially and otherwise. 

 

It's great to have a stable income for 5-6 years. But, to return to my earlier Wendy's example, 5-6 years there and you'd potentially be moving into management. After 5-6 years of a PhD, you may then go look for that same job you could've gotten before you started. If you end up un(der)employed for a year or two, will the degree still be worth it? Will you be able to go back to living on $7.5K after having $15-20K for 5-6 years? Are you really okay with carving out a living making $1500-3000 a course? These are decisions that seem far off now but, will be in front of you before you know it. 

 

If you want a real reality check, read the Chronicle and VersatilePhD forums where people talk about the difficulties of securing a position. On the Chronicle forums, you'll get the academic market difficulties. On VersatilePhD, you'll read about the job market struggles of those trying to get out of academia, even those with the kinds of additional/alternative experience I suggested to lazaria already. Both of those reality checks are useful because, to be quite honest, I'm sick of people acting like it's so easy to take your PhD and find another decently-paying line of work. The market sucks. Having a PhD doesn't mean you can get a job doing anything. You're a strong writer? Great but so are hundreds of other people, some of whom will have more recent work experience or internships to make them marketable. Or, they won't have a PhD, so they're more likely to get hired for an entry-level gig under the presumption that they won't leave and that they're willing to start at a lower salary. Is that harsh? Yes, but it's also true. 

 

As Sigaba pointed out, you can go in with your eyes wide open and still be a bit shellshocked by the market when you go on it. You'll think that you did all the right things (publish, get grants, network at conferences, develop a sexy subfield that is trendy) and still get 100s of rejections. It's like being the last kid picked in kickball in school except that no one actually ever takes the last kid, you just stand around on the side trying to show them that you do have skills while they ignore you or laugh in your face.

[allplaideverything]

I guess I just feel like nobody really asks, "so, let's say you're a line cook for 5-8 years but you never make it to Executive Chef. Are you going to be happy you spent so long earning low wages and toiling for nothing? Will you continue being an exploited line cook or will you leave the industry for a different profession? Will you wish you had just gone into truck driving from the beginning?" It seems like academia is one of the only fields where people are asking these questions so frequently and with such anxiety. Though admittedly, I do not frequent Internet forums about kitchen work.

[empress-marmot]

I guess I just feel like nobody really asks, "so, let's say you're a line cook for 5-8 years but you never make it to Executive Chef. Are you going to be happy you spent so long earning low wages and toiling for nothing? Will you continue being an exploited line cook or will you leave the industry for a different profession? Will you wish you had just gone into truck driving from the beginning?" It seems like academia is one of the only fields where people are asking these questions so frequently and with such anxiety. Though admittedly, I do not frequent Internet forums about kitchen work.

 

I've been doing some research on the post-2001 economy. From the enormous stack of books on my floor, I think it's happening in every sector, and has been for awhile. But while I'm always able to find books about the disappearance of the middle class and the exploitation of minimum wage laborers, I haven't had the same luck finding books about the exploitation of academia. If anyone has suggestions, I would be interested. Wage-education discrepancy is a topic we all need to be asking about. 

 

And thank you to everyone posting on the forum. I appreciate the forewarning. 

Edited March 26, 2015 by empress-marmot

[echo449]

I'm with allplaid on this one. The problem is a market that, for every profession, has engendered precarity and risk. Even electrical engineers are beginning to be outsourced. If academia is a worse market than, say, advertising, it is still MILES better than professional creative writing (which became institutionalized in the 20th century for market reasons) or architecture. Yes, the market is bad and potentially soul-crushing, but is there a market out there that involves creative or intellectual work that isn't? I'm not trying to sound naive, but, for many of us, the choice between a financially remunerative profession and our current path has already occurred long ago. If our collective time in grad school is a slow-tragedy, it is no different from any of the other slow, disillusioning tragedies that so many people go through in the course of living their lives. 

Edited March 26, 2015 by echo449

[poliscar]

I was born into the academy. I literally grew up on a college campus. I never had a non-cynical portrait of the academy to lose. But asking that job search committees fulfill their ethical and legal responsibility to have a good-faith search in which multiple candidates are given a meaningful chance to be hired is not a matter of naivete. It's a matter of basic moral and political conviction. The notion that the old boys network only functions to reward people who are good at networking, rather than to multiply received advantage, is what's actually naive. It's a replication of privilege, inequality, and social disadvantage. And it's also illegal. This country has a set of laws that mandate inclusive hiring practices, and all public universities are required by statute to have an open hiring practice. If you think that the insiderism and patronage you're describing don't hurt minority groups, then I assure you, you're mistaken.

 

What's more, people spend hundreds and hundreds of hours on their job docs. I have, personally. To solicit applications from hundreds of people, get their hopes up, have them work to develop unique job documents for your job for no pay, interview ten, and invite three to campus, when you know very well that only one person has a chance to get the job, that is unethical on its face. I'm sorry if you're too busy playing world's savviest academic, but that's a fact. 

I don't think it's nearly this clear-cut, sorry. You can have a completely open hiring practice and and still choose a candidate based on sociality and networking—I think that's where people get thrown off. Moreover, departments have to hire with more than some sort of narrow form of ethics in mind, where everyone exists as an individual in a bubble. As much as that might seem ideal, it's not. Job committees have more to deal with than upholding the ethical ideals of job applicants, namely the issue of "fit" that the OP seems to be so angsty about. 

For example, a recent job search (in a department that I won't name) had recently lost a TT-Assistant Prof to another department. They were explicitly told by the university that if a) the search failed, or another hired candidate left, the tenure-line would go extinct and funding would be shifted elsewhere. Does this suck? Yes, of course it does. The department ended up hiring a candidate who had worked on a project with a current faculty position, because there were opportunities there in terms of departmental strength and new collective projects. More importantly, because the two people in question were part of the same smaller academic initiative/working group the department knew that the new hire would be more likely to remain in the position. Similarly, it helped to anchor a more senior faculty member within the department. This doesn't mean that the hiring process wasn't open; multiple candidates were interviewed, and multiple campus lectures happened. Moreover, the department wasn't deterministically set on choosing the candidate they ended up hiring. Yes, they were aware of the person they eventually hired, but there was the possibility that they would have hired a different candidate if that candidate had been compelling enough to sway them. The final decision wasn't made because of some sort of nepotistic old boys' club; it was made because the committee was thinking seriously about the broader departmental impact. They made their choice because they wanted to preserve the tenure-line, and because they felt it was the best decision overall for the department's stability, productivity, and collegiality. 

The same sort of story could be told ad nauseum, and with different situations. Consider spousal hiring, for example. Some people get really up in arms about what they see as one person getting a free pass. This may be true in some situations, but it's also a very pragmatic way for departments/universities to secure both candidates for the foreseeable future. Like I mentioned before, it's also often a very good way to stabilize or improve a department. 

What I'm trying to say, I suppose, is that there are countless factors that come into play during hiring, and all sorts of ethical and interpersonal decisions that are larger than the individual candidates in question. Moreover—and I think this is something people forget—academic work is profoundly social. The reading group you participate in, the series your book is contracted to be published in, the conference you present at, the editorial project you work on, all can have social implications for hiring. They're all opportunities to make connections with scholars who, later down the line, may be on a hiring committee when you're on the market. Reducing all of these interactions to corruption or nepotism is ignoring the complexity of the process. 

As a side-note, I don't know where you're getting the idea that I'm in favour of policies that "hurt minority groups." The mode of academic socialization I'm talking about is pretty widely applicable across various disciplines. You'll see it in Ethnic Studies as much as English, and in African-American or Postcolonial searches as much as Victorian or Shakespearean ones. The bottom-line is that assuming that "merit" should be the end-goal of hiring is wrong. Hiring functions based on how a committee feels the candidate will work within a department, including future potential and the horrible factor of "fit."

[lifealive]

I don't see how it's a misappropriation. How would you suggest we talk about academic labor? Or is it you're point, which I take it to be, that we shouldn't talk about labor? We should just pick ourselves up by the bootstraps, right? 

 

Well, that's interesting--because what you said in your first post was that the people on this forum should "take their intelligence and their drive" and go do something else--something that would pay them for a living. When I suggested that you take your own advice, I was suddenly a frothing-at-the mouth neoliberal urging you to pick yourself up by your bootstraps.

 

Newsflash: Those of us who don't come from the best programs have pretty much always known that our chances of getting tenure-track work were never that great to begin with. So the realities that you're confronting? Were things that we'd dealt with a long time ago, to be honest. And another newsflash: tons of out-of-work academics make fine lives for themselves outside of the academy. Acting as though you don't have a choice of what to do with yourself is just disingenuous and dim.

 

Your assumptions about privilege and labor demonstrate an ignorance for how we can find solidarity with other workers by stressing points of similarity rather than difference (but wait, you've never been an adjunct because you wouldn't stoop to that).

 

Bless your little cotton socks. Believe me, I've experienced my share of exploitation in the workforce. Perhaps that's why I won't adjunct--because exploitation isn't much fun to abstract when it's actually happening to you. And perhaps it's why I recognize the differences between my situation now and my situation then. I have skills. I have a few degrees. It won't be easy, but I can take those skills and, as you say, find something else to do. I have no wish to be exploited again.

 

I recognize that some people adjunct because they have to--because they live in a place where there aren't any other options, and they can't afford to move. And yeah, it's wrong for universities to exploit their labor. Criminal, really. But since that's not me--since I do live in a place with a healthier economy--I'd be an idiot if I took that kind of work and then ran around calling myself the invisible poor. Even more, I'd be wrong to take a job adjuncting since it only further enables universities to eliminate full-time lines and further exploit people--especially those people who really, honestly don't have a choice. For me, the choice not to adjunct is both self-serving and out of concern for the entire profession--not because I'm on some sanctimonious binge. Universities get away with treating people like crap because they can. In fact, you should read the latest opinions from university administrators. They're not all that concerned with unionization efforts, because even unionized adjuncts are a bargain for them, and a class they'll continue to exploit. Even with concessions, it's still a win-win for them.

 

Another thing that should motivate you to avoid adjuncting: you're wrong in that it's not a means to "advance." It actually works against you on the job market. Hiring committees these days turn their noses up at adjuncts as people who didn't have the chops to get real jobs when they actually applied. Lovely sentiments, and a way that privilege continues to replicate itself.

 

But like I said, you should really take your own advice.

[lifealive]

 

 

 

If you want a real reality check, read the Chronicle and VersatilePhD forums where people talk about the difficulties of securing a position. On the Chronicle forums, you'll get the academic market difficulties. On VersatilePhD, you'll read about the job market struggles of those trying to get out of academia, even those with the kinds of additional/alternative experience I suggested to lazaria already. Both of those reality checks are useful because, to be quite honest, I'm sick of people acting like it's so easy to take your PhD and find another decently-paying line of work. The market sucks. Having a PhD doesn't mean you can get a job doing anything. You're a strong writer? Great but so are hundreds of other people, some of whom will have more recent work experience or internships to make them marketable. Or, they won't have a PhD, so they're more likely to get hired for an entry-level gig under the presumption that they won't leave and that they're willing to start at a lower salary. Is that harsh? Yes, but it's also true. 

.

 

This is true, and I definitely don't want to minimize the hardships of looking for non-academic work when you've been in academia for 5-7 years. I'm actually going through this kind of hardship right now. But I've been through job hunts before, and I have to say they're always agonizing. I even looked for a job when the economy was good at one point (sort of) and it was still agonizing. I looked for a job when I had no experience and was young and entry-level. Couldn't get a job most of the time then because I didn't have the experience. I looked for a job later, when I did have experience, and I got turned down by most jobs then for who knows what reason. You will always get tons of rejections. Tons. You send out 100 resumes and interview for maybe two positions. It's extraordinarily demoralizing.

 

But sometimes I do think that academics who have never worked outside of academia are out-of-touch with this reality, and hence the hand-wringing on places like the Chronicle and VersatilePhD. Job searches are always long, drawn-out, and agonizing affairs. But when you get accepted to grad school as a 22-year-old and manage to finish by the time you're 29 with publications and all else, not finding a job after months of searching can feel very alienating.

 

Despite all this, I still maintain that a PhD does qualify people for work. Ex-academics do have jobs--they don't all end up unemployed or adjuncting. I also don't think that "just don't go because you'll make yourself unemployable" is a very good reason. And if anything, your unsuccessful academic job search can prepare you for the long, agonizing drawn-out post-academic job search.

[kurayamino]

Hahaha, so true, Sigaba. Again, out of upvotes otherwise I would've put one on your post. 

 

And yes, you get a stable income for 5-6 years. But, you're assuming that you would really be unable to find a job that pays you a cumulative... $90K in 6 years. To be quite honest, you would make at least that, if not more (because eventually you'd be promoted into management), if you started working at Wendy's for minimum wage right now. When I think about the lost income of grad school, I think about what my peers were doing when I was 3-4 years in and how much they were making. Most of my friends, even after adjusting for cost-of-living, were making somewhere between 2 and 15 times what I was making back then. A friend of mine got a job working in a brewery (making beer) and made more money than me each year that I was in grad school easily (plus, he got free beer from work!). Did I get to do things in grad school that otherwise I wouldn't have gotten to do? Absolutely, yes. But, there were costs to that, financially and otherwise. 

 

It's great to have a stable income for 5-6 years. But, to return to my earlier Wendy's example, 5-6 years there and you'd potentially be moving into management. After 5-6 years of a PhD, you may then go look for that same job you could've gotten before you started. If you end up un(der)employed for a year or two, will the degree still be worth it? Will you be able to go back to living on $7.5K after having $15-20K for 5-6 years? Are you really okay with carving out a living making $1500-3000 a course? These are decisions that seem far off now but, will be in front of you before you know it. 

 

If you want a real reality check, read the Chronicle and VersatilePhD forums where people talk about the difficulties of securing a position. On the Chronicle forums, you'll get the academic market difficulties. On VersatilePhD, you'll read about the job market struggles of those trying to get out of academia, even those with the kinds of additional/alternative experience I suggested to lazaria already. Both of those reality checks are useful because, to be quite honest, I'm sick of people acting like it's so easy to take your PhD and find another decently-paying line of work. The market sucks. Having a PhD doesn't mean you can get a job doing anything. You're a strong writer? Great but so are hundreds of other people, some of whom will have more recent work experience or internships to make them marketable. Or, they won't have a PhD, so they're more likely to get hired for an entry-level gig under the presumption that they won't leave and that they're willing to start at a lower salary. Is that harsh? Yes, but it's also true. 

 

As Sigaba pointed out, you can go in with your eyes wide open and still be a bit shellshocked by the market when you go on it. You'll think that you did all the right things (publish, get grants, network at conferences, develop a sexy subfield that is trendy) and still get 100s of rejections. It's like being the last kid picked in kickball in school except that no one actually ever takes the last kid, you just stand around on the side trying to show them that you do have skills while they ignore you or laugh in your face.

Well, my personal reasons for going into a phd were because there was no upward mobility in my "field" of back breaking physical labor. I made a marginal 15-20k which multiplied out for 6 years is 90-120k. I was already a manager where I worked. There wasn't a lateral jump I could have made because after working 70 hour weeks I didn't have the time and energy to apply for "better" jobs. I was too busy living hand to mouth. The phd programs I have gotten into come out to about the same amount of money, 120k-130k of guaranteed funding, but this doesn't include the health insurance that I did not have and desperately needed or supplemental funding for summers and so forth. Nor does it factor in the actual work for wages or physical toil that jobs like working at Wendy's or other fast food/retail work necessitates.

I think that the problem with adjuncting and stale PhDs are real, but I don't think that the "risk" of getting a phd is as dire as suggested in this forum. If you're leaving a 100k year a job then yeah, maybe you should really think about it, but for most people who face persistent poverty I don't think the phd is going to reduce their income over time if it's a funded program.

[__________________________]

Well, my personal reasons for going into a phd were because there was no upward mobility in my "field" of back breaking physical labor. I made a marginal 15-20k which multiplied out for 6 years is 90-120k. I was already a manager where I worked. There wasn't a lateral jump I could have made because after working 70 hour weeks I didn't have the time and energy to apply for "better" jobs. I was too busy living hand to mouth. The phd programs I have gotten into come out to about the same amount of money, 120k-130k of guaranteed funding, but this doesn't include the health insurance that I did not have and desperately needed or supplemental funding for summers and so forth. Nor does it factor in the actual work for wages or physical toil that jobs like working at Wendy's or other fast food/retail work necessitates.

I think that the problem with adjuncting and stale PhDs are real, but I don't think that the "risk" of getting a phd is as dire as suggested in this forum. If you're leaving a 100k year a job then yeah, maybe you should really think about it, but for most people who face persistent poverty I don't think the phd is going to reduce their income over time if it's a funded program.

This is so true.  The job market sucks everywhere.  B.A.s, too, are dime a dozen nowadays.  People who got their B.A.s in English made these "mistakes" a while ago.  One thing, too, that I look forward to with my Ph.D. is finally having the luxury to be able to do internships over the summers instead of busting my ass at underpaid jobs to scrape together a little money to get through the next year of school.  I tried to diversify my resume as much as I could during my B.A., but it was hard given my circumstances.  With my Ph.D. I'll have these funded years of Ph.D. work, but also big city opportunities for things like internships and summer language immersion programs etc. that I didn't have the luxury of being able to do as an undergrad.

 

The job market is demoralizing everywhere.  I can't name a single prospective professional field for myself right now, given my work experience and skill sets, that isn't bleak.  The economy sucks!  Right now this Ph.D. program is offering me the best option financially that I foresee myself having right now.  The town I live in has over 10% unemployment and over 30% of the people here are living at or below the poverty level and the job I work, as a long term substitute teacher, is having me live hand to mouth while I work my fucking ass off -- this program gives me a feasible way to get the hell out of here without, for the first time in a long time, needing to constantly worry about money, at least for a few years.  And no, teaching public school and working as a sub is not a stable market and the prospects in that are not great.  I plan on learning two more languages in graduate school.  I plan on doing summer internships so I can gain skills for work in the non-profit and education sectors.  While participating in a dynamic scholarly environment and working with some of the most amazing people in my field.  None of us are in this for the money, but we're not stupid.  I'd like to think I have as few illusions about this as one can have, given that I've already made a thoroughly irresponsible decision.  

 

Anyway, this will likely get buried amongst bitchy rants (again), but I'd still be interested in hearing about peoples' experiences preserving their resumes while in Ph.D. programs.  I'm 100% enthused and happy about starting my Ph.D., but I also have a resume that I don't want to allow to get completely out of date and untouched, so I'd be interested in hearing about whether people have faced particular struggles with that.  Or not.  You guys can also, I guess, just keep bickering about how much the job market sucks.  Everyone is fucking poor now, okay?  The middle class is fucked, the humanities are fucked, we're all fucked.  I'd like to hear some more from the people actually saying productive things on this thread about what we can do instead of it always devolving into the same shit over and over again.  You're not going to convince anyone on these forums to say "no" to their graduate programs that they've already committed to at this point and many of us aren't just wide-eyed little snowflakes waiting for our academic princes to come swoop us away to some intellectual la la land.  

 

News flash: none of us give a shit that you could make a little more money becoming a manager at Wendy's or something like that -- why do you think we got our B.A.s and M.A.s in literature to start with?  To put a more cynical twist on allplaid's observation: I see 30-somethings working at places like Wendy's all the time. Christ.  You know?  I walked away from a job as a building maintenance technician at a fancy Los Angeles Hilton after I graduated high school and I chose to move half way across the country on a scholarship instead where I was able to get an amazing, if technically less "valuable," education.  Not one person that I've ever met would criticize me for that decision, which still put me in a good amount of debt.  Now I'm going to grad school for free, getting paid, and it's this condescending conversation about how naive everyone is who goes to get a PhD?  Whatever.  Economically, I was never gonna be shit anyway.

[echo449]

mollifiedmolloy, this might be an example of what yr looking for in terms of alternative work: http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/08/09/shadow_resume_career_advice_for_graduate_students.html

[SilasWegg]

 

It's great to have a stable income for 5-6 years. But, to return to my earlier Wendy's example, 5-6 years there and you'd potentially be moving into management. After 5-6 years of a PhD, you may then go look for that same job you could've gotten before you started. If you end up un(der)employed for a year or two, will the degree still be worth it? Will you be able to go back to living on $7.5K after having $15-20K for 5-6 years? Are you really okay with carving out a living making $1500-3000 a course? These are decisions that seem far off now but, will be in front of you before you know it. 

 

 

Remarks like this remind me that our discussions regarding the academic job market are in dire need of a privilege check. To suggest that admitted doctoral students in English should consider working at a fast food restaurant instead of pursuing an advanced degree grossly minimizes the very real and very devastating abuses of the labor market in the service industry. Obviously the job market in academics is bleak, a fact which has been reiterated in many different ways and in many different threads on this board, but to suggest subjecting oneself to the abuses of a massive consumer-driven soul-crushing service market in order to ward off minimal losses in opportunity costs legitimizes these exploitative labor practices.

 

What's worse, this comparison equates white-collar labor anxieties with the struggle of hard-working people to fend off generational poverty. The service industry, even in a fun kitchen working with cool friends, offers no advancement, no self-improvement, makes it impossible to start a family, own a home, or ever even feel "okay." I like shift drinks and tips sometimes add up if you're lucky. Then you catch a slow shift and make fifty bucks in eight hours and there's no beer in the fridge. Though $3500 for teaching a college course is exploitative, your time is your own, opportunities to advance are plentiful, the work is meaningful, rewarding, (even) stimulating, and you don't have to clean the grill. By the way, earning $3500 (at a higher service industry wage) means over 400 hours of work time. I don't think anybody on this thread would want to do 4 hours working at a Wendy's, let alone 400.

 

It's not even oranges and apples. This comparison implies a very troubling disconnect between our worldview within the university, a noted engine of inequality, and the devastating reality of consumer-driven economics. I do believe we need to keep stirring the pot on this issue but we have to realize that our struggles go hand-in-hand with everyone whose labor is undervalued. Let's not lose perspective.

[__________________________]

mollifiedmolloy, this might be an example of what yr looking for in terms of alternative work: http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/08/09/shadow_resume_career_advice_for_graduate_students.html

Thank you, echo449 -- though this article stays away from specifics, this is along the lines of what I'm thinking about and it's nice to see someone else describing it and affirming its basic possibility.  Has anyone else been trying to keep things like this in mind?  This is why I think location is kind of an underrated part of the discussion when we talk about decisions: I chose a program in a big city over a roughly equally prestigious (if not more) program in an isolated location largely because I wanted to have more diverse opportunities while in school.  I'm also surprised at how little I see people talk about the overlaps between PhD and non-profit work.  This was mentioned earlier, but yes, if you are at a funded program, you are likely at a big school with a bunch of resources for taking technically useful coursework on the side and getting engaged with community-oriented work.  For example, my new university has a program that connects the Humanities division with local public schools by fostering educational outreach and adult education programs.  This kind of work can be useful for jobs in the non-profit sector, which is growing all the time.  It's also just good, I'd imagine, to just give yourself opportunities to remind yourself that there is a world outside of academia.

 

 

Remarks like this remind me that our discussions regarding the academic job market are in dire need of a privilege check. To suggest that admitted doctoral students in English should consider working at a fast food restaurant instead of pursuing an advanced degree grossly minimizes the very real and very devastating abuses of the labor market in the service industry. Obviously the job market in academics is bleak, a fact which has been reiterated in many different ways and in many different threads on this board, but to suggest subjecting oneself to the abuses of a massive consumer-driven soul-crushing service market in order to ward off minimal losses in opportunity costs legitimizes these exploitative labor practices.

 

What's worse, this comparison equates white-collar labor anxieties with the struggle of hard-working people to fend off generational poverty. The service industry, even in a fun kitchen working with cool friends, offers no advancement, no self-improvement, makes it impossible to start a family, own a home, or ever even feel "okay." I like shift drinks and tips sometimes add up if you're lucky. Then you catch a slow shift and make fifty bucks in eight hours and there's no beer in the fridge. Though $3500 for teaching a college course is exploitative, your time is your own, opportunities to advance are plentiful, the work is meaningful, rewarding, (even) stimulating, and you don't have to clean the grill. By the way, earning $3500 (at a higher service industry wage) means over 400 hours of work time. I don't think anybody on this thread would want to do 4 hours working at a Wendy's, let alone 400.

 

It's not even oranges and apples. This comparison implies a very troubling disconnect between our worldview within the university, a noted engine of inequality, and the devastating reality of consumer-driven economics. I do believe we need to keep stirring the pot on this issue but we have to realize that our struggles go hand-in-hand with everyone whose labor is undervalued. Let's not lose perspective.

100% agree.

[Sigaba]

While the OP has raised a controversial topic and there's a lot of passion on all sides of the debate, I urge members of this BB, especially those who are well seasoned by the ups and downs of graduate school to think thrice before posting snarky remarks.

Please do not say on line anything you would not say to someone's face at an academic conference. (Or in the parking garage behind the conference venue.)

Americans who hold dim views of academics are looking for reasons to dismantle the Ivory Tower. Don't give them "ammunition" by being unduly combative.

[1Q84]

Remarks like this remind me that our discussions regarding the academic job market are in dire need of a privilege check. To suggest that admitted doctoral students in English should consider working at a fast food restaurant instead of pursuing an advanced degree grossly minimizes the very real and very devastating abuses of the labor market in the service industry. Obviously the job market in academics is bleak, a fact which has been reiterated in many different ways and in many different threads on this board, but to suggest subjecting oneself to the abuses of a massive consumer-driven soul-crushing service market in order to ward off minimal losses in opportunity costs legitimizes these exploitative labor practices.

 

What's worse, this comparison equates white-collar labor anxieties with the struggle of hard-working people to fend off generational poverty. The service industry, even in a fun kitchen working with cool friends, offers no advancement, no self-improvement, makes it impossible to start a family, own a home, or ever even feel "okay." I like shift drinks and tips sometimes add up if you're lucky. Then you catch a slow shift and make fifty bucks in eight hours and there's no beer in the fridge. Though $3500 for teaching a college course is exploitative, your time is your own, opportunities to advance are plentiful, the work is meaningful, rewarding, (even) stimulating, and you don't have to clean the grill. By the way, earning $3500 (at a higher service industry wage) means over 400 hours of work time. I don't think anybody on this thread would want to do 4 hours working at a Wendy's, let alone 400.

 

It's not even oranges and apples. This comparison implies a very troubling disconnect between our worldview within the university, a noted engine of inequality, and the devastating reality of consumer-driven economics. I do believe we need to keep stirring the pot on this issue but we have to realize that our struggles go hand-in-hand with everyone whose labor is undervalued. Let's not lose perspective.

 

I'm not quite sure about what distinction you're making here. Yes, there's certainly a material difference between physical labor and academic work but may I remind you that many adjuncts are living off food stamps. Yes, in much the same position as retail food workers. The adjunct on food stamps also cannot start a family, save up to achieve increased economic freedom, or to take your last example, free him or herself from generational poverty. I think that's one thing people often overlook: if a first generation college student pursues grad school, that doesn't necessarily mean they've broken the chain of poverty--at least not in this climate.

 

And that's exactly my point. Many writers have called this the "Walmartization" of higher ed, and that's a perfect analogy. If we don't act, corporatization will seek to equate Ph.D. holders with retail shift workers. (edit): not that I'm saying there's anything inherently "better" about being a Ph.D. holder than a retail shift worker. I meant that instead of degrading Ph.D. holders to a position of exploitive abuse, we should be trying to raise retail shift workers up, and keep Ph.D. holders from sliding down as well.

 

I think a lot of people here are taking the discussion very personally: no one here is calling you a naive idiot for pursuing a Ph.D. None of us should be here if that were the case. My only goal here is to get people to keep talking about these issues instead of simply writing it off as "bitchiness" or "negativity." 

 

Who's being negative here? The ones who are calling OP a naive fool for being shocked at the current state of academia or the ones who are trying to discuss the issue? It's ironic to me that those who keep wanting to shut down the conversation are those that are calling OP a naive fool for not knowing the academic job search is hell. Perhaps if discourse about this issue were freer, OP would have been more aware going into it and wouldn't have made this post expressing his or her shock to begin with.

Edited March 26, 2015 by 1Q84

[lifealive]

Remarks like this remind me that our discussions regarding the academic job market are in dire need of a privilege check. To suggest that admitted doctoral students in English should consider working at a fast food restaurant instead of pursuing an advanced degree grossly minimizes the very real and very devastating abuses of the labor market in the service industry. Obviously the job market in academics is bleak, a fact which has been reiterated in many different ways and in many different threads on this board, but to suggest subjecting oneself to the abuses of a massive consumer-driven soul-crushing service market in order to ward off minimal losses in opportunity costs legitimizes these exploitative labor practices.

 

What's worse, this comparison equates white-collar labor anxieties with the struggle of hard-working people to fend off generational poverty. The service industry, even in a fun kitchen working with cool friends, offers no advancement, no self-improvement, makes it impossible to start a family, own a home, or ever even feel "okay." I like shift drinks and tips sometimes add up if you're lucky. Then you catch a slow shift and make fifty bucks in eight hours and there's no beer in the fridge. Though $3500 for teaching a college course is exploitative, your time is your own, opportunities to advance are plentiful, the work is meaningful, rewarding, (even) stimulating, and you don't have to clean the grill. By the way, earning $3500 (at a higher service industry wage) means over 400 hours of work time. I don't think anybody on this thread would want to do 4 hours working at a Wendy's, let alone 400.

 

It's not even oranges and apples. This comparison implies a very troubling disconnect between our worldview within the university, a noted engine of inequality, and the devastating reality of consumer-driven economics. I do believe we need to keep stirring the pot on this issue but we have to realize that our struggles go hand-in-hand with everyone whose labor is undervalued. Let's not lose perspective.

 

I agree wholeheartedly with your first paragraph--that telling people they'd be better off working a brutally low-paying fast-food job than going to grad school betrays a lack of awareness about working conditions in general.

 

However, I'm not in agreement, as much, about some of the points you make in your second paragraph. And to be honest, I think it also betrays a lack of awareness about adjunct labor.

 

If you get paid $3500 a course, you'll make about $28k a year--assuming you manage to lock in 4 courses a semester. That's before taxes or health insurance. 28k a year could be doable in some areas of the country--but to be honest, you probably won't make $3500 a course in the areas of the country where 28k is doable. You'll make less than that. Worse, the 28k assumes that you lock down eight classes a year, and that's hard to do. Right now, even the adjunct market is clogged. So let's take that figure down to six classes a year. Now you're only making $20k before taxes and health insurance. And that's going to be dicey in a lot of areas of the country. And, again, I want to reiterate that $3500 a class is very, very rosy. Most adjuncts in composition aren't making that much.

 

As an adjunct, your time is probably not going to be your own. You'll be teaching at a few different locations--lots of commuting (that you pay for--no employer reimbursement there). If you're not making ends meet on $20k, you'll have to take a second job, which will mean less time for yourself.

 

And as far as "opportunities to advance" being "plentiful"? Well, again, it depends on your definition of advancement. But adjuncting qualifies you to do little but adjunct. Your adjunct experience, in fact, may actually hurt you on the academic job market as there is a bias right now against hiring people who looked like they couldn't get a job. Additionally, adjuncts rarely get hired on at the community colleges or institutions where they are adjuncting.

 

Whether or not the experience is rewarding or meaningful? I suppose it can be. I don't think it is for a lot of people, though, because their work conditions and constant freeway flying (not to mention working another part time job) make it difficult to devote time to teaching and meeting with students. It's hard to hold office hours when you don't have an office.

 

Sure, it definitely beats scraping the grill, but I'm not sure that that's a productive way to frame this discussion. Just because one type of low-paying job isn't as bad as another, it still doesn't make the lesser of two evils something to aspire to.

 

Guys. You can do other things with your degree other than adjunct or work at Wendy's. That's all I'm trying to say here. Yes, even in this economy.

 

Guys, please. We teach undergrads. Some of them want to be English majors. In fact, we want them to be English majors so that we can go on teaching them. And yes, times are tough for English majors, but the degree doesn't simply exist as a way to enrich your mind while you prepare for your future in the food service industry. As much as I resist the idea that any discipline has to justify its existence with its marketability, I honestly know--as a previously employed English major--that the degree holds real value in the professional workplace. I hate to think that some people here want to teach undergrad English majors while believing that their own work as an English major qualifies them only for menial labor. Because it's just not true. And I say that as someone who is not having a jolly time of it in this economy. I still think that a degree in English qualifies you to do some things.

[ToldAgain]

Thank you, echo449 -- though this article stays away from specifics, this is along the lines of what I'm thinking about and it's nice to see someone else describing it and affirming its basic possibility.  Has anyone else been trying to keep things like this in mind? 

 

I do freelance editing and writing, and I pick up good work every once in a while. Through this side project that takes maybe ten hours/week of time when I am busy, I have gained a few clients who trust me and send me work when they need something edited or written. I plan to keep this going, at a low level, all through grad school, so I can at least attempt to scale it up if I need to. I'm currently working a two-month full-time gig for a marketing agency, though this sort of thing is rare.

 

I'm happy to give out advice regarding what I do to pull in extra bucks.

[chateaulafitte]

Working at Wendy's sucks, none is going to deny this, but the only accurate thing about this:

 

Though $3500 for teaching a college course is exploitative, your time is your own, opportunities to advance are plentiful, the work is meaningful, rewarding, (even) stimulating, and you don't have to clean the grill.

 

is you don't have to clean the grill.

 

About alt-ac work: as some have pointed out, it's not easy to break into the kinds of jobs PhDs purportedly can do, because those jobs already have their own training and are also in high demand (non-profit, museums, libraries, etc.). A PhD is not a Swiss Army knife; it is an advanced degree that prepares for a specific career, and it is perceived as such by recruiters. Sure, you can take classes and do internships that will open your horizons and perhaps make you more "marketable" for other jobs, but even then, in most cases you still won't be competitive against someone who trained specifically.

 

(and yes, there are some exceptions, but for most peope, it's hard to switch to another career, especially after investing 5-8 years of your life in academia, pouring your heart and soul into it, and in some cases putting off having children, settling down, etc)

 

Take another look at the OP and VM's subsequent posts, as well as the posts by rising_star, and a couple of others. Notice how members of this BB are reacting/responding to them. Group B, comprised of members who are farther along in the pipeline are saying "Yeah, I get what you mean. That's happened to me." Members of Group A, those who haven't been through the same types of experiences are saying "What are you saying?" and "Well, that's not going to happen to me," and "Well, that might happen to me, I don't have blinders on, so I have a back up plan. (But it isn't really going to happen to me)."

 

Here's the thing. Every member of Group B was once a member of Group A and as members of Group A, we in Group B said "I will never be in Group B." Yet here we are.

 

That, exactly.

Edited March 26, 2015 by chateaulafitte

[Dr. Old Bill]

For me, the end goal of all of this has been to teach at college level. I enjoy research, writing, academic challenges, and long walks on the beach, but ultimately I look most forward to teaching the discipline to undergraduates. The primary (but by no means the only) reason I am going down this path is to give me the best opportunity to do that at the highest level. Having said that, I'm utterly open to other possibilities post-Ph.D., whether that is consulting, working for a non-profit arts organization, working for a publishing house, a library...there are SO many alt-ac options out there for English majors! I would probably adjunct for a course or two per year while doing whatever alternate-plan-A it is I wind up working at, but having an ideal is rarely a bad thing, so long as you are able to see past it.

 

Case in point: had you asked me a mere two months ago if I would consider a Master's program, my response would have ranged from a "probably not" to a flat out "no." Guess what? Tomorrow I'm going to the open house of the M.A. program that accepted me, and I'm downright excited about it. I would almost go so far as to say "thrilled." Adaptation to change is a core component of our natures, and being able to roll with the changes (apologies to REO Speedwagon) is a valuable life skill in any industry.

 

I don't think anyone here is saying anything to the contrary, but it is worth restating that there are MANY valid reasons to pursuing graduate English, even if the ultimate dream of snagging a TT job at an R1 proves too elusive. The fast food analogy is positively inapt. We're all critical thinkers here. We should know better than to dive for the low-hanging fruit of the "bottom barrel" scenario. It's a wide world out there, and people with our particular sets of skills that we have acquired over a very long career (apologies to Liam Neeson) can make the most of the abundant alt-ac opportunities.

[ProfLorax]

WT: I believe in the spirit of your post, especially in regards to the importance of adaptability. But I'm curious if this is true:

there are SO many alt-ac options out there for English majors! 

I found that to be true when I was on the job market with my BA. But is that the case for the PhD? Many of the alt-ac jobs people talk about (think tanks, non profits, administration, publishing house, etc) are also super competitive, and I imagine the most successful candidates have work experience in the field. But I could be wrong! Is there a source that discusses how the PhD in English fares in the alt-ac world?

[InHacSpeVivo]

WT: I believe in the spirit of your post, especially in regards to the importance of adaptability. But I'm curious if this is true:

I found that to be true when I was on the job market with my BA. But is that the case for the PhD? Many of the alt-ac jobs people talk about (think tanks, non profits, administration, publishing house, etc) are also super competitive, and I imagine the most successful candidates have work experience in the field. But I could be wrong! Is there a source that discusses how the PhD in English fares in the alt-ac world?

I can only offer anecdotes, but I left the publishing industry to return to school, and in acquisitions its not uncommon to see PhDs. Publishing is mega competitive at the trade level (worse than academia tbh), but academic publishing, especially for the sciences, is relatively easy to get into provided you're willing to start in development and worm your way up.

I also know a defense contractor who has worked with several English PhDs over the years. From what I've seen (fwiw) the jobs are there, you just need to be willing to look beyond the traditional alt-ac route.