The Graduate School Ponzi Scheme

[SilasWegg]

I adjuncted for five years before starting doctoral work. It was the first time in my adult life I had a clear path to financial stability. Teahching four classes a semester was really hard but Wendy's it was not.

If you really think teaching undergrads is about as enjoyable as working at a Wendy's you need to find a different line of work.

[ProfLorax]

InHac, interesting! Thanks for responding. My hubs actually works for the DoD, and he's told me that PhD's in linguistics are especially sought after by contractors.

Re: adjuncting. I adjuncted for three years before going back to school. I loved the teaching. I loved the social capital of telling people I taught at a community college (outside of academia, people are pretty impressed when a twenty something is teaching at the college-level). I loved the flexibility. I loved the students. I loved the opportunity to test and see if college teaching was for me without making a commitment to the career. I discovered that I do love college teaching and returned to school when I was ready to make the commitment.

At the same time, I hated the instability, the threat of canceled classes due to low enrollment (fun times: if a TT instructor's class was canceled because of low enrollment, they would be assigned to a full section taught by an adjunct). I haaaaaaated the shared office space (I remember one afternoon, hoping so hard none of my officemates would barge in as my student told me about the abuse he suffered as a child). I hated the lack of support for office hours (I met with my basic writing students on my own time/dime). I hated paying for my insurance out of pocket. I didn't love teaching the same class over and over and over and over.

What I'm trying to say is that when we talk about adjunct teaching, we need some nuance. The exploitation and lack of security? Bad. But the teaching can be great. And for some of my friends, the flexibility was ideal, especially for military partners who have to move every few years.

One of the challenges, then, is to advocate for halting the adjunctifacation of the university and for more TT jobs while also advocating for improved working conditions for adjuncts. I don't think this is an unreasonable goal, but rhetorically, it's hard to advocate for dismantling a system and improving the system at the same time.

[ComeBackZinc]

I will reiterate my major point before: if it's really true that you can get your PhD and leave academia behind afterwards without regret, then go for it. But it has to be really true, and you have to understand that people start out saying that and then end up just as bitter and angry as they always said they wouldn't be. So if you make this choice, be damn sure, and endeavor to keep the same perspective then as you have now. That's all. If you know that about yourself, then I celebrate it and wish you the best of luck!

 

Also: the reason I constantly harp on the job market stuff is because of stuff like this. People say "I know how bad the job market is," and that anyone who doesn't know how about the market is a fool, and that we all already know about the market... and then people turn around and say "the job market is bad everywhere." That's exactly why I worry so much. There is no comparison between the job market writ large and the humanities PhD job market. The overall unemployment rate has actually been improving for years and is vastly lower than that of English PhDs. To compare the two is just wrong, and it really really worries me that people aren't nearly as informed as they think they are.

 

If you want people to stop constantly bringing up the job market around here, stop saying things that demonstrate that you don't recognize the extent of the problem.

Edited March 26, 2015 by ComeBackZinc

[greenmt]

I've noted elsewhere that I have worked in the nonprofit world for 20+years.  I've struggled a lot with whether it's a good idea or a bad idea to take a break & go into a PhD program.  Most of that has to do with my age, and family commitments.  But there is a subset of work within that world that requires a PhD, or for which PhDs are favored - i.e. typically end up in the job - for which I'm otherwise qualified.  Often these are people who leave academia; or they combine some teaching with university-affiliated institutions.

 

Having thought about this a lot, I'm going to try to lay out a couple of problems I see with the alt-ac narrative, at least as they relate to nonprofit-land.

 

First, there is no professional development for alternative career tracks within the programs themselves.  (The Slate article points out the option of looking for non-teaching work, but 1) tuition reimbursement is tied to a commitment to teaching for most, and 2) teaching *and* working outside makes you an outlier within your program, and from what I understand is often actively discouraged.)  It surprised me that this is the case, because most reputable PhD granting institutions have either in-house humanities centers, or relationships with such institutions; all have libraries; many now have digital-research arms.  There's a lot these programs could be doing to actively support students who envision themselves doing something other than teaching, or in addition to teaching (including providing tuition assistance for service, with time commitments equivalent to current prep / teaching loads).  There's also no reason that paid positions within this sub-sector could not include a research component, related to the work of the HC, library, or what have you.  I for one am very interested in the role that the humanities play - or could play - in public life, and I don't see a lot of rigorous inquiry into that subject.  Humanities centers tend to offer semi-public scholarly conferences, presentations, etc. by tenured folks, with audiences typically comprising those who have, or seek, tenure.  The arts, by contrast, have opened up a lot during the last 20-30 years; not all to the good, necessarily, but at least museums and performing arts institutions have some sense that they have a role to play in public life, and act like it.  I suspect that this will not change until a greater proportion of recession-PhD faculty get tenure and enter the ranks of academic administration.  Universities and colleges are living things, but having popped in and out of them during my working life, they change glacially.  It's my sense that faculty, whether on admissions or hiring committees, look and listen for people who look and sound like they looked and sounded before they had tenure.  When I told my recommenders, and others I know with tenured gigs, that I planned to apply for PhD but had a non-teaching track in mind, without exception they told me not to say so in my SOP.  I did anyway, because I did not want to be dishonest.  When I asked a very kind DGS for feedback on my unsuccessful application to his program last year, he said the same thing.  (I said so again this year, but qualified it because I have in fact become more intrigued with teaching, having done a bit of it in the intervening year.)  Anyway, change happens from within, and with life-tenured people responsible for change, sometimes there ain't much.

 

The second problem is that, in nonprofit land, it was possible when I started to enter with a BA, or even begin in an administrative role with no college degree at all, and work your way up.  Now it's common for management-level gigs to expect a MA (often in "fields" like "arts management" whose degree programs are unfunded, and sometimes cash cows, or subject-based degrees, such as a MA in art history or art education for museum gigs).  I worry that as PhDs (grudgingly, from the way I often hear it discussed) enter the nonprofit sector, what one might call degree-inflation will kick in, and PhDs will begin to be expected for more / most management / program gigs.  

Edited March 26, 2015 by greenmt

[lazaria]

People say "I know how bad the job market is," and that anyone who doesn't know how about the market is a fool, and that we all already know about the market... and then people turn around and say "the job market is bad everywhere." That's exactly why I worry so much. There is no comparison between the job market writ large and the humanities PhD job market. The overall unemployment rate has actually been improving for years and is vastly lower than that of English PhDs. To compare the two is just wrong, and it really really worries me that people aren't nearly as informed as they think they are.

I've long suspected this to be the case, given the frequency of newly-minted PhDs joining the market every year. Are there stats to support this somewhere? Any quantitative research on the number of unemployed humanities PhDs that you know of? 

[ComeBackZinc]

Part of the problem is that little research disaggregates recent PhDs from PhDs overall. However:

 

[kurayamino]

Saying a problem exists and discussing possible solutions for those problems are very different. Instead of contributing to a discussion a lot of these posts just feel like air raid sirens. They keep making a lot of noise about an impending threat but are drowning out the possibility for a real discussion. I think everyone on this forum at least knows the job opportunities for TT positions are bleak (and that they are bleak across the board for humanities). That's great. Maybe instead of just repeating this over and over we can start talking about other opportunities. The people who have started talking about those things are being drowned out by the sirens.

 

That being said, this website http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/alt-ac/is all about alt-ac conversations and opinions which has been interesting to look through. I haven't looked at in depth yet though.

 

This website from UV seems to have a list of careers/openings for alternate jobs: http://libra.virginia.edu/catalog/libra-oa:3500

This website from UT-Austin has a great pro/con list for alt-ac and how to move in that direction through digital humanities: http://www.utexas.edu/cola/orgs/lacs/Students/Graduate-Students/Career-Guides/Alt-ac.php

 

This is a consulting website with workshops on how to turn your humanities degree into a useful tool: http://www.alt-academix.com/

 

Stanford has a great list of even more websites for what to do with a humanities degree: https://studentaffairs.stanford.edu/cdc/phd/resources-outside-academia

[__________________________]

I adjuncted for five years before starting doctoral work. It was the first time in my adult life I had a clear path to financial stability. Teahching four classes a semester was really hard but Wendy's it was not.

If you really think teaching undergrads is about as enjoyable as working at a Wendy's you need to find a different line of work.

Yeah, I'm all for bonding between different groups that are exploited, but there isn't going to be much bonding between less-educated working class people and exploited, multiple-degree-carrying teachers and professors if the latter group is bemoaning how the quality of their work conditions are so similar to someone working in a kitchen.  Teaching is enormously stressful and demanding -- I do it for a living (and yes, I feel exploited all the time, and yes, it's the most stressful job I've ever had, and yes, the only "benefits" I get as a public servant are that I earn a low enough wage to be eligible for EBT), but I will never compare it to the conditions I worked under as a corporate dishwasher, literally working until my fingers bled, soaked from head to toe in filthy water, every day and still having friends and coworkers working two or three jobs like that, working 90 hours a week to afford the rent and put some food in their kids' mouths.  No.  That's not fair.  And that's not how you create lateral bonding.  I'm sorry.  That's not at all to say that adjuncting or similar teaching jobs aren't exploitative.  Because they are.  Completely.  The situation is screwed up, but in a distinct way.

 

I'm sorry if it's naive to say that there aren't widely applicable skills you can get from pursuing a Ph.D. and I'm sure there are all sorts of forces that attempt to keep you in a bubble, but I don't think that can possibly override the fact that we work hard to get to this and do it to pursue something we are truly passionate about, no matter how quixotic it is.  I'm really glad Green mountain brought up the point s/he did about non-profits though and that really gives me something to think about as I explore how I might be creating options for myself in the non-profit sector even as I try and train for teaching in academia.  I completely agree that there is a conversation worth having about how, while we are part of academia (Ph.D. students being a big part of that workforce and operating as part of the system even if there is no future for them after they get their degrees), how we can work to make the humanities more socially engaged outside of the so-called "Ivory Tower."  And yes, ComeBackZinc, I know the job market within academia is way worse than most other sectors, the point I'm trying to make is that we, being intellectually ambitious people, should be able to think of ways to apply the intellectual rigor of our educations towards something that maybe isn't strictly delimited by the "hallowed halls" of the academy.  I would like to think that we can be more creative and at least try to turn a shitty situation into an opportunity for thinking about changes that might be made to the way we approach this.

 

ETA: cross posted with the posts above.  Thanks, kurayamino, for sharing these links!  I look forward to exploring them.

Edited March 26, 2015 by mollifiedmolloy

[greenmt]

Current, germane, and unusually brave... most of these that I've read are from people who either already have tenure or have once and for all turned their backs on academia.  http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/o-adjunct-my-adjunct?mbid=social_facebook

[ToldAgain]

Saying a problem exists and discussing possible solutions for those problems are very different. Instead of contributing to a discussion a lot of these posts just feel like air raid sirens. They keep making a lot of noise about an impending threat but are drowning out the possibility for a real discussion. I think everyone on this forum at least knows the job opportunities for TT positions are bleak (and that they are bleak across the board for humanities). That's great. Maybe instead of just repeating this over and over we can start talking about other opportunities. The people who have started talking about those things are being drowned out by the sirens.

 

That being said, this website http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/alt-ac/is all about alt-ac conversations and opinions which has been interesting to look through. I haven't looked at in depth yet though.

 

This website from UV seems to have a list of careers/openings for alternate jobs: http://libra.virginia.edu/catalog/libra-oa:3500

This website from UT-Austin has a great pro/con list for alt-ac and how to move in that direction through digital humanities: http://www.utexas.edu/cola/orgs/lacs/Students/Graduate-Students/Career-Guides/Alt-ac.php

 

This is a consulting website with workshops on how to turn your humanities degree into a useful tool: http://www.alt-academix.com/

 

Stanford has a great list of even more websites for what to do with a humanities degree: https://studentaffairs.stanford.edu/cdc/phd/resources-outside-academia

 

Thank you for these resources! I've mentioned freelancing as one of my possible backups. Do you have a plan for establishing an alt-ac possibility during your PhD?

[kurayamino]

Thank you for these resources! I've mentioned freelancing as one of my possible backups. Do you have a plan for establishing an alt-ac possibility during your PhD?

 

You're welcome! I have some knowledge of a coding language and at one of the schools I'm considering, a coding language is part of the DH. I think doing some database management would be really interesting for me as it would enable me to use my attention to detail and my ability to breakdown large information into smaller and more manageable chunks.

 

This last semester of my undergrad I have also been doing some work transcribing audio interviews (for a book on the history of literary criticism) and I really enjoy the work. I can see how the benefits of transcription, especially from another language, would be useful in a multitude of ways.

 

The other alternative I'm considering is working for the FBI. I had an interview (before I knew what my results were from grad apps) and they said if I was still interested in an analyst position to apply after my PhD as my education would increase my starting pay scale and ability to move up.

 

Those are just some of the things I'm currently considering.

[goldfinch1880]

kurayamino and greenmt....would you mind if I PMd you each individually?

 

You're welcome! I have some knowledge of a coding language and at one of the schools I'm considering, a coding language is part of the DH. I think doing some database management would be really interesting for me as it would enable me to use my attention to detail and my ability to breakdown large information into smaller and more manageable chunks.

 

This last semester of my undergrad I have also been doing some work transcribing audio interviews (for a book on the history of literary criticism) and I really enjoy the work. I can see how the benefits of transcription, especially from another language, would be useful in a multitude of ways.

 

The other alternative I'm considering is working for the FBI. I had an interview (before I knew what my results were from grad apps) and they said if I was still interested in an analyst position to apply after my PhD as my education would increase my starting pay scale and ability to move up.

 

Those are just some of the things I'm currently considering.

 

 

I've noted elsewhere that I have worked in the nonprofit world for 20+years.  I've struggled a lot with whether it's a good idea or a bad idea to take a break & go into a PhD program.  Most of that has to do with my age, and family commitments.  But there is a subset of work within that world that requires a PhD, or for which PhDs are favored - i.e. typically end up in the job - for which I'm otherwise qualified.  Often these are people who leave academia; or they combine some teaching with university-affiliated institutions.

 

Having thought about this a lot, I'm going to try to lay out a couple of problems I see with the alt-ac narrative, at least as they relate to nonprofit-land.

 

First, there is no professional development for alternative career tracks within the programs themselves.  (The Slate article points out the option of looking for non-teaching work, but 1) tuition reimbursement is tied to a commitment to teaching for most, and 2) teaching *and* working outside makes you an outlier within your program, and from what I understand is often actively discouraged.)  It surprised me that this is the case, because most reputable PhD granting institutions have either in-house humanities centers, or relationships with such institutions; all have libraries; many now have digital-research arms.  There's a lot these programs could be doing to actively support students who envision themselves doing something other than teaching, or in addition to teaching (including providing tuition assistance for service, with time commitments equivalent to current prep / teaching loads).  There's also no reason that paid positions within this sub-sector could not include a research component, related to the work of the HC, library, or what have you.  I for one am very interested in the role that the humanities play - or could play - in public life, and I don't see a lot of rigorous inquiry into that subject.  Humanities centers tend to offer semi-public scholarly conferences, presentations, etc. by tenured folks, with audiences typically comprising those who have, or seek, tenure.  The arts, by contrast, have opened up a lot during the last 20-30 years; not all to the good, necessarily, but at least museums and performing arts institutions have some sense that they have a role to play in public life, and act like it.  I suspect that this will not change until a greater proportion of recession-PhD faculty get tenure and enter the ranks of academic administration.  Universities and colleges are living things, but having popped in and out of them during my working life, they change glacially.  It's my sense that faculty, whether on admissions or hiring committees, look and listen for people who look and sound like they looked and sounded before they had tenure.  When I told my recommenders, and others I know with tenured gigs, that I planned to apply for PhD but had a non-teaching track in mind, without exception they told me not to say so in my SOP.  I did anyway, because I did not want to be dishonest.  When I asked a very kind DGS for feedback on my unsuccessful application to his program last year, he said the same thing.  (I said so again this year, but qualified it because I have in fact become more intrigued with teaching, having done a bit of it in the intervening year.)  Anyway, change happens from within, and with life-tenured people responsible for change, sometimes there ain't much.

 

The second problem is that, in nonprofit land, it was possible when I started to enter with a BA, or even begin in an administrative role with no college degree at all, and work your way up.  Now it's common for management-level gigs to expect a MA (often in "fields" like "arts management" whose degree programs are unfunded, and sometimes cash cows, or subject-based degrees, such as a MA in art history or art education for museum gigs).  I worry that as PhDs (grudgingly, from the way I often hear it discussed) enter the nonprofit sector, what one might call degree-inflation will kick in, and PhDs will begin to be expected for more / most management / program gigs.  

[greenmt]

No, goldfinch, please do.   I'm going to step away for a while - fighting off a bad cold, and my mac keeps freezing up - but I'll check back.

 

I wanted to relate a story that might give others heart.  I worked for a while alongside a Columbia MFA (a couple of books published) who was hired by the nonprofit I worked for - a youth chorus - to write grant proposals and other things.  He sort of became the in-house writer.  They were very impressed with the imprimatur his degree provided, and he was happy to leave behind the adjuncting grind... he earned more money, and had more time to write.  He previously had no experience writing grant proposals but he picked it up very quickly.  There's a good deal of overlap between the kinds of activities that make up nonprofit fundraising - research, writing, planning activities out a month or three months or a year or more in advance, talking with people - and those that make up academic work.  I have a main gig and a bunch of shifting consulting gigs on the side.  If I get in this fall, I'll likely hold on to one or two of these to supplement stipends and such.  There's always a need, there are many small 501c3s that can't afford full-time fundraisers, and many people learn on the job.  There are also lots of 501s that need smart people to serve on their boards, so if your locality has a small museum or cultural institution or film festival, they might be happy to have you join their board... another chance to learn on the job, and get the big-picture, and service is smiled upon in the nonprofit sector.

[kurayamino]

kurayamino and greenmt....would you mind if I PMd you each individually?

 

Of course not. I'll look out for it.

[chateaulafitte]

Some posts might sound like "air raid sirens", but they are necessary, because some people still don't realize how bad the market is, in spite of the multiple posts on the topic. And some people still engage in reckless behaviors, such as getting an unfunded MA.

 

There are also common misconceptions, such as the myth of "abundant alt-ac opportunities", when in reality, non-profit arts organizations, publishing houses and libraries are not out there waiting for humanities PhDs to show up when there are:

 

- professionals who are trained for those careers;

- 22yo fresh out of undergrad and eager to intern for next to nothing.

 

Sure, now and then an English PhD might find his/her way into those worlds, but s/he will be an outlier. Again, a humanities PhD is not a Swiss Army knife. 

 

Anecdata:

- I know two PhDs who got jobs in academic publishing and at the DoD, respectively (those two are pretty happy, as they chose those paths for personal reasons).

- Some who didn't get academic jobs work as private tutors or for test preps; others are freelance editors/translators. They're not very happy, because they spent several years of their lives preparing for a job that never materialized and because they have to hustle to make a substandard living. Some find comfort in the fact that at least, they got to pick where they live.

- Those who made it into consulting are scientists.

[1Q84]

Current, germane, and unusually brave... most of these that I've read are from people who either already have tenure or have once and for all turned their backs on academia.  http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/o-adjunct-my-adjunct?mbid=social_facebook

 

Thank you for posting this. A fantastic read and a perfect response to those who can't seem to understand why hating adjuncting doesn't mean one hates teaching. In fact, the relationship is often an inverse one!

 

What I find interesting is that many here are talking about alt-ac and positions outside academia. This is, of course, practical and very helpful, I don't deny that. But it does nothing to help the worsening fate of academia, least of all those suffering in adjunct positions. I see that these seem to be two mutually exclusive concerns to some posters here but I don't think they have to be. Call it an "air raid siren" if you want, but if we all just turn our backs on academia, then we can't expect much more than for it to collapse. It would be great to see online organizing and brainstorming about what can be done about this (akin to the online organizing that surrounding National Adjunct Walkout Day). I'm curious to hear ideas from others because I don't have as much experience as I'd like regarding that kind of action.

Edited March 26, 2015 by 1Q84

[Romanista]

 

 

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.

 

 

 

I think what morristr meant was that, because you are only paid for when you are in the classroom, you are free to budget your time accordingly. As far as I know, a university will never tell an adjunct that they must get their grading done at a certain time of the day or week. Whereas in a 9 to 5 type of job your boss will tell you to do X at Y o'clock even though you'd rather do X at Z o'clock. This isn't to say that adjuncts have a lot of free time since they often have to commute so much, but at least they can plan out their workweek to some extent.

[lifealive]

If you really think teaching undergrads is about as enjoyable as working at a Wendy's you need to find a different line of work.

 

No one said anything resembling this, though.

 

What's troubling is the implicit attitude toward the profession, here--that one should never complain about adjuncting because it sure beats working at Wendy's, and that if you complain about adjuncting you must not know what real hardship looks like. No. College professors deserve a working, middle-class salary (as does everyone--including those who work at Wendy's). Everyone deserves a job where they can have health insurance and where they can possibly aspire to own property and save up enough money to send a kid to the local public university. These things didn't used to be unusual, and asking for them or demanding them does not make one ungrateful or unfit to teach undergrads. 

 

The rhetoric that you should just be so happy to be an adjunct because teaching is your passion and your vocation and is so much better than cleaning the bathrooms at Walmart--well, that's the same rhetoric that justifies keeping professor pay so low. We have framed our work as a calling and a vocation for too long. I don't see doctors--who also work for the common good--thinking it's okay to get paid 20k a year because they love helping patients. Universities are certainly capable of paying their teaching staff a much better wage--if you eliminated one administrator salary at my university, you could hire six full-time professors the next day.

[SilasWegg]

I take issue with the comparison not with its message. Clearly we can talk about the job market in academia without resorting to classist remarks that equate white collar job anxiety with the brutal exploitation that occurs in the service industry. I understand perfectly that this is an argument by way of analogy but I think there is a classist assumption underlying this hyperbole. It concerns me because this rhetoric is repeated so often that it appears many people believe it to be true.

[VirtualMessage]

I take issue with the comparison not with its message. Clearly we can talk about the job market in academia without resorting to classist remarks that equate white collar job anxiety with the brutal exploitation that occurs in the service industry. I understand perfectly that this is an argument by way of analogy but I think there is a classist assumption underlying this hyperbole. It concerns me because this rhetoric is repeated so often that it appears many people believe it to be true.

 

The feelings-- the crisis-- that contingent academic laborers face is far from hyperbole. You need to face the emotional realities that attend this crisis. I started this thread to focus the attention of prospective students on how they will feel when after years of hard work, sacrifice, anticipation, anxiety, and difficulty, they are barred from finding a living wage in the professional community they have lived and worked in for years. It is a devastating blow. Nothing can prepare you for it. Many of you simply do not realize what academic labor entails because you have never done it. Maybe you have taught, but have you published? Publishing is not the same as writing term papers. It is painstaking, difficult work that benefits a number of different entities: the University press, the University, and maybe you, maybe. However, publishing no longer guarantees you anything. This is labor in its most alienated form because it results in no compensation whatsoever. In fact, many people end up paying the University for the opportunity to adjunct for them at the same time as they publish for them. You forget that dissertations have lives of their own, and when the funding runs out, you're lucky to join the adjunct pool at your graduate school. Again, graduate school seems clearcut when you're about to enter it: they will give you this, you will do that, and it will end in several years. You forget, however, the complications and difficulties that inevitably occur. Each time you adapt and meet these challenges, you become more committed to your work. In the end, if you have been successful, you are a fully fledged teacher and scholar with a book project. Now, think about facing the reality that you will have no job after applying to 150 of them. That is the reality many newly minted PhDs with publication and substantial teaching experience are facing this week. 

 

I have worked all sorts of jobs over the course of my life, including food service. It's nasty work. But I have never experienced this kind of alienation. Like I said before, I have no language to describe it. It's true: the comparison between the adjunct and the Wendy's worker isn't very helpful for negotiating these feelings. It ignores the distinct forms of hypocrisy and deception at work in higher education. It looks past the distress and panic of being Ponzied--those mornings that will follow when you awake and realize that your dream is now a nightmare. Hyperbole? Reserve judgment and report back in 7-10 years. 

[unræd]

The feelings-- the crisis-- that contingent academic laborers face is far from hyperbole. You need to face the emotional realities that attend this crisis. I started this thread to focus the attention of prospective students on how they will feel when after years of hard work, sacrifice, anticipation, anxiety, and difficulty, they are barred from finding a living wage in the professional community they have lived and worked in for years. It is a devastating blow. Nothing can prepare you for it...

 

However, publishing no longer guarantees you anything. This is labor in its most alienated form because it results in no compensation whatsoever...

 

I have worked all sorts of jobs over the course of my life, including food service. It's nasty work. But I have never experienced this kind of alienation. Like I said before, I have no language to describe it. It's true: the comparison between the adjunct and the Wendy's worker isn't very helpful for negotiating these feelings. It ignores the distinct forms of hypocrisy and deception at work in higher education. It looks past the distress and panic of being Ponzied--those mornings that will follow when you awake and realize that your dream is now a nightmare. Hyperbole? Reserve judgment and report back in 7-10 years. 

 

The hyperbole people are reacting to isn't that the emotional distress isn't real, it's comparing that emotional distress with 14 hour backbreaking shifts in a dishpit. I'm not saying adjuncts should be happy with their lot--they shouldn't, at all. They should be (and are) mad as hell and organizing against their inhumane working conditions, and we should organize with them. But are we really comfortable saying that the reason the Wendy's analogy fails is because it's too weak? That at least dishwashers don't have to deal with the "hypocrisy and deception" of the academy? That seems to be what your last paragraph implies, and I think that's a tougher row to hoe.

 

And can we talk more about the hypocrisy you bring up? It seems like there are (at least) two separate conversations going on in this thread. One is that people say that they know the market is awful, but don't (and can't, probably) internalize what that really means for when they go on the job market and find they won't be able to do what you've spent the last seven years training to do. That's an important conversation, and I appreciate the note of hard-nosed practicality from those who say the job market doesn't get mentioned enough, that it's a different thing to be on the other side of it, and that alt-ac isn't really some magic solution.

 

But you mentioned "deception at work in higher education," "being Ponzied," and the title you gave this thread was "The Graduate School Ponzi Scheme." You feel like you were sold a bill of goods, but isn't that a distinct issue from the one above? Self-deception is one thing; a concerted scheme to dupe poor young applicants into setting their dreams on the tenure track is another. Looking at it from another perspective, is anyone at this point actually being told that they will get a job, or that academia is a meritocracy? Does anyone believe it?

[circlewave]

for whatever it's worth, prior to applying/enrolling in a grad program, i looked into pursuing a variety of fairly disparate fields, and without fail, literally everybody i spoke to from each field gave some variant of the "it's all going down in flames, only a fool would do this, save yourself while you can" doomsaying that's going around this thread, the job market is bad for everyone, full stop, unless you're a developer working on a venture-capital start-up or something. i'm not trying to undermine anything that's been said already, but the problems are probably not unique to the academic humanities.

Edited March 27, 2015 by circlewave

[unræd]

But you mentioned "deception at work in higher education," "being Ponzied," and the title you gave this thread was "The Graduate School Ponzi Scheme." You feel like you were sold a bill of goods, but isn't that a distinct issue from the one above? Self-deception is one thing; a concerted scheme to dupe poor young applicants into setting their dreams on the tenure track is another. Looking at it from another perspective, is anyone at this point actually being told that they will get a job, or that academia is a meritocracy? Does anyone believe it?

 

That perhaps came off as more strident than I intended. I'd really be interested in a discussion, from people on the other side of the process, about where and whether people see this kind of deception today.

Edited March 27, 2015 by unræd

[silenus_thescribe]

But you mentioned "deception at work in higher education," "being Ponzied," and the title you gave this thread was "The Graduate School Ponzi Scheme." You feel like you were sold a bill of goods, but isn't that a distinct issue from the one above? Self-deception is one thing; a concerted scheme to dupe poor young applicants into setting their dreams on the tenure track is another. Looking at it from another perspective, is anyone at this point actually being told that they will get a job, or that academia is a meritocracy? Does anyone believe it?

 

^This.

 

While I agree there should be a candid conversation about the bleakness of the job market that doesn't couch it in hedges ("Well, it's not so bad", etc), sensationalizing the issue with tags like "Ponzi scheme" doesn't do the conversation any favors, either. That implies a deliberate maliciousness on the part of universities, and an unknowingness on the part of potential/actual PhD students. Although there are scores of schools that could genuinely afford to pay/treat adjuncts well, maybe even offer a few more TT jobs, plenty of schools are facing budget mandates that are biased against the humanities. Schools in this position often couldn't do much better pay-wise even if they wanted to. Throwing the "Ponzi scheme" label makes it seem as if the issue boils down to a centralized sinister plot, which trivializes an issue that is influenced by myriad variables in and out of academia.

 

Moreover, if this truly is a "Ponzi scheme", it's a bad one, as unraed points out, because we're all cognizant of the theft that's happening. The better, albeit imperfect, analogy would be the immoral unpaid internship "market" in the US. Unpaid internships are essentially a socially acceptable form of theft, and the adjunct job market is a socially acceptable form of being underpaid/maltreated. Obviously there are disanalogies here; with adjuncting you're at least getting paid, and not all adjunct positions pay pittance, for instance. But the relevant similarity is that despite the major issues with both institutions that are widely acknowledged, even by participants in those systems, people still apply to work in those fields en masse. This leads to the obvious question: what are the circumstances exist in society that lead people to take the dive into what are largely acknowledged to be unfair labor markets?

[chateaulafitte]

But you mentioned "deception at work in higher education," "being Ponzied," and the title you gave this thread was "The Graduate School Ponzi Scheme." You feel like you were sold a bill of goods, but isn't that a distinct issue from the one above? Self-deception is one thing; a concerted scheme to dupe poor young applicants into setting their dreams on the tenure track is another. Looking at it from another perspective, is anyone at this point actually being told that they will get a job, or that academia is a meritocracy? Does anyone believe it?

 

But there is deception at work in higher education. Why do you think most departments are less than forthcoming about their graduate placement? Why do you think advisors keep saying "there are always jobs for good people"?