Graduate Studies... Don't Do it

[ChibaCityBlues]

http://chronicle.com/article/Graduate-School-in-the/44846/

I know my decision to pursue a doctoral degree would not have been affected had I read this article, but it makes some very good points. I guess the main reason why it doesn't bother me is because I have no intention of becoming a professor upon attaining my degree, an aspiration I don't talk about in my current department or in any of my application documents. Thoughts?

[JustChill]

http://chronicle.com...l-in-the/44846/

I know my decision to pursue a doctoral degree would not have been affected had I read this article, but it makes some very good points. I guess the main reason why it doesn't bother me is because I have no intention of becoming a professor upon attaining my degree, an aspiration I don't talk about in my current department or in any of my application documents. Thoughts?

We've discussed this article about two or three times over the past few times. The general consensus is that everyone does what they think is best for them and what they enjoy -- if you really want a higher degree in the humanities, no article should stop you.

[ChibaCityBlues]

We've discussed this article about two or three times over the past few times. The general consensus is that everyone does what they think is best for them and what they enjoy -- if you really want a higher degree in the humanities, no article should stop you.

Well then... since every topic on this forum has been addressed time and time again ad nauseum, to an obsessive degree by some, I trust you think we should all just stop posting? We could all just read the 2007 archive and be done with it.

[JustChill]

No, but I think there is nothing wrong with some new discussion every now and then.

[Caligula]

I think this article serves as even further inspiration to be "the best" once enrolled in grad school. Make sure you do everything in your power to publish the best, highest-quality articles you can as often as you can, as broadly as you can. Attend conferences, present at conferences, make connections with others in academia. Of course, make sure that you don't sacrifice quality for quantity. But start in the beginning - your first semester - to make yourself stand out.

[jacib]

http://chronicle.com...l-in-the/44846/

I know my decision to pursue a doctoral degree would not have been affected had I read this article, but it makes some very good points. I guess the main reason why it doesn't bother me is because I have no intention of becoming a professor upon attaining my degree, an aspiration I don't talk about in my current department or in any of my application documents. Thoughts?

You should check out this article, it's all about how more people should consider not being professors.

[JerryLandis]

I think the only problem people might have is being too positive about their prospects, assuming that getting a PhD will ensure a tenure track job. I want to be a professor, but I'm aware that it's not the most easily attained job and that there's every possibility I will not succeed in it. Frankly, I don't need a bunch of people condescendingly telling me not to bother trying, especially when those people are professors themselves. "I like being a professor, but I don't think anyone else should bother doing it because it's too competitive and few people are smart enough to succeed, like I am." That's the way I read these things. Everyone seems to be aware that becoming a professor is not a guaranteed part of finishing a PhD, and if they don't figure that out by the time they are applying for PhD programs or are finishing the PhD, then due to their lack of preparedness they probably don't deserve the job anyway. It's not like there are really even THAT many people shooting for PhDs anyhow. I mean, I know there are more than can be accommodated, but that's the way most job markets are.

[jacib]

I think the only problem people might have is being too positive about their prospects, assuming that getting a PhD will ensure a tenure track job. I want to be a professor, but I'm aware that it's not the most easily attained job and that there's every possibility I will not succeed in it. Frankly, I don't need a bunch of people condescendingly telling me not to bother trying, especially when those people are professors themselves. "I like being a professor, but I don't think anyone else should bother doing it because it's too competitive and few people are smart enough to succeed, like I am." That's the way I read these things. Everyone seems to be aware that becoming a professor is not a guaranteed part of finishing a PhD, and if they don't figure that out by the time they are applying for PhD programs or are finishing the PhD, then due to their lack of preparedness they probably don't deserve the job anyway. It's not like there are really even THAT many people shooting for PhDs anyhow. I mean, I know there are more than can be accommodated, but that's the way most job markets are.

One point I'd like to disagree with you about: I think everyone realizes this is a possibility.... for other people. Very few (myself included) actually consider that they would work for long outside say the top 100 schools. If you asked people where they'll "probably" be five years after a PhD, I think a majority, and probably a supermajority, of the humanities and social science kids on this board would say they'll be in a tenure track job at a good university or liberal arts college (probably one near a major city at that). Ask how many people think there's any chance they'll drop out of a program, or take 10+ years to finish, and you'll get zero, maybe one or two (someone else will probably want to criticize these people saying: Hey! Then don't even apply if you're not sure). Granted, there is a self selected sample posting on these boards, but while everyone knows about these things, everyone also thinks that these are things that happen to other people.

In economic terms we're entering a tournament, as with most tournaments, we tend exaggerate our odds of winning the tournament. I'm not discouraging anyone from entering the tournament, but I know I for one don't actually imagine myself doing "badly" or even "mediocrely" by my own definition. Steven Levitt wrote a really interesting paper on street level drug dealers, and look at the actual odds of reaching the top of an organization. People earn paltry pay dealing drugs (comparable to working at Micky D's) because they imagine they have a fair shot at earning the big bucks of a kingpin, or at least lieutenant. While many people entering the street level drug trade probably imagine ending up "on top, dead or in jail", I wonder how many imagine dropping out of "the game" entirely and you know working at footlocker or whatever.

I could be totally wrong, but I am going to assume that a good number of people are like me, have long been praised for their brilliance, and while they recognize that OTHER people could end up in a bad situation, they don't think it is very unlikely that they will end up anywhere they don't plan on being.

It's really hard to predict success even in graduate school. The best theorist in my father's PhD cohort, the golden boy of the program who everyone was all sure would end up renowned and successful, ended up having an average career compared to the others in his cohort. One of my favorite graduate student instructors who got his degree from one of the undisputed top two schools in the field (one I'm not sure I could get into) and has extensive teaching experience (though his thesis is on obscure subsubfield in relatively popular, possibly played out, subfield) is now teaching at a community college. His references I'm sure are excellent, and he studied under some of the biggest names in the subfield. Realizing this sent me for a loop, because it was hard for me to imagine someone from that prestigious a graduate program teaching at community college. What if I get into a less prestigious program? Nahh, I decided, he just had a series of bad luck... that probably won't happen to me. It could of course, but I have enough cognitive dissonance that I'm sure it won't. I mean, look at while everyone who posted there (myself included) recognizes publicly that this is the "ideal" outcome, privately at least I imagine a slightly toned down version as the "likely" outcome as well (maybe teaching at a tier 1 liberal arts college near a big city rather than a R1 university).

(Wow sorry this was LONG).

[ChibaCityBlues]

The thing I found most interesting about the referenced articles isn't that they describe a demographic of graduate students with unrealistic expectations, but that they point to the failure of realistic professional mentorship on the part of faculty members. The thing is, those articles can describe the objective reality of the academy as a work place, but that isn't the version of the academy any faculty members I know of are familiar with. Something like 96% of the faculty at my university got their degrees from the Ivies, with the rest from schools such as Michigan, NYU, and Oxford. They have their tenure track jobs. They get published. All their colleagues are in the same boat. Probably goes for their friends as well. In other words, they made it. And even they are bitter, because they are only teaching at a big public university and not at Harvard or Yale. I mean, it's been mentioned often how perspective graduate students are likely those who have been praised all their lives for doing well. Well, it's no different for much of the faculty that advise us. In the end you have a system where a small group of elites with unrealistic conceptions of what it means to be an academic advise a much larger group of aspiring elites to have unrealistic expectations. Leave it to a bunch of smart people to come up with such an unfortunate system.

[JustChill]

The thing I found most interesting about the referenced articles isn't that they describe a demographic of graduate students with unrealistic expectations, but that they point to the failure of realistic professional mentorship on the part of faculty members. The thing is, those articles can describe the objective reality of the academy as a work place, but that isn't the version of the academy any faculty members I know of are familiar with. Something like 96% of the faculty at my university got their degrees from the Ivies, with the rest from schools such as Michigan, NYU, and Oxford. They have their tenure track jobs. They get published. All their colleagues are in the same boat. Probably goes for their friends as well. In other words, they made it. And even they are bitter, because they are only teaching at a big public university and not at Harvard or Yale. I mean, it's been mentioned often how perspective graduate students are likely those who have been praised all their lives for doing well. Well, it's no different for much of the faculty that advise us. In the end you have a system where a small group of elites with unrealistic conceptions of what it means to be an academic advise a much larger group of aspiring elites to have unrealistic expectations. Leave it to a bunch of smart people to come up with such an unfortunate system.

Very true. It's a never ending cycle that creates more and more candidates for fewer and fewer jobs.

[achat]

It's really hard to predict success even in graduate school. The best theorist in my father's PhD cohort, the golden boy of the program who everyone was all sure would end up renowned and successful, ended up having an average career compared to the others in his cohort. One of my favorite graduate student instructors who got his degree from one of the undisputed top two schools in the field (one I'm not sure I could get into) and has extensive teaching experience (though his thesis is on obscure subsubfield in relatively popular, possibly played out, subfield) is now teaching at a community college. His references I'm sure are excellent, and he studied under some of the biggest names in the subfield. Realizing this sent me for a loop, because it was hard for me to imagine someone from that prestigious a graduate program teaching at community college. What if I get into a less prestigious program? Nahh, I decided, he just had a series of bad luck... that probably won't happen to me. It could of course, but I have enough cognitive dissonance that I'm sure it won't. I mean, look at while everyone who posted there (myself included) recognizes publicly that this is the "ideal" outcome, privately at least I imagine a slightly toned down version as the "likely" outcome as well (maybe teaching at a tier 1 liberal arts college near a big city rather than a R1 university).

(Wow sorry this was LONG).

Would teaching at a tier 1 liberal arts school be so bad - as compared to teaching at an R1 university? Just a question... I've been lurking here. Just a question...

Edited January 13, 2010 by achat

[BCHistory]

Would teaching at a tier 1 liberal arts school be so bad - as compared to teaching at an R1 university? Just a question... I've been lurking here. Just a question...

I've been wondering the same for quite a while. Maybe it's just me, but I really don't see a problem with this at all. I want to teach history. I want to write about history. If I can get tenure at a school that will allow me to do that, while also being located in an environment in which I'll feel comfortable raising a family, then I'll be happy.

[achat]

I've been wondering the same for quite a while. Maybe it's just me, but I really don't see a problem with this at all. I want to teach history. I want to write about history. If I can get tenure at a school that will allow me to do that, while also being located in an environment in which I'll feel comfortable raising a family, then I'll be happy.

In my view, teaching at a college such as Amherst, Williams, Wesleyan or Wellesley is fine. The pay might be just as good and there is opportunity to do research. Also, the fact that one has to teach and teach well should not be a negative.

[dflanagan]

Two things.

1) I am a current undergraduate at Wesleyan. I have also chaired one student search committee for a job in the history department, and will be running the student committee for the spring Russian history job search (to find Philip Pomper's replacement). Wesleyan gets between 150 and 500 applications for each seat in its history department. Rarer specialties might bring in 100 or so applicants, but in American history of AFAM we get 3-500. So I don't understand the feeling people seem to have that a SLAC job is somehow a second choice. It's every bit as difficult, ESPECIALLY at a Williams, Amherst or Wesleyan.

2) I've always wanted to work at a liberal arts college- much moreso than a large university, so that may help to explain my defense of LAC history departments haha

[Caligula]

No love for Swat in this thread

[TMP]

Two things.

1) I am a current undergraduate at Wesleyan. I have also chaired one student search committee for a job in the history department, and will be running the student committee for the spring Russian history job search (to find Philip Pomper's replacement). Wesleyan gets between 150 and 500 applications for each seat in its history department. Rarer specialties might bring in 100 or so applicants, but in American history of AFAM we get 3-500. So I don't understand the feeling people seem to have that a SLAC job is somehow a second choice. It's every bit as difficult, ESPECIALLY at a Williams, Amherst or Wesleyan.

2) I've always wanted to work at a liberal arts college- much moreso than a large university, so that may help to explain my defense of LAC history departments haha

I am with you on that.

The trick with SLAC is that the candidate has to WANT to teach. Getting a degree from an Ivy is nice. Getting a book published already is nice. But you have to WANT to teach. That's the WHOLE point of LACs of any size- to have excellent professors willing to mentor students continuously. I had one post-doc from an Ivy whom I came to dislike quite strongly because he couldn't figure out how to interact with students on a more personal level without coming off as a snot. The departments who hired him came to feel this way as well (I've heard) and couldn't wait to let him go at the end of his fellowship. I suspect that my LAC is having trouble filling its spot for Latin Americanist is not because of applications but the RIGHT candidate who fits in the LAC culture. They spent 3 years looking.

So, when you're out on the job market, be honest with yourself.

[jacib]

Would teaching at a tier 1 liberal arts school be so bad - as compared to teaching at an R1 university? Just a question... I've been lurking here. Just a question...

Shit, my B on the nomenclature thing. I meant... not what you guys thought I did. In the US News and World report, they had the "ranked" liberal arts colleges, nationally, and then they had the regional ones, and the regional was were organized into tiers, or at least they used to be, or at least I thought they were. By "Tier 1" I did not mean Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, or other fantastic schools like Macalaster or Reed, which are some of the top schools in the country, but instead what the US News and World calls "Bacchalaureate Colleges". While there is perhaps a slight increased emphasis on teaching at the top liberal arts schools, I would expect you are supposed to continue to carry out innovative research.

Getting a job at a Macalaster type school is probably just difficult as getting a job at University of Minnesota type school (to use an example of two schools in the same city, errr, Twin Cities). I meant a type of school a few steps down from that.

I was talking about the schools that I knew in around Boston and Chicago (place I'd lived) like Roger Williams (RI) Cooper Union (NY), Simon's Rock (MA) Colby-Sawyer (NH) Edicott (MA), Curry College (MA), Carthage College (WI), or I guess really ANY place that I knew not from academic reputation, but because friends of mine went there, like Suffolk College (MA) Loyola (IL) Hope (MI) LaSalle (PA), Lake Forest College (IL), even up to places like Clark (MA) which have some really good programs [uSNWR puts those last six not with the Baccalaureate Colleges, but with the liberal arts colleges like Amherst... if you're from the West Coast both sets probably are equally Greek to you]; I meant decent colleges that give out good educations, but do not have a national draw. From my experience, these schools do have a lot of intelligent, well motivated students, just they aren't really well known. I was thinking that in part because they guy who wrote that article taught at Hope. How many of you not from the Great Lakes region knew where Hope was? They are all fine schools (not the schools you said in high school "I'm going to fail this class and have to end up going to _____"), and I think most of us could be happy teaching at one of those schools, but they're not where we imagine ourselves teaching.

Sorry for the confusion! I was in no way trying to disparage liberal arts colleges. A "liberal arts college" like Wesleyan is really not so different a "university" like Brandeis (in that particular example, not even in ethnic make up! More people from my Boston area synagogue went to Wes than Brandeis... don't worry Mr. Flanagan, I could never diss Joss Whedon's alma mater). I hope that makes my original statement clearer!

[jacib]

Short version: by "Tier 1" I meant schools that had a regional rather than national draw.

[dflanagan]

No offense taken, Jacib, I now fully understand you! Here are my (decidedly inexpert) thoughts on standard liberal arts colleges.

1) teaching loads can be quite heavy (as many as four classes per semester, every semester). Not much time to write.

2) Obviously mentoring the highest achieving students has a draw for many, however mentoring students with more modest academic achievements could give you the opportunity to polish a diamond in the rough into... well... a shiny diamond.

3) pay might be a bit lower than at a more well-endowed (heh) institution

4) at a SLAC, even a low-profile one, the liberal arts and humanities tend to be respected and defended. This, as we know, is the way it should be.

So, in conclusion, I could see myself teaching at a less prestigious college in order to get the experience I want- heavy on teaching and mentoring, in a relaxed environment (relative to that of a giant, publish or perish public U. monster like Rutgers or ____ State) that respects and cherishes the liberal arts and humanities. It's not for everyone, that's for sure, and if you like to write you might want to keep an eye on how many courses they want you to teach.

p.s. a Joss Wedon fan! hail and well met, for sure. I might rewatch Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog tonight...

[ChibaCityBlues]

Not to be the curmudgeon, but isn't the whole point of the articles linked to earlier in this thread that statistically none of us will have the choice of teaching at an Ivy, R1, or SLAC? That if we do get tenure track positions it will most likely be at East Jesus Tech in Hill Billy, USA, and that more likely it'll be the case that we will be adjuncting at the local community college for as many years as it takes our significant others to get sick of the lack of money and demand that we get real jobs? questioning whether we'd be happy teaching at a SLAC is like daydreaming about what life would be like if we won the lottery. Except we actually believe it's a "choice" we'll have. I talked about this very issue a few days ago with a grad student who recently defended her dissertation and her stress was palpable. Very few job openings, hundreds and hundreds of equally qualified people applying to each one.

I like the idea mentioned in one of the articles that perhaps the best thing for all of us would be if the value of the Phd were better recognized outside of academia. Surely the private sector is in need highly intelligent people with proven writing, research, and analytic skills. Hell, imagine the coherence boost print journalism in the USA would experience if we all became journalists?

[jacib]

Not to be the curmudgeon, but isn't the whole point of the articles linked to earlier in this thread that statistically none of us will have the choice of teaching at an Ivy, R1, or SLAC? That if we do get tenure track positions it will most likely be at East Jesus Tech in Hill Billy, USA, and that more likely it'll be the case that we will be adjuncting at the local community college for as many years as it takes our significant others to get sick of the lack of money and demand that we get real jobs? questioning whether we'd be happy teaching at a SLAC is like daydreaming about what life would be like if we won the lottery. Except we actually believe it's a "choice" we'll have. I talked about this very issue a few days ago with a grad student who recently defended her dissertation and her stress was palpable. Very few job openings, hundreds and hundreds of equally qualified people applying to each one.

I like the idea mentioned in one of the articles that perhaps the best thing for all of us would be if the value of the Phd were better recognized outside of academia. Surely the private sector is in need highly intelligent people with proven writing, research, and analytic skills. Hell, imagine the coherence boost print journalism in the USA would experience if we all became journalists?

Cub journalists get paid worse than we will. And have to work in more obscure places. The whole system works like the farm leagues, where you start out at places like the Sacramento Bee and the Kansas City Star and which ever city has the Sling-Blade, and work your way into the major media markets. Believe it or not, these no good yellow journalists have earned their stripes.

Yes, I do agree that it would be better if a degree was valued more in the private sector. Look at the fields where professors can switch back and forth and you will see that, because of competition, the wages go up (all of the hard sciences, but also economics and political science). That said, what can you do with an English PhD that you couldn't do with an English BA or English MA besides teach? That's not a purely rhetorical question; I remember clearly once being really drunk and watch one friend try to console another, "Don't worry Luke, like there are plenty of things an English major can do. Like... like... every time they start a new country they're going to need a really good writer like you to make the constitution."

[dflanagan]

I think we're choosing not to fall prey to that kind of pessimism. Besides, if we get into good programs with strong placement we'll be fine. Look at Yale's placements, for example. They all get jobs. So a lot of this is being determined as we speak, as admissions committees mull our applications.