The Big Lie About The 'Life Of The Mind'

[BMCGirl10]

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Big-Lie-About-the-Life-of/63937/

My friend recently sent me this article querying what I thought he should do now. Should he continue with his Sankrit studies and possibly end up with grad debt and no job after several years? It's an interesting article and ties together several bad things that I've previously been told to watch out for when applying / going to grad school. But are these things true? What are your opinions?

[coyabean]

As I posted on the article itself days ago when I first encountered it, I think the real issue is that far too many people apply to graduate school without any "real world" experience. (although I take issue with the term "real world"; how is academia not the real world? don't you still have bills to pay and life to lead? better is the idea that one should have something to which they can compare graduate school.) The issue is not that there is some vast academia conspiracy leading poor grad students astray. It's that potential applicants do not have one or more of these: critical reasoning to accurately judge the suitability of graduate school; the self-awareness to determine their suitability for academia; any exposure or experiences with other career paths to accurately judge the benefits/drawbacks of academia.

Those are micro, not meta, issues. They are easily rectified with personal initiative. However, I concede that diversifying the undergraduate education experience to increase the development of those skills and abilities could drastically reduce the number of over-educated, under-employed PhDs. So, too, could implementing a work experience requirement for PhD programs (although not Masters degrees).

But, honestly, I read all these sad stories of earnest PhDs with no jobs, no prospects and founts of hope and debt and I feel little pity. Maybe I'm broken but I think that if you are that educated in a culture like ours and you cannot adapt any better then you aren't much good for any career path. I come from a culture that views all jobs as transient and all institutions judiciously if not suspiciously. A healthy dose of that should be administered to some of these folks. After 20+ years of formal schooling you should have some marketable skills. Discipline training does not have to happen in a vacuum. Pick up a language, a consulting job, a teaching certificate, something that provides you a path forward if the golden egg -- a TT -- does not materialize.

We should all view ourselves as independent contractors. We are intelligent people. We can think critically and research and, presumably, concieve of what does not presently exist. We make connections and draw conclusions for a living! Apply those same skills to your life. Develop yourself as such and even if you cannot nab a TT you still have every tool necessary to build a career in another field.

Edited February 17, 2010 by coyabean

[jose]

People fail in every industry. Because of their Ph.Ds, academics tend to think too highly of themselves to acknowledge their own responsibilities in their professional shortcomings. They would rather blame the "system" than themselves.... they blame the people that didn't "tell them" it was so difficult... oooooh woe! if only they had known, they would have gone and become ceo of a fortune 500 company instead of studying English lit!

Take responsibility for your own actions and stop crying like a baby. Get a job, even if it's not your dream job, and work your ass off despite it not being your ideal job.

Edited February 17, 2010 by jose