Doom and Gloom 101
I stumbled across this article in the Chronicle of Higher Education: http://chronicle.com/article/A-Letter-From-a-Graduate/64889/
The content of the article itself isn't really noteworthy -- basically it is a PhD student's response to the message "don't go to graduate school in the humanities!" which is increasingly being spread. To be honest, her response is quite naive, particularly for someone who has gotten as far as a PhD -- but as Dorothea Salo said on her "Straight Talk about Graduate School" website, when you get deep into a graduate degree, a sort of delusion sets in. You get "grad school brain" and it's hard to think about the world without applying the weird way of framing life that you pick up in grad school to it.
No, the really interesting thing is the comments. OMG, it is apocalyptic, in some cases, literally.
Example 1:
Much as I wish it were true, #1, most graduates from my department never work in their fields, despite impressive resumes. Their searches included the broadest scope imaginable - public, private, online, corporations, non-profit enterprises, the works. Yes, they eventually got jobs of some sort, but nothing that required much above a bachelor's degree. In many cases, the PhD is actually a liability ("oh, we'd really like to hire you, but we know you won't stay..."). It's also very hard for unaffiliated people to publish and do research. Thus, a year or two out of grad school means that the chances of being part of the profession, let alone the academy, drop dramatically.
Example 2:
Yes please let's stop perpetuating the idea that librarianship will be the savior of academics looking for work. I hear this advice frequently. There will be no mass retirement of librarians any sooner than there will be of professors. Like laura012345 said - the American Library Association promised new graduate students a 'graying of the profession' when I began my program in 2002 and it is yet to happen. Furthermore, positions in academic libraries (where, I presume, many would-be professors would like to end up) are not proliferating. All this and the fact that being a librarian, while linked to other academic work, is vastly different that being a professor.
Example 3:
I can only say that Ms. Polak has little idea of what awaits her. As to whether there are alternative careers open to Ph.D's in the humanities. The short answer is no. It is not a question of the qualifications or the welcome interest that Ph.D's in the humanities would have for non-academic work. The reality is that no HR Office and no one outside of the University has any interest in giving any Ph.D in the humanities any opportunity. By the time Ph.D's earn their degree they are off the career track for most entry level positions. In addition, universities refuse to consider Ph.D's for the many staff positions that do not require Ph.D's in academic affairs and other support services at the university. In fact, many of the staff positions that require no teaching and no research pay much more money than adjunct positions.
Example 4 (my favorite):
It's quaint that people are talking about the future as if it's going to involve anything other than universal famine, misery, and warfare. Peak oil, climate change, and water depletion are coming to a head at the same time, and any one of those things on its own is enough to decimate food production.
It might have escaped general notice, but at this very moment we're in a mass extinction event at least as bad as the one that ended the dinosaurs. The idea that we're going to carry on in the midst of all this and continue to argue about Lacan is ludicrous.
(Oooh Crikey!)
We do little good by pretending that the plight of Ph.D's in the Humanities can somwhow be addressed by having them become high school teachers or librarians. Those of us who have worked as adjuncts for some time do not do so because we are too uninformed to do anything else. I and countless others have already invested much time attempting to investigate the alternatives suggested above.
1. There is no shortage of schools of education or of certified public school teachers. Any one who has searched the listings for public school positions would know this. And the need for high school teachers is much less than in the lower grades. The demand for Teach for America, for example, is mostly for special education in these lower grades and they do not need Ph.D's in the Humanities or even want them for these positions. According to one Education Workshop run by the Dept. of Education in NYC, it was stated that 60% of certified teachers will never teach.
2. Advanced Certificate Programs for those who already hold a masters degree in a content area but who need the education courses needed for certification have existed for many years at most Graduate Schools of Education. You need to be certified if you even wish to look for a position. No public school will even consider hiring you without one. In addition, none of your prior teaching experience will matter for them because it was not at the grade level. In addition, even if you earn you certification Ph.D's will face the fact that according to most union contracts you advanced degree will mean that you will have to be paid more. Hence the public school has even less reason to hire you when they can hire a new education graduate for much less.And do not think that there are that many positions in non-public high schools that need to be filled with Ph.D's.
3. What makes you think that all those newly certified teachers who are graduating from schools of education year after year will welcome Ph.D's trying to take their jobs.
4. For example, the Bard/Early College H.S is a case in point. When it first opened it was staffed by retired CUNY Professors. However, as soon as the unions and Dept. of Education took greater control Ph.D's have been reduced to a mere token presence. The jobs have gone to the usual winners in the partronage game. The insiders are not going to let these prized positions just go to Ph.D's outsiders.
5. The recent report in The New York Times that some schools will allow 11 graders to attend community college is not being done as reported for educational reasons. Why have to pay the inflated salaries of union public school teachers when you can now have adjnuct professors at community colleges do it for much less money.
6. With regard to jobs for Librarians. I suggest you actually take a look at the bleak outlook. Library positions at universities are academic positions and as we all know library positions at public and college libraries are always the first to be cut. And do not be fooled into taking at face value the notion that there will be many librarians who are going to retire and they will all need to be replaced. Was this not what the MLA was telling us in the 1990's. Tell me how did that work out for us?
7. Any one who has gone to open houses for other professions or graduate programs will know that the professors and directors of these programs lie and engage in the same misrepresentations that have been noted by many in this publication. During one recent open house for a Graduate School in Education not one professor or graduate student representative noted the most obvious fact that there is a hiring freeze in the NYC public schools. If you did not know this you would think that the best thing you could do with your time and money was to enter the teaching profession!
8. And this is but the short of a much longer struggle of trying to find work after earning a Ph.D in the Humanities. Those of you who have walked this hard road as I have know the reality that I am outlining here and those of you who have not will learn it soon enough. Some of you may have some luck and escape but many will not.
While many of these are quite melodramatic, there is at least kernel, if not more, of truth to them. I do wish I had never gone to graduate school. At times I've thought "I wish I had least gone for something normal, like an English MA" but let's be honest here: I should probably not have gone, at all. I am more or less a casebook study of what many of these comments talk about, right down to getting outdated advice from a trusted mentor from a more halcyon generation.
Perhaps going to Library School right now is just delaying the inevitable, but at least there will be a delay, and maybe I will manage to find a boring but paying job during that delay! It ain't happening right now, that's for sure. Hell, Danielle just told me on Twitter today that, for example, Barnes & Noble doesn't like to hire people with MA degrees, not because we're "overqualified", but because they prefer to hire kids in undergrad whom they can more easily mold to ascribe to their corporate philosophy, rather than bring in dangerous new ideas or independent thought. And I never thought about it that way, but of course that's the case. Of course.
The content of the article itself isn't really noteworthy -- basically it is a PhD student's response to the message "don't go to graduate school in the humanities!" which is increasingly being spread. To be honest, her response is quite naive, particularly for someone who has gotten as far as a PhD -- but as Dorothea Salo said on her "Straight Talk about Graduate School" website, when you get deep into a graduate degree, a sort of delusion sets in. You get "grad school brain" and it's hard to think about the world without applying the weird way of framing life that you pick up in grad school to it.
No, the really interesting thing is the comments. OMG, it is apocalyptic, in some cases, literally.
Example 1:
Much as I wish it were true, #1, most graduates from my department never work in their fields, despite impressive resumes. Their searches included the broadest scope imaginable - public, private, online, corporations, non-profit enterprises, the works. Yes, they eventually got jobs of some sort, but nothing that required much above a bachelor's degree. In many cases, the PhD is actually a liability ("oh, we'd really like to hire you, but we know you won't stay..."). It's also very hard for unaffiliated people to publish and do research. Thus, a year or two out of grad school means that the chances of being part of the profession, let alone the academy, drop dramatically.
Example 2:
Yes please let's stop perpetuating the idea that librarianship will be the savior of academics looking for work. I hear this advice frequently. There will be no mass retirement of librarians any sooner than there will be of professors. Like laura012345 said - the American Library Association promised new graduate students a 'graying of the profession' when I began my program in 2002 and it is yet to happen. Furthermore, positions in academic libraries (where, I presume, many would-be professors would like to end up) are not proliferating. All this and the fact that being a librarian, while linked to other academic work, is vastly different that being a professor.
Example 3:
I can only say that Ms. Polak has little idea of what awaits her. As to whether there are alternative careers open to Ph.D's in the humanities. The short answer is no. It is not a question of the qualifications or the welcome interest that Ph.D's in the humanities would have for non-academic work. The reality is that no HR Office and no one outside of the University has any interest in giving any Ph.D in the humanities any opportunity. By the time Ph.D's earn their degree they are off the career track for most entry level positions. In addition, universities refuse to consider Ph.D's for the many staff positions that do not require Ph.D's in academic affairs and other support services at the university. In fact, many of the staff positions that require no teaching and no research pay much more money than adjunct positions.
Example 4 (my favorite):
It's quaint that people are talking about the future as if it's going to involve anything other than universal famine, misery, and warfare. Peak oil, climate change, and water depletion are coming to a head at the same time, and any one of those things on its own is enough to decimate food production.
It might have escaped general notice, but at this very moment we're in a mass extinction event at least as bad as the one that ended the dinosaurs. The idea that we're going to carry on in the midst of all this and continue to argue about Lacan is ludicrous.
(Oooh Crikey!)
We do little good by pretending that the plight of Ph.D's in the Humanities can somwhow be addressed by having them become high school teachers or librarians. Those of us who have worked as adjuncts for some time do not do so because we are too uninformed to do anything else. I and countless others have already invested much time attempting to investigate the alternatives suggested above.
1. There is no shortage of schools of education or of certified public school teachers. Any one who has searched the listings for public school positions would know this. And the need for high school teachers is much less than in the lower grades. The demand for Teach for America, for example, is mostly for special education in these lower grades and they do not need Ph.D's in the Humanities or even want them for these positions. According to one Education Workshop run by the Dept. of Education in NYC, it was stated that 60% of certified teachers will never teach.
2. Advanced Certificate Programs for those who already hold a masters degree in a content area but who need the education courses needed for certification have existed for many years at most Graduate Schools of Education. You need to be certified if you even wish to look for a position. No public school will even consider hiring you without one. In addition, none of your prior teaching experience will matter for them because it was not at the grade level. In addition, even if you earn you certification Ph.D's will face the fact that according to most union contracts you advanced degree will mean that you will have to be paid more. Hence the public school has even less reason to hire you when they can hire a new education graduate for much less.And do not think that there are that many positions in non-public high schools that need to be filled with Ph.D's.
3. What makes you think that all those newly certified teachers who are graduating from schools of education year after year will welcome Ph.D's trying to take their jobs.
4. For example, the Bard/Early College H.S is a case in point. When it first opened it was staffed by retired CUNY Professors. However, as soon as the unions and Dept. of Education took greater control Ph.D's have been reduced to a mere token presence. The jobs have gone to the usual winners in the partronage game. The insiders are not going to let these prized positions just go to Ph.D's outsiders.
5. The recent report in The New York Times that some schools will allow 11 graders to attend community college is not being done as reported for educational reasons. Why have to pay the inflated salaries of union public school teachers when you can now have adjnuct professors at community colleges do it for much less money.
6. With regard to jobs for Librarians. I suggest you actually take a look at the bleak outlook. Library positions at universities are academic positions and as we all know library positions at public and college libraries are always the first to be cut. And do not be fooled into taking at face value the notion that there will be many librarians who are going to retire and they will all need to be replaced. Was this not what the MLA was telling us in the 1990's. Tell me how did that work out for us?
7. Any one who has gone to open houses for other professions or graduate programs will know that the professors and directors of these programs lie and engage in the same misrepresentations that have been noted by many in this publication. During one recent open house for a Graduate School in Education not one professor or graduate student representative noted the most obvious fact that there is a hiring freeze in the NYC public schools. If you did not know this you would think that the best thing you could do with your time and money was to enter the teaching profession!
8. And this is but the short of a much longer struggle of trying to find work after earning a Ph.D in the Humanities. Those of you who have walked this hard road as I have know the reality that I am outlining here and those of you who have not will learn it soon enough. Some of you may have some luck and escape but many will not.
While many of these are quite melodramatic, there is at least kernel, if not more, of truth to them. I do wish I had never gone to graduate school. At times I've thought "I wish I had least gone for something normal, like an English MA" but let's be honest here: I should probably not have gone, at all. I am more or less a casebook study of what many of these comments talk about, right down to getting outdated advice from a trusted mentor from a more halcyon generation.
Perhaps going to Library School right now is just delaying the inevitable, but at least there will be a delay, and maybe I will manage to find a boring but paying job during that delay! It ain't happening right now, that's for sure. Hell, Danielle just told me on Twitter today that, for example, Barnes & Noble doesn't like to hire people with MA degrees, not because we're "overqualified", but because they prefer to hire kids in undergrad whom they can more easily mold to ascribe to their corporate philosophy, rather than bring in dangerous new ideas or independent thought. And I never thought about it that way, but of course that's the case. Of course.