Hi, I’m James. In this blog, you will find a true story about my decision to not do a PhD in English. A few years ago, I left academia, struggled a bit, and now I am happy with a new career. This blog will show you how I did this, and help you find meaning and success after grad school.
The purpose is to record one story and to motivate others to move away from the anxiety of finding a job with a graduate degree in the humanities. I want to show you that the same skills that made you successful in graduate school can also bring success in the real world.
Academia wastes talent. It took you for granted. I want you to stop investing your energy into the system, and invest in yourself.
I want to inspire others to run from the culture of fear, isolation, and single mindedness that keeps many graduate students from finding employment outside of academia.
You may want to start at the beginning by reading “April: The Beginning of the End of My Academic Career.” Please consider subscribing by RSS.
More about selloutyoursoul.com
This is a blog about the process of finding a job after grad school in the humanities. It followed my own life and my own decision to leave academia.
This blog is a refection of the absurdity, overinflation, and over-importance put on graduate education by students and the culture of academia.
This is the story of one life after graduate disillusionment. I hope the transition from graduate life to a career outside of academia works out for you. It did for me. And I’m very happy with my decision to not stay in grad school.
What this nonacademic blog will do for you. . .
This blog shows you how to be more proactive in your own career search, and tells about my attempt to find meaning outside of the tenure-track Ph.D. job trap.
Success as a graduate student doesn’t end in the walls of your department. I want to help people rediscover the ambition they had when they were young, before graduate school, and help them reapply that to their own life.
You have an amazing work ethic. You are smart. You can see what others miss. For that reason, I want you to dedicate the energy you would have put into writing a dissertation into the path of your own success.
What this blog won’t do for you
This is not a factual blog. I don’t want to research or present “the state of academia.”
I want you to show you how to recover your confidence. Reclaim your energy and devote it to something other than another scholarly article. You will be surprised how much more you get for your time and ambition outside of the unhealthy expectations of a department.
This is not an objective blog. It’s simply one experience. One life. You should take my opinions, judgements, and frustration as you see fit.
Why I wrote this
To help others humanities graduate students and other post academics. When I first left grad school, I lost the clear shape to life, career, and thought that graduate school gives you.
But I know now that the proper path for me was never there in the halls of an English department. I’ve left. You are thinking about leaving. Or, you’ve already left.
I don’t want others to see the end of their academic careers as an end. There are other ways that lead to success other than a tenure title. Begin to rediscover the greatness that got you in prestigious programs. Reignite the hard work ethic that got you top marks, fellowships, publications. Apply these traits to the development of other skills, other interests, and rethink what you are capable of.
Selloutyoursoul.com has been cited in national media such as The Chronicle of Higher Education, Slate Magazine, Inside Higher Education, Minding the Campus, and The San Francisco Chronicle. Thank-you for all the support.
Hey, I can’t view your site properly within Opera, I actually hope you look into fixing this.
Hi aparadekto,
I will try to fix that as a soon as possible. Thanks for telling me. All the best.
can you e-mail me about an article i’m writing on graduate programs? thanks — robin wilson, the chronicle of higher education
hello!This was a really impressive blog!
I come from milan, I was fortunate to find your subject in digg
Also I obtain much in your Topics really thanks very much i will come later
thanks bet365, stop by anytime and if you have an article suggestion let me know.
[...] In other words, it’s a refreshing break from the whiny post academic melodrama you get at my blog Selloutyoursoul.com. [...]
Hi!
My heartiest compliments for carrying out such a terrific blog!
Am from India…and on the verge of completing my Ph.D in English Literature!!
It was really surprising to see the ever familiar and very similar pain of angst echoing in your blog.
Personally I always had desired to get a PhD degree and will get one…but the rosy picture of ‘if-you-have-a-Ph.D-in-English-you-can-get-any-job’ is simply fading.
I have subscribed your blog.
Will keep coming back to it . Good Luck !
Hi Poeming Fictions,
Thanks very much for the nice words. And thanks for subscribing.
Talk to you soon,
James from Selloutyoursoul.com
Hi James,
I feel attracted to your page for two reasons:
1. You correctly identified that academies are going technological to serve the corporate world with no regard to humanity. Technology without humanity is something like “cruel kindness” as the grammarians exemplify oxymorons. I would love to see people leave corporate jobs to live life as entrepreneurs.
If long lectures and heavy-weight degrees rob everything out of life, what are the use? This is merely the ploy of making money by the institutions. People have forgotten of a western concept that taught me a lot–DIY. Back then people learnt something from institutions but they learnt more out of their DIY hobby rooms! I still have my DIY hobby room even at the age of 55+. I love to learn in this way.
2. The second reason is the humanity you radiate–people must learn afresh that technology is 10% life and humanity is 90%. Allow me to give you a classic example. A dying patient is uninterested in life-saving technology but all he wants and desires are HUMAN talk and touch!
The academies should rather research on HUMAN talk and touch that are most precious things within human understanding.
Excuse for that I interfere ?To me this situation is familiar. Write
here or in PM.
James–
I like your blog. I correspond with Bill Pannapacker from time-to-time, and I feel better than ever about not becoming a humanities professor. Truth to tell, I collected 5 academic degrees \, and decided after my 2nd MA that I didn’t want to write esoterica (in either theoretical linguistics OR sustematic theology) for limited audiences.
I still am pursuing a doctorate, and I am doing this merely to augment my career as an educator. I took Bill’s advice on this; I am pursuing a doctorate in Educational Administration in the goal of becoming a school administrator–someone who can actually help teachers and students…
However, like yourself, I am totally on the bandwagon of shooing away potential PhD students who are trying to get the doctorate as a segue into a NEW career. There are many reasons–I am sure you know– for not pursuing a doctorate in the humanities, and possibly many of the social sciences:
1) Your chances of getting a job are infinitesimally small in your subspecialty of choice
2) You must be unbelievably driven as a specialist writer–forget appealing to a larger audience. This is possibly the loneliest of all the aspects
3) You cannot live where you choose. This is possibly the most bizarre of all aspects of the higher education quandaries; most jobs–with the exception of the Foreign Service–make opportunities for the job candidate. Large companies as well as gov’t positions have many jobs in many geographical arenas; the job candidate has CHOICES.
4) Higher Ed often splits up marriages. ‘Nuff said.
5) Not a trust fund baby? Look elsewhere. The cost of higher degrees are endemic to the need for providing for the upper echelons of the pyramid scheme…
Sure, there are exceptions, and we certainly need the few who can make the necessary sacrifices. Yet I have felt a need to ask myselk, after 9 years of grad school alone (I’m trained in linguistics, philosophy, and theology) WHAT was it my life’s work was really going to be?
After years of self-examination (yes, it took a while), I decided that I was called to serve children and perhaps make a small contribution to society in general.
After all, Johnny still can’t read, and I need meaningful work.
And so do you!
Peace, Brother
Theologue
Dear Theologue,
I’m glad you have carved out a space for yourself and I’m sure you will make an excellent educator (Johnny is in good hands). Education is a great profession and it sounds like it will benefit from your dedication. Thanks for the comment and keep the good fight going.
–James from Selloutyoursoul
Keylogger…
[...]Jobs for Humanities Ph.D’s and MA’s-a career guide for lost humanities majors | Selloutyoursoul.com[...]…
Wow! This is definitely the best blog regarding finding a job after a humanities degree that I’ve seen this whole year. I’m on the cusp of being left forlorn in the real world (in the middle of my BA Honours and highly considering MA and PhD). My vision is to be a novelist and pop writer (magazines, e-zines, blogs etc.) and I’ve consistently argued the uselessness of my theoretical background to such lowly matters – perhaps not for the novel, but definitely for the pop writing. And I’ve become far-removed from my original vision having to read the droves and droves of books. I agree wholly on the need for action, because I cannot see myself behind the ‘ivory wall’ forever…
I’m also majoring in English and I crossed upon your website by googling reasons to stay in academia. A bit silly, I know.
Anyway, I find the title of you blog really well chosen. I remember some discussions with my fellow course mates regarding whether should we apply to grad schemes in marketing, hr and the rest or whether should we continue with our studies in Medieval Literature. And the usual reply I would get was ‘I am not gonna sell my soul out to some corporation’. Touché.
Thanks Kelley. The title was selected a bit random, but over time it started to make a lot of sense
Hey! This site is great. I’m was a chemistry major, not a humanities, but I’m in the same boat. I decided not to go to grad school and waste my life working 80hrs a week for some jerk advisor for a measly 20,000 a year. But now, my job prospects are no good–okay, nonexistent. I’m looking for some of the jobs mentioned on here, especially marketing research. Do you think the advice on here still applies?
Hi Chemicals Explode,
Definitely, the advice still applies to chemistry majors. Give me an email if you need some more specific advice.
–James
You have no idea how much your blog has made a heavy day much lighter. I’m a PhD candidate in English who will be defending my lingering dissertation in a few weeks (with the only motivation to finish being that I am close and that I can move on to do something else when I’m done). Thank you so much for all that you do for those of us who, against our better judgment, have stayed in academe for much too long.
I’ve read many of the non-ac blogs you mention in some of your post, but am finding yours to be the one that has given me the most hope for moving beyond this business. I just downloaded your book and am sooooo looking forward to working through it as soon as I’m done with the Really Big Paper. Thank you, thank you, thank you for making yourself a resource!
–Mel
Hi Melissa,
Glad you found me. And thanks for the nice words–keeps me writing posts
All the best luck and god-speed on your LAST paper!
–James
James, I visited your site some years ago when I was down and out after finishing my Ph.D. I downloaded your free SEO tutorials then and recently, after a break, I am getting active again in blogging and read the tutorials, hoping to learn to write better. Just want to comment that I love the module 4 especially. It didn’t cross my mind about what was behind every keyword search on the internet, that it was a question waiting to be answered. Such a poetic way to look at it! Thanks!
Hi Maugham Collection,
Thanks so much for the nice comment–and I’m glad the book helped you. Good luck with your new blog project. All the best,
James