The PhD job crisis is often obscured and ignored by many professors. This is an article about Thomas H. Benton (AKA) William A. Pannapacker, who wrote several articles about why you shouldn’t do a PhD in the humanities.
Source: FlickR Creative Commons
This is an open letter to Thomas H. Benton.
I’m writing you to thank-you for being the only professor to straight out tell me that there are no jobs for PhD’s in the humanities.
This is to thank-you for not hiding behind fuzzy ideals like “education is worthwhile for its own sake, education prepares you for life, education makes you a thinker which is a valuable skill for any employer.”
Instead, you made a simple point. If there are no jobs for PhD’s, then why go to grad school?
That’s because you knew that you can’t pay rent with ideals. You knew that you can’t cite your understanding of Wallace Stevens as the reason why you should be hired for the sales position. You knew that 30 is a depressing, challenging age to be thrown into a search for a new career outside of academia, especially after spending 10 years slaving away to become a scholar.
You thought about the practical consequences of such ideals: life-long poverty, frustrated ambition, and hard, long years of work that gave nothing in return, except a full library and an empty resume.
I’m writing you, most of all, to thank-you for saying this:
“There should be a special place in hell for the professors who–at the end of an advisee’s 10-year graduate program with no job in sight–say, ‘well, academe is not for everyone.”‘
–Thomas H. Benton, “The Big Lie of the Life of the Mind.”
These words changed my life. They made me walk through the hallways of my department different. They made me wonder why, when I told my supervisor I was thinking of dropping out, he encouraged me to continue. Why did he encourage me to continue?
Your articles made me realize that the lack of jobs for PhD’s wasn’t going to end soon. Nobody was willing to admit that the humanities needed drastic changes. “The good ones always get jobs.” Build a life on that, young man.
This is to thank-you for being the only professor who said it was alright to find success outside of academe.
Most of all, thank-you for your empathy. You stood up for individual grad students, rather than the system of academe which needs to eat us to survive.
Because of your articles, more grad students than you ever will know have gone on to live better lives outside of academe.
I’m one of them.
Sincerely,
A humanities major who got lost in grad school.
James @ Selloutyoursoul.com
P.S.
“If you are smart enough to do a PhD., then you are smart enough to not do one.”
Thank-you also for that.
How William A. Pannapacker Changed My Life
It was Thursday morning. I had two things on my mind. The first was how I was going to support myself now that my department fellowship had run out. The second was an offer to transfer to McGill: a chance to continue my path to being a professor, with a generous financial package and a very supportive research cluster.
The future on the one side seemed bright: finish my doctorate degree and continue to live the life of the mind. The future on the other was unknown: suddenly change career directions with no practical skills, no work experience, and a resume stuffed with unemployable academic awards.
I had been in grad school for two years. I was 75% percent sure that I would make it through a doctorate and get a tenure track job. I rationalized the other 25% as healthy fear, motivation to keep me running for the goal.
Then I began to read some of Benton’s articles, “Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don’t Go,” and “The Big Lie About the Life of the Mind.” I later wrote him and asked for advice. I’m sure he received hundreds of e-mails like mine, but he responded personally within a day and gave me helpful advice. Twice.
It was as if one professor in the world was saying what others only gestured at: there are no jobs for PhD’s in the humanities, there are little chances for employment for PhD’s, there is a terrible ethical abnegation by professors to let bright young people study for 10 years and then fall into the cracks of unemployability and depression.
There is a sad trap of prestige with grad school, a path which talented young people chase, only to find at the end a lack of any real achievement, social prestige, or financial reward—the very things that they thought grad school would bring them and for which they made unhealthy personal and financial sacrifices.
Something is structurally wrong in the humanities. Yet few have the guts to straight out say it.
The job crisis as told by grad school recruitment
Yes, professors would say things like “the supply of PhD’s outweigh the demands.” Or, as the official website to my program read: “Only 50% of PhD graduates can expect to find employment within the university.” But these numbers are ambiguous at best. 50% of each graduating class? That would mean half of your class won’t get tenure and if, you are in the top 10 university pick for a program, then you will get a job. Right?
I was 6th overall pick for my recruitment and received one of the largest fellowships available. The website said that those who receive the large financial packages tend to be the same applicants who eventually get jobs. It was a risk, but I didn’t know exactly how big of a risk.
A different story emerges when you actually look at the official placement records posted by universities. The prestigious Canadian university I was accepted to had about two pages of successful placements over the past 15 years (which if you did the math, was a success story every 4 or 5 years).
But a closer look revealed that many of these “successful graduates” included post-doctorate fellows (not quite there yet!), adjuncts (the janitor probably makes more than the adjunct, works many less hours, has job security, vacation pay, and benefits), and visiting professors (one year then you are on to the next town).
At the career talk for PhD’s, my university had a list of their PhD graduates who found jobs: a graduate who had gotten a PhD and now was in law school at the University of Toronto (What???? How is that a successful life path, 15+ years of school to get a job?); a PhD who was now teaching part-time at the university (which she would have been doing for her entire doctorate degree anyways); and a PhD who now worked in a prestigious high school. You don’t need to devote 2 years of your life to pass comp exams, to teach at a nice high school. In fact, I’d bet most humanities undergraduates go into PhD programs for the precise reason of not wanting to teach at a high school.
I should have asked whether even one graduate had gotten a tenure job. Sorry, did we forget to tell you that no graduate in the history of our department has ever landed a tenure track job? Must have slipped our minds. And this is a university which ranks in the top 50 schools on the planet.
Ten years of education, little freedom or money in their twenties, delayed families, ignored spouses, and a research skill-set that would eventually sit on a shelf, useless, unemployable, unwanted.
That was not what I signed up for.
So if there are no jobs for PhD’s, why stay?
Because being a professor had been the theme of my life. My friends even called me “the professor” (mostly due to my purgatorial stay at university). My grandfather, a McGill man. My other grandfather, a McGill man. They had thrived in the post-war era, where education meant possibility. Everyone in my middle class family believed that more education could only lead to more success.
To give up this dream is to give up both your career path and your identity. You have to tell Old Grandpa that you decided after all not to get a PhD and work at Wal-Mart instead because financially it makes more sense.
“What good,” asks Thomas Benton, “is professional training for a job that you are not likely to get, after a decade of discipline, debt, and deferred opportunity?” http://chronicle.com/article/Just-Dont-Go-Part-2/44786/
That is really something grad students refuse to think about.
They procrastinate until the day they are on the job market, hoping the situation will fix itself. Unfortunately, the captains of the ship, their wonderful professors, are doing the same.
The Future of the Job Crisis in the Humanities
The job crisis in the humanities will not fix itself. The best defense is to bleed it dry. Don’t worry about the statistics. Just save yourself. Don’t become a martyr for a discipline that will turn its back on you after your dissertation has been signed.
But the reality is that very few conversations take place among grad students about the future. They rarely think about the fact that there is about a 30% chance they will get a job with a PhD. They take solace in their awards, in their publications, the praise of professors, and in the identity of being a professional intellectual.
They lie to themselves. They tell themselves that they are here for the right reasons: they are here because they are thinkers, readers, and special citizens with intellectual powers.
The truth is that nobody really wants to go to graduate school for 5 or 6 years to then end up landscaping (my current job) or working in a bookstore or teaching at a high school. They want a good income, a prestigious job, and a chance to be rewarded for their highly developed skills. After ten years of labour for the university, I believe that they deserve this. Otherwise, the system is a fraud.
If there are few career opportunities for PhD’s, then what are the other reasons why you would do the degree?
Thomas Benton made me go back to my original reasons for going to grad school. Originally, I had wanted to get a PhD because it would offer me:
Money (at least a comfortable income, enough to buy a home, support a family)
Security (a job that would last)
Prestige (a job that was hard to get)
Passion (the ability to do something I was interested in)
Delayed gratification (In ten years, I wanted to feel like I made the right choice, to feel like my sacrifices and labour was worth it).
With the current state of jobs in the humanities, I went back over that list. Without tenure, none of those would be satisfied. Sure, I might end up teaching at a small college. But teaching English comp classes is not my passion. And it doesn’t pay well. And it is harder than you think to wait around for one of those few college teaching positions to open up. Look at a community college website. Are you supposed to keep hitting refresh for a few years till one of the other faculty dies?
Even worse, somewhere along the line, the tune changed. Suddenly, professors would drop little things like this into conversations: “well if getting a job is the only reason why you are in grad school. . .” What? Of course, you get a PhD to get a job. Call me vulgar, but getting a job with the education you receive (all 10 years and heavy debt) is a reasonable exchange for giving up bright youth and all other opportunities which might have arisen outside of a decade spent in a library.
Why grad students refuse to give up the Ph.D. career dream
As Thomas Benton tells us, most people who go to grad school in the humanities do so because of two reasons: (1) they come from middle-class families which equate more education with more opportunity (2) they don’t have many other options with a BA in art history, drama, or any other humanities degree.
In other words, they are smart and hard workers, but don’t really have many options. Work at the community newspaper. Or take the $100,000 scholarship to the University of Chicago and become a professor.
They truly believe that whatever the future holds having a PhD won’t hurt them in the long-term. It will increase their employability in a variety of different fields. Who wouldn’t want to hire a PhD over an undergraduate?
The reality is that it does hurt you. It robs you of practical job experience and skills: the things that employers use to make money off of you and pay your salary. You can’t bill someone out for prestige and future job proficiency potential. You have little to offer an employer in the next year—they aren’t going to hire someone with the promise that in five years your PhD is really going to make you good at the job.
That is really what I would like to thank Thomas Benton for.
Because he told me to rid myself of “all prestigious affiliations.” Don’t go to law school after your PhD, don’t try to hang around the university attending international conferences, don’t try to simply get more prestige in the hope it will translate into opportunity.
You have enough prestige.
You now have to create your own success. You have to do it without a university to validate you.
You are out on your own. It might be frightening. But the only other option is back into the university, which I hope you see, isn’t much of a future.
Just don’t go. If you are there, leave and devote your energy and work-ethic into something that will reward you.
My new ebook: How to Find a Career With Your Humanities Degree in 126 Days
If you are at a loss of what careers you can get with your BA, MA, or PhD in the humanities, then you are not alone.Most humanities majors go through a difficult transition after they leave academia.
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Find out more about the book here
Articles by Thomas Benton On The Overproduction of PhD’s
If you’d like to read some of Thomas Benton’s articles, here are some I learned a lot from:
“The Big Lie About the ‘Life of the Mind.’” Thomas H. Benton’s article which was published in The Chronicle of Higher Education in February, 2010.
The article talks about why graduate education is a trap, showing that the system can’t accommodate the amount of PhD‘s it produces. The best part of the article is Benton’s attack on the myth of graduate education for education’s sake. Although there are few jobs for PhD’s, many professors still wax philosophical about the inherent merits of advanced education and the “disinterested pursuit of knowledge.” Benton takes a much more practical and humane approach, taking into account the hordes of young men and women that are lured into the prestige PhD trap with the mistaken belief that more education will breed more career opportunities. http://chronicle.com/article/The-Big-Lie-About-the-Life-of/63937/
“Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don’t Go.” This is the most famous article, a blunt warning to young undergraduates thinking about pursuing a PhD in the humanities. It argues against the biggest myth about career prospects for new PhD’s: the myth that there will always be jobs for the good students. Benton’s intent is to warn prospective grad students with the bleak numbers of tenure positions, showing that getting a PhD involves taking a massive gamble on your future.
It also points out that PhD’s who try to find employment outside of academia after giving up the tenure dream are at a disadvantage to undergraduates who, rather than going to 6 to 7 years of doctoral school, have built up their careers and skill-sets. http://chronicle.com/article/Graduate-School-in-the/44846
As I’ve tried to make clear, I admire Benton’s bluntness. Just don’t go. Too many academics would have tried to present a nuanced view.
But nuance isn’t much consolation to a 33 year old scholar who has finally given up on finding a good job in academe, lives in a one bedroom apartment, and who has at the end of his great accomplishment of getting a PhD another mountain to climb: the difficult transition back into the world he left behind.
Also, check out Benton’s “Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don’t Go Part 2” http://chronicle.com/article/Just-Dont-Go-Part-2/44786/
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Tagged: "Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don't Go", are there jobs for Ph.D's in the humanities, Humanities Ph.D., No jobs Ph.D.'s, Thomas H. Benton
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read your blog. Entirely agree with most of what you say, except for this: “You knew that 30 is just too old to try to find a new career, especially after spending 10 years slaving away to become a scholar.”
It really isn’t. Yes, it may be difficult to get some long term and you will be behind others on the ‘career ladder’–but it’s simply not the case that you can’t find a new career.
Hi no one,
Thanks for commenting. I’m sorry if I was a little unclear about the “30 is is to old to find a new career”—what I meant, more specifically was that it is a shame that people spend 10 years in grad school training for a specific career, only to be told at the end that they have to leave academe to find a job. This requires them to learn a new skill-set. The crappy part is that because they spent so much time in grad school they missed out a lot of opportunities in their twenties which is a crucial time for building a career. My point is that bright young students who might have had brilliant careers in things like marketing, publishing, screen writing, spend so much time publishing brilliant scholarly works all with no career at the end. They then, after all that work developing their scholarly skills, have to develop a new set of skills.
So my point wasn’t to discourage people at 30 from trying a new career. Many great careers have been built later in life. For example, David Oglivy, one of the 20th century’s most influential advertising men, started his agency at the age of 49. But I agree with you: you can find a new career at 30 even though it might be harder and a little more difficult to break in than at 22.
Thanks for the comment as I wouldn’t want to discourage people–that’s not the point of this blog.
I felt compelled to respond to this post. 30 is DEFINITELY not too old to switch careers, if you have the determination to do so. I switched careers to dentistry at the age of 32 after realizing the scam and futility of a phd career. It was hard work to be sure, but at the end it all had people lined up with job offers begging to to join them. The offer I ended up accepting will pay me approximately 190k as a first year grad; it will be intense work, but at least I will be doing something practical for others while at the same time do well for myself. It’s all a matter whether you have the guts to do what’s right or let the ponzu scheme take your whole life.
Hey JT,
Good for you and thanks for sharing your success story. I’m glad you had the courage and smarts to use your intelligence to get into a high paying job. Awesome work.
–James from Selloutyoursoul
As a fourth year undergraduate student with no purpose in life I can also attest that even if the grad school recruits never tried to persuade anyone to go to grad school students will still find grad school alluring, not because they are passionate about an academic subject or even that they see is as a safety net during this bad economy. It’s that students haven’t seen the real world and don’t know how they’d function or pursue their interests outside of school. They then naturally turn to what they do know and that is how to be a student in their respective major. And the only place to do that is in grad school.
But since even grad school must function in the real world grad school recruiters will and do capitalize on students’ vulnerabilities and insecurities and lure them in like a bear to honey, which is my exact position at this moment. The Ph.D problem is not exclusively in the humanities- it also extends to the social sciences which sucks for me because I’m a cognitive science major. (there’s an article about that written here: http://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2010/08/18/harris)
Then it starts to get more confusing. We are told by people who are in grad school to not go because we will have spent our lives empty in the ivy tower with nothing to prove to the world. We are told not to go to medical school because it is not worth a lifetime of medical insurance headaches and health care politics (I live in the US so this may or may not apply to you). We are told not to go to law school because there is an oversaturation in the market and it’s useless if you want to make lots of $$$ unless you go to a top-10 school. We are told not to go into engineering because everybody’s getting outsourced. Where do we turn to? Money? Academic interests? Are you even really all that interested in academia or do you just happen to like it more than your peers? Unless you’ve developed a true passion for something there is no easy answer to all of this. In school we are subliminally not to sell out to “the man” and that working for anything other than academia/non-profits/charity will be a life unfulfilled. And let’s face it, they have a point- I’m not going to be happy spending my life as an “administrative assistant.”
So despite all the negative feedback about grad school there is still an allure, not because I love it, but because everything else more or less equally sucks… which is a horrible reason to go to grad school.
I agree with you subtle_overlord. I guess, based on your very thoughtful comment, is that people who go to grad school in the first place are somewhat complex people who don’t want to just settle for a job such as an “administrative assistant.” It is definitely hard to decide where to devote your energies and to at least try to find something that interests you, especially if you have some intelligence and ambition which grad students and aspiring grad students have.
For me, my interest has always been in writing. That was what first attracted me to the humanities. The shift which I needed to undergo though was deciding to not just write about philosophy and aesthetics as I did in grad school. Now, I have begun to write website copy, marketing materials, and have begun to work part-time as a copywriter in an advertising agency. This is not my perfect world. It is fun, but I suppose that I would in a perfect world study literature and write about aesthetics. But I have managed to take one of my skills and translate it into a skill that I can use to make money.
So grad school was very alluring to me as I thought that I could make a living studying literature. This proved to be very hard. But I suppose the main point of my blog is to encourage people to adopt their passion and work ethic for learning into industries which will reward them both financially and personally. I wish I could offer you more specific advice, but I guess I want to say that I personally think it is fine to “sell out.” All the best, and thanks so much for reading and commenting.
here’s the deal, kids. when you’re in school, they ask you “what do you know?” and after studying four years of liberal arts in college you’ll be chock full of things you know. but when you’re looking for a job, they ask you “what do you know how to do?” and at this point you’ll be hard pressed to come up with an answer (except of course stuff like “critical thinking”). so think real critically before you become just another unemployable LAG. (sorry about using the word “kids”)
Bob, I think you are right. I wish someone had told me that 5 years ago.
Your blog is a well-written albeit painful reminder of just how horrible the academic job market is, and it rightly points out the culpability of graduate programs that contribute to the problem without adequately educating prospective students about the realistic chances of getting a tenure-track position of any kind–let along a plum job at an R1 university.
Since I last wrote the Chronicle piece referenced by subtle_overlord, my department has closed our search for a tenure track social psychologist. We received 151 applications, the vast majority from people with outstanding credentials. Yet there are only about 30 tenure track positions being advertised this year in social psychology. What are the other 120 or so talented young graduate students going to do next year?
Hi Monica,
Thanks for reading. I read your article referenced by subtle_overlord and wished there was someone in my department who would have taken such a strong stance. I’ve heard from others that complaining about tenure is the same as complaining if you try to make it in sports and you don’t get a spot as a professional basketball player….but I think most undergrads go to grad school as they think it is a smart move for their future–not a risky bet. Undergrads might be, as I was, ignorrant to think this. But they think it all the same. It’s not an excuse for them (or me), but a consquence they have to deal with after they graduate.
I’d like to thank you also for thinking about the other 120 talented young grad students. I have an extremely talented friend on the job market right now with no offers. Hiring departments might forget the nights and nights he spent working on articles, the time he spent away accross the country from his family, the weekends he spent at home working toward that immense goal, and the thousands of hours he spent becoming an expert only to be given a slim chance of success at what he loves to do.
I think that if undergrads knew the risk, they wouldn’t apply. So thanks for your efforts and your compassion.
James (the guy behind selloutyoursoul.com)
End of the day. Publish or perish. Many PhDs graduate with more pubs than their profs had when they got tenure. Nowadays what is most important is filling a demographic niche. Sorry white, straight, US, men: you are fucked unless you are rich.
One thing I hear a lot is that, well, the baby boomers will retire and then there will be all these openings. The ridiculous part is that these words come from educated professors. Never in the history of human kind has there existed a generation like the baby boomers. How can anyone say what will happen when they start retiring? I find these profs to be inexplicable. I have one professor who got a BA in 1969 at Harvard followed by a PhD 5 years later at a top program, followed by a position at a top school (he actually got it ABD). He actually acts like this occurred because of his genius and not his privilege (and he conveniently does not remember his adviser’s help–who still is a leading figure in the field). He is often telling students that they should be prepared to make sacrifices until they get the job—sacrifices he never made. In fact, he is ridiculously opinionated when it comes to what it takes for someone to get the job. Funny, as he developed these opinions completely from the other side of the table. His behavior is typical of the rosy worldview of the comfortable academic. I find it funny, actually, when I encounter a full prof who claims to be a Marxist—perhaps they are if Marxism is actually about being a privileged member of an intelligentsia most concerned with protecting and justifying their statuses.
At the end of the day, it is typically about the three P’s: publications, pedigree, and PhD. Let’s consider number 2. One of the saddest aspects of academia in the social sciences and humanities is that many of the same jobs we want so badly to exist (so we can be profs) lack pedigree. Our students will never get a job. I got a masters degree at a state school years before my PhD at a much more prestigious place. The year I did, a friend got a PhD. Since then he has 3 edited volumes, one book, and several articles. And he is an adjunct. Compare that with another person I know who got a job at IU ABD (PhD Berkeley) with no pubs or real grad level grants and, seven years later, her pub record is still almost non-existence. Not only did she not really deserve the job, she hasn’t done anything to earn it after the fact. That is pedigree. I think, second to pedigree, is actually networking and advocacy. Do you have strong intellectual-social networks? Are your professors doing as much as they can to sell you as the next coming of Christ? Or do your profs have their own hang ups? This stuff all helps you get a fighting chance.
Another thing is, too many people here argue that being a PhD robs you of experience and skill. I disagree entirely. I have accrued skills that are unbelievable: spatial programs, image programs, statistical programs, how to write and edit, etc., etc. Part of the reason for this is that I came into my program wanting to produce. Do not spend your short amount of time and funding being a dim-witted students: Do research and write. Develop skills as a pragmatic means to an ends. I mean, we can no longer follow the model of our professors: many had not publications or anything that marks an independent scholar when they got their degrees and jobs. Back in the day, that was they way it was. You were not a real scholar til you had the degree and the job (i.e., acceptance in the academy). Follow that course at your own peril.
But listen to me. This is insane to talk like getting a job is like winning the lottery.
Why do so many job postings want letters of recommendation for initial applications? It seems excessive..
Mbot,
The three P’s? I have heard of them. But really the main three things that get you a job in academia these days are: 1)pedigree (I will grant that); 2) networks/advocacy; and 3) demographic profile. That is that.
I honestly don’t think it’s as bad as Benton or this writer things. Yes, it’s bad. But things are still better than the market in the mid-1970s. And people DO get tenure-track jobs. 1/3 of my Ph.D. cohort did (not all were looking) and I’d wager that 70% of the good students I worked with in grad school are now in permanent academic posts. I’ve personally been on search committees that have hired almost a dozen faculty at my institution over the last decade, and I know we’re not unique.
One aspect of the job market that is never spoken about is the reality that some grad students are really not employable. Anyone who attended grad school knows some of the types– anti-social, shy wallflowers, narrowly-focused obsessives, or even the “hygenically challenged.” I’ve known dozens of each in the last 20 years and could tell almost immediately they would never land a tenure-track job. Nobody will tell the abrasive jerk or the mumbling wallflower that they will never find a position, but it’s true: one of the most important considerations of a hiring committee is whether the department faculty think they can work with a person for the next 30 years. Some people will never make that cut in any search, but sadly nobody tells them the real reasons for their lack of success.
More honesty from Ph.D. advisors would be a good first step in addressing the problem.
Hello,
I enjoy reading this blog.
I’m a 4th year doctoral student and although I find many of the statistics disheartening, I have found a way of thinking about my phd that has helped. Instead of thinking of my phd as something that will help me get a job (although I hope it will), I think of it as a job in itself. When I applied into my program, I definitely wanted to be a professor, but as I get closer to finishing I know that opportunities are slim, especially if I don’t want to move cities (which I don’t.) So, in order to keep motivated, I think of my phd as a job that allows me to do what I love (research) with a pay rate that I can live on (a decent funding package is a necessity when deciding whether to do a phd).
In the last several years, many of my friends have switched jobs or careers several times. Career plans change – some friends have gone to law school and decided not to pursue law careers, others have quit day jobs to pursue artistic endeavors. Grad students are not the only ones that struggle with career opportunities/challenges and choices.
All this to say that I agree that the job prospects are slim, and there should definitely be more advisors who discuss this with their students. But, If I am not able to find an academic position, I will find something else. I imagine that my career can and will take many twists and that is fine. A PhD is not only about finding a job; it is an opportunity to do involved research for an extended period of time. Most other jobs would not have allowed for this type of work.
Hi N. Simone,
I think that your attitude will help you find success and employment with your Ph.D.. Much of this blog is about the close-mindedness that results from being too close to the big tenure Ph.D. dream. So being flexible is a great asset (I’d rather hire someone with your positive story than someone with a sob story like mine).
Thanks for reading and good luck with the final stretch of your dissertation.
James @selloutyoursoul.com
@Alan Gettler
These are good points, but I’m not sure they get at the issues Benton raises in his essays. Admittedly, some candidates may be unemployable; they may be “anti-social, shy wallflowers, narrowly-focused obsessives, or even … ‘hygenically challenged.’” Grad schools do seem to attract a fair number of people with such qualities. Perhaps grad schools have something to with making such tendencies in individuals more pronounces?
To get back to your point, even if extreme social awkwardness is why some never landed a job, the assumption that a majority of the good ones got jobs is just that: an assumption. Ultimately, if your hunch is correct, that 70% (of those with whom you worked) went on to get academic posts, the failure of 30% to do likewise still seems pretty high.
I don’t doubt that unfit candidates show up before all sorts of hiring committees. Isn’t it one the purposes of hiring committees to weed out such individuals? When 100s of applicants are competing for the same handful of spots, it seems a little irrelevant to me if some fraction is unfit. I realize that you are speaking about your personal experiences, but the quirkiness of some job candidates, who may be unfit for professional work, let alone professorships, seems a little tangential to a discussion of macro issues: a structural imbalance of would-be academics to tenure track positions.
For the sake of disclosure, I am a doctoral student in an applied field; I am unlikely to have trouble finding work, but I have sympathy for those who will have to struggle.
Correction: “Perhaps grad schools have something to do with making such tendencies in individuals more pronounced?” (Sorry for the typos; It’s kind of late and I’m getting sleepy).
Hi. I came across this site by accident. I left a PhD in engineering many years ago.Why? Because after many years (I am kind of slow socially) I realized that unless you graduate from a really famous school, what some refer to as ‘Level 1′, a PhD is useless. Even to get a faculty position at a small school, Level 2 or 3 you need a degree from a Level 1 school. That is Harvard, MIT, Stanford etc. And even if you did by some miracle land a job it will always say on your departmental postings PhD Level 2 school. 40 years ago when the universities were expanding one could get a job with a Level 2 PhD. But that world is gone. In any field. I have been thinking about doing an MBA. People are telling me that if you go to a school ranked 25th in the USA it will not improve your lot in life (ie if you already have a professional industry job which I do). An MBA from Harvard will improve your life. But not a school ranked 25th. So then one would need to do it for life experience and too expand ones world view. Thats a lot of money to pay for that… However I am still considering it because I love knowledge. I am personally torn about if smaller schools (anything below top 20 in the world) should be barred from awarding PhDs. The reel in naive star gazing people. I know I was one of them. Its part of a faculty members job to have graduate students. Hopefully that will change. As it is I have 11 fewer years to build wealth for my retirement.
Hi Pigdog67,
I didn’t know that engineering Ph.D.’s had the same trouble with jobs–thanks for sharing your story. I agree with you–the production of Ph.D.’s should be cut and only a handful of programs should be able to offer them.
James @selloutyoursoul.com
Your website and Benton’s higher chronicle articles make me feel a lot better. I have found your website very interesting and even soothing from the perspective of someone who did not get a PhD in science or a law degree, but nearly almost did.
Fiscally and lack of flexibility, it did not make sense to go past the master’s level for me, yet I have always had a little bit of guilt for not getting a doctorate degree. I still feel shunned from some people I used to know for taking the different, but practical path.
I have no doubt that humanities have it much worse and have less options, I have actually known quite a few humanities adjuncts, but everything that you have said has also rung true from my perspective of the PhD route in sciences too. While scientists realize that there are practical jobs that they can get with their degrees and skills, the academic world still expects PhD candidates to become professors/academic research scientists, but there is simply not enough professor jobs in science available compared to the supply.
Plus, probably different from the humanities is the direct global competition, particularly scientists from China and India, that are more than willing to work nonstop in labs for peanuts, and they compete directly for postdoc and other research positions. While there is considered to be a shortage of Americans that get science degrees, there is not a global shortage that wants to work in an academic setting in the United States, and universities as well as businesses can turn to scientists from outside the United States.
Here is a link to an article that I just came across that I think summed up the perspective from the sciences quite well and should sound very familiar.
http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/2010/100722/full/nj7305-519b.html
Here is a link to an article that expresses similar concerns from the sciences (should sound familiar)
>the janitor probably makes more than the adjunct, works many less hours, has job security, vacation pay, and benefits.
True.
I work as a custodian — not strictly a janitor because I do some maintenance, groundskeeping and minor electrical/plumbing repairs, but it’s not that far removed from being a janitor. And in my state, the salaries of public workers considered public knowledge. When I went back to college a few years ago, I was startled to discover that I was, in fact, earning more than many of my professors, plus I had all the fringe benefits you describe. Plus, my skills are more in demand and transferable: there’s a greater demand for, say, rotor-rooter work or sprinkler-system repairmen than for scholars who specialize in Alice Walker or whomever.
Benton’s articles were also part of my paradigm shift. For years Id’ routinely hear comments about how I was too bright for my line of work and needed to go to college where I could enjoy the warming glow of pure intellectual pursuits. But now I see college very differently. Not to suggest that it’s worthless, not at all; I simply see it more fully than before.
Keep it up.
I have to thank subtle_overlord for this comnment:
“Then it starts to get more confusing. We are told by people who are in grad school to not go because we will have spent our lives empty in the ivy tower with nothing to prove to the world. We are told not to go to medical school because it is not worth a lifetime of medical insurance headaches and health care politics (I live in the US so this may or may not apply to you). We are told not to go to law school because there is an oversaturation in the market and it’s useless if you want to make lots of $$$ unless you go to a top-10 school. We are told not to go into engineering because everybody’s getting outsourced. Where do we turn to?”
In short, you’ve articulated exactly how I feel about the advice that I’ve been given for my future. For my first three years of undergrad, I was set on going to law school. After seeking out a lot of information about it, I finally decided that I wasn’t going to go even though many told me I was suited for it. Okay, now what?, I asked myself. The entire reason I majored in English literature is because I was told that I should pursue what my passion is. That advice has served me well because University has been enjoyable and rewarding due to the fact that enjoying what you do makes it easier to work hard and succeed. So, as I did with my decision not to go to law school, I not only went to my friends, family, and professors for advice, I also came to the Internet. “You seem very suited for academe,” said everyone in my personal circle. Great. Internet? Same thing with law school. Don’t go. Take your B.A and get into a different industry. Publishing? Sorry, we have even less jobs and the pay is less than a fellowship would be worth. Pretty soon it dwindles down to: start a blog.
I’m glad this kind of information is available to me, I really am. At least then I know what I’m getting into. Still, I think subtle_overlord put it best when he/she said that it “gets confusing.” Very.
subtle_overlord and Trent: Hi. I’m also you. Nice to meet you.
I’m in my last year of undergraduate humanities studies. I lack a guiding passion, except for some long-standing delusions of authorial grandeur. (Somehow, as I edge closer to the end of my educational career, it becomes easier to say that free of irony.)
Where do I/we/the multiple versions of me go from here? Humanities grad work? Sites like this one assure me it’s futile as an avenue for financial or emotional fulfillment. Law? Nope, it’ll turn me into a lifeless corporate automaton, or an impoverished journeyman lawyer, or a dropout (http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.esquire.com%2Fkilling-lawyers-harvard-0800&h=a0b50). Journalism? Don’t even get me started.
I guess that leaves the professional world, in which I’ve willfully killed my chances for top-level success by opting, naively, for a humanities degree, rather than business or economics or engineering.
But I needed to give myself a chance to get acquainted with the canon of Western civilization, right? Surely, that was a first step in a lifetime of rewarding thought and analysis, rather than a narcissistic stab at retaining my position as the “cultured guy” in my peer group?
All this aside, correct me if I’m wrong: isn’t the one big exception to academic pessimism an Ivy League degree? It seems like if I’d gone to Harvard and come back to Toronto, I could have studied whatever the hell I wanted and then slid comfortably into a cushy professional training program. Likewise for Master’s/PhD slots at programs that have dependable placement records. (Or do those just outright not exist?)
Is all this pessimism reserved for state-school grads who never got the message that their aspirations were way outstripping their lackluster qualifications?
This situation was not born yesterday. In the early 1970′s, I enrolled in the Ph.D. program at UCSD — Comparative Literature. The department was a bunch of European Marxists, hooray. Somewhere around the fourth month, I wandered up to the Placement Office and looked at job openings for Comp Lit PhDs.
There was ONE opening in the entire USA, and that notice specified “ten years’ experience.”
How STRANGE that none of those freeping Marxists sucking up my tuition dollar had mentioned that curious fact!
I left, tried this and that, and finally wound up paying good money for a programming course and landing a programming job, which paid the bills quite nicely for the next 23 years. I particularly enjoyed seeing newly minted PhDs in Philosophy coming into work, and sometimes I would even ask them, calmly, if they had ever considered visiting the Placement Office, during the many many years they spent on their (worthless) PhD.
Since then I have learned that life is tough — even for Physics PhDs…very tough to get a job. And I’ve known the “non-professor professors” stuck in a life of genteel poverty.
Heck, get training as a plumber and go to work when you’re 20. Sounds like an idea to me.
For those who complain that plumbing is boring and mind-numbing, may I suggest teaching English 1A eighty times in a row?
By the way, part of the problem is all those colleges which were not content with remaining colleges, but decided that they had to be universities — and universities have to offer advanced degrees. Cow College, Fullerton should have STAYED Cow College, Fullerton, instead of morphing into California State University at Fullerton, and offering worthless advanced degrees.
@Alan Gettler,
You’re probably more right about the social deviants than most of us would like to admit.
But I’m still on the “Don’t go to grad school” bandwagon, especially since the schools I’ve adjuncted at have pushed their undergrads into grad school despite keeping more faculty in revolving door adjunct positions than on the tenure track.
I do suspect that you may have some pedigree advantages you’re not recognizing, though. Placement rates in my field vary pretty wildly from school to school, and it doesn’t make sense for Stanford, e.g., to have zero percent social deviance while University of Chicago has eighty-five percent. And if by some chance every school had a completely charming crop of students, what percentage would find jobs? 10%?
My Ivy League department has placed five candidates in ten years with a dozen still kicking around in adjunct jobs and the rest housewives, lawyers, or dead by their own hand. I’m unemployed this year; so, I might actually get some things published. The lecturers combing the high school recruitment fairs on their weekends off? I wouldn’t count on it.
After looking at the endless string of websites that chronicle the uselessness of a PHD in the humanities, or in a variety of other academic areas, I couldn’t help but add something.
If you look carefully at history the same trend can be seen to emerge with far more clarity. Why did Berndard Riemann, considered one of the greatest mathematicians in his time, and a good physicist to boot, die living in a veritable shack with a body weak from malnutrition? Why was Gauss, the undisputed greatest mathematician in the world since he was 27, and a darn good physicist and engineer, not offered the equivalent of a job today that pays millions? These men, and many more with unearthly critical thinking and communication skills, were not welcomed to the head or breast of society, but were rather left in the margins of its rump! The situation afoot today is not exclusive to this time, but has endured through the ages…
Wow, so much I could say regarding this article and the comments posted here! As a freshly minted grad, this article really hits home. I think that this article and a lot of the comments, have saved me a few more years of my life and an additional debt burden that would be required in me completing a PhD. There’s a lot to think about here. The fact is, is that it is not just the Humanities that need further evaluation before taking the plunge, but it is almost every other discipline that I could think of including Business. It’s interesting because I did everything right and yet I have a 100k+ of debt, 30 years, a couple of years of shabby job experience and yet have not offered the promised job (s) that was supposed to come if you do everything right! What a shame. I guess I’ll keep pounding the pavement and keep a positive attitude (as much as possible) so that employers don’t start to sense any bitterness.
Thanks for writing this, james. Benton blew the lid off what has been an open secret among the professoriate for years. I spent 15 years as a professor and department head in a total of four departments (I had joint appointments at two institutions, one before tenure and one tenured), and my chief complaint was the almost total lack of accountability among my colleagues for the employability and actual employment prospects of their graduate students post Ph.D.
In fact, speaking directly as a faculty about things like jobs and work was considered declasse and slightly shameful, as if you’d “sold out.” The “true” professor maintained the postion that his work was a higher calling, “above” filthy lucre. And if you can’t admit your own place in a labor force, then you can’t possibly acknowledge that your students are to be trained for that labor force as well. In fact, to treat your students as future workers would be to deny your own fondest, most deeply held illusion that you are *not* a worker. And thus the neglect continues.
The shameful ethics of the system are part of what inspired me to walk away from tenure and academia, move back to my heart-place, Oregon, with my family, and start up my own business, The Professor Is In (http://www.theprofessorisin.com). I hope to be able to give those who still feel invested in the academic career the no-bullshit personal advising that cuts through Benton’s “Big Lie” and the clarity they need to move forward.
Keep up the good work.
Hi Karen,
Thanks for contacting me. I will write you a longer email this week, but I checked out your website–it is a really cool and essential service for PhD’s and grad students. Thank-you for your ethics and compassion for grad students.
Have you heard of MEAPA.com? You might want to connect with them as they are trying to do a similar thing with undergraduates–might be some good collaboration there. Michael is a great guy and I have an interview with him on my site: The Ultimate Guide for Finding Jobs as an English Major.
Thanks again–We appreciate professors like you!
James from Selloutyoursoul
Humanities students suffer the most, but they are just as responsible for their misery. I knew this when I graduated and all the kids with 4.0 GPA’s were in things like English, political science, and anthropology. The students graduating in engineering, math, economics, and other fields that are both interested in quantifying and understanding the world as well as producing useful ideas and tools all got great jobs or went to grad school. Fast forward five years, and the 4.0 kids were living with family or scraping by in humanities grad school, while the people with quantitative skills were at high-paying jobs and getting married or finishing up their degrees and looking forward to tenure track jobs. Another five years and the 4.0-ers are still behind, while those other folks are doing fine.
The problem is that the humanities are simply not useful. They are a failed attempt to understand and explain human life and the world around us.
I’m very much in sympathy with all of the cynicism regarding doctoral education, which might come as a surprise given that I am an associate professor at at PhD-granting university. Here is the strange thing: I constantly advise potential graduate students to stay away from grad school–and they ignore me. I admit to them: they may be brilliant, and we have a good grad program, and every year we have some success in placing our PhD’s in good tenure-track jobs. But still, the odds are just stacked against them, there are many sad stories for every story of professional success, and there are much better ways to spend your twenties than by writing seminar papers and then a dissertation while making very little money and accruing debt you are ashamed to tell your parents about. But most students ignore this advice–both the students who I have trained as undergrads, and the undergrads from other institutions that are thinking about applying to our program. Luckily, many do not get into grad school, and thus start careers where there are a plausible chance of success. If you want intellectual enrichment and possible professional advancement (depending on your career), get an MA in two years and move on.
My only gripe is this: Where in the hell did you learn to write so well? Your blog shows that you are doing something, taking initiative, etc. in the online world. You’re making your own marketable skills. I’m not going to complain about your complaining. I just want you to notice that you learned way more in school than you could have learned apart from it. Costly yes, but I don’t think it was a bad investment.
Hi English Teacher,
It’s true. These are very middle class problems–worse fates in life than being overeducated.
Thanks,
James from Selloutyoursoul.com
I believe that the most important thing is to make sure that there is a demand for your talents. If you get a phd is something like humanities, don’t be surprised to not find a job. The fields where there are jobs are the medical, business, and law fields. It is also important to publish while doing phd research
I think getting a degree in the humanities at any level is a waste of time and money. This is not because I don’t love literature, history, writing, etc., but because there are simply no jobs available to people with these degrees.
Some PhDs may assume that if they cannot find a job at the collegiate level, they can go teach at a prestigious high school. What they don’t realize is that their degree disqualifies them from most school districts around the country, and private schools (prestigious ones) pay a poverty-level salary. In Illinois, there are strict policies in place preventing the hiring of teachers with graduate degrees. Why? Two reasons: such individuals cost more, and administrators with education degrees don’t want “content people” (aka, those with advanced degrees in English, history, etc.), they want BAs with education degrees. Now an advanced degree in math will probably get you hired, but an advanced degree in English means your resume/cv goes directly into the trash.
Speaking from experience, a degree in English is fundamentally worthless. Actually, it has negative value. I wasted years of my life getting to the ABD stage (even winning awards and publishing a little) before realizing I was hurting my professional life. I was basically taking money, throwing gasoline on it, and then lighting a match.
And do things really get better if you do find a tenure-track position at a college? You will have to boot-lick the faculty for years before you are up for tenure, and it only takes one disgruntled feminist with an axe to grind to derail your entire professional life. For the ladies, it only takes one jerk professor who thinks women don’t have what it takes to send you packing.
Academia is a game of personality and politics, a game with diminishing returns and poor prospects. It was a bout of insanity for me to ever consider a career in it.
“It was a bout of insanity for me to ever consider a career in it.”
Likewise!
Having a good job is nice.
Giving up your passion in exchange for what the odds are in favor of is a tragedy.
Passion means you are intrinsically motivated to read and write and work very, very hard. That means, you do it because you do it and not because it pays.
Take time to try out something non-academic. But if you find that you can’t live without your books, please come back. You must know that there are very good reasons to pursue studies in the humanities. There are very important things to be thought on, beyond profit and beyond comfort. You already knew that, but forgot.