Feel free to contact me about articles, guest posts, or existential questions:
Email: Selloutyoursoul6@gmail.com
Twitter: @Selloutsoul
I don’t offer link exchanges or guest posts from crappy online education sites. So please stop emailing me.
Feel free to contact me about articles, guest posts, or existential questions:
Email: Selloutyoursoul6@gmail.com
Twitter: @Selloutsoul
I don’t offer link exchanges or guest posts from crappy online education sites. So please stop emailing me.
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You could take this a step further….I have taught at the college level for 13 years as well as being in administration so I have seen waaaaay too much when it comes to higher ed….in addition, I earned my Ph.D. in Higher Ed…..and I don’t have much good to say about it all…..what you are talking about is the tip of the iceberg as to elitism and cronyism at its worst……not only is finding a job difficult for these reasons, but then there is the way professors treat their graduate students…I am a single mother and the discrimination against us was outrageous…I am the only single mother who finished my Ph.D., but I had to go through hell so many times and was treated in ways horrible beyond belief…in addition to my acquiring an attorney and filing multiple complaints with the graduate department…..but you know what it boils down to? Students have absolutely no rights….there are student handbooks about what students can’t do and how they can get into trouble, but nothing that says they have any rights, and as I was told by the professors they can do anything they want to me because I had no rights……and they did……the sad thing to all of this, including even with undergraduate degrees is that more and more Americans are dropping out of college as well as high school – they don’t see any purpose in being treated so poorly…..
Several of my friends with PhDs are hurting in this economy. Working as short order cooks, bartenders, you name it. Quite a few dropped out of the PhD program and though they beat themselves about it, I think it is more out of that ingrained “you should finish what you start” thing rather than any real grief over it. There IS life after academia, after all. One of my cohort colleagues who has her PhD actually told me that a job counselor advised her to NOT mention her PhD because colleges were preferring to hire masters-only academics. Why? Cheaper! Supposedly, at least. I don’t know if it is true, but go figure. As for me, and others in the same boat I am, we left the US and are working as academics in universities abroad. Best decision ever, at least for me! Good luck! PS: I really like your blog.
Hi Trudy,
Thanks for your comment…I’m glad that everything worked out for you abroad (I know a few people who got jobs abroad). It must be hard to hear (for your friends) that a MA is more desirable than the PhD they worked so hard for. Thanks for reading.
–James @ selloutyoursoul
I commend you on your blog and your decision. I am a recently tenured professor at a prestigious R1 university, in an excellent department and I am here to tell you it is *not* worth it. I’m not sure I would have listened to this kind of advice when I was getting my PhD, but I am very glad to see there is more of it around. I am one of the lucky ones, and still the trade-offs you have to make to maintain this career (financial, personal life) are in no way worth what you pay/sacrifice. At least not anymore. You are doing a great service with this blog, and I encourage anyone who thinks they might have an alternative path to take it.
Hi Sarah,
Thanks for the endorsement. It’s good to hear the perspective of people who made it all the way through. I will pass along your advice to anyone that emails me, asking for more info.
Thanks again.
James from Selloutyoursoul.com
Hi James,
I started scouring the internet for ‘reasons not to do a phd’ and your website came up. To be honest you are confirming all of my own ‘blind panic’ about academia. I too have been awarded funding, and as much as I feel incredibly lucky to have got it, I am also sick of living a life of poverty and of the troublesome prospect of entering teh job market in my 30s.
If you don’t mind my asking i’d be interested to hear about what you have gone on to do subsequently?
Hi Charlotte,
The transition took a while, but I ended up going into advertising. I now work as a copywriter at an ad agency and also as a freelance writer. It’s fun, and involves just as much mental challenge as grad school. If a university offered me a tenure position now, I wouldn’t even take it.
Good luck with your decision (I know its a hard one)
James from Selloutyoursoul
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