That's great advice for normal fields without a massive oversupply of job candidates.
If you'll forgive a bit of 'splaining: In the academic humanities, the supermajority of newly minted PhDs will never get a tenure-track job. In history, only 27% of 2017 graduates had tenure-track jobs by four (!) years after completion of the PhD. This …
That's great advice for normal fields without a massive oversupply of job candidates.
If you'll forgive a bit of 'splaining: In the academic humanities, the supermajority of newly minted PhDs will never get a tenure-track job. In history, only 27% of 2017 graduates had tenure-track jobs by four (!) years after completion of the PhD. This excellent thread by Megan McArdle explains both the problem and the solution (that most PhD-granting programs don't want to adopt, by the way) elegantly: https://twitter.com/asymmetricinfo/status/1564329262349524995?.
I had a friend who searched for academic jobs in the humanities for over five years and finally landed a tenure-track job. She was able to negotiate the salary UP to $44,000/year.
That's the backdrop for the complaints and desperation in humanities/arts academia. McArdle is correct to say that most students should be told not to start or finish the PhD. The reason that I, personally, am not perpetually filled with rage about this is that my undergrad professors did tell me what I was getting into. But many of my classmates in my PhD program had no clue about the stats and were fed optimistic falsehoods by the professors (who weren't really trying to be mendacious, but as humanities types couldn't imagine that there might ever be a quantitative answer to a question).
Real story. At my PhD graduation I was obviously very excited and we were placed alphabetically. I tried to be social (first mistake) and started talking to the person next to me (second mistake). She mentioned she had a PhD in English and gender studies and I inquired about her job (third mistake). She was still post docing at our institution. Being polite she inquired about my job, which I mentioned was straight to tenure track (fourth mistake). I'm always fascinated by the fun titles of PhD dissertation so I asked hers and it was Young Adult fiction of the 1920s to which I excitedly said "YA is my guilty pleasure' (5th mistake) which she informed me was "classicist and agiesm" and what she was fighting against. End of conversation but in my head shes leading a Twitter mob against Kat Rosenfield . God speed Dr YA. God speed.
A PhD classmate of mine declared in her first year in the program that her field was YA. The professors told her that YA isn't considered a field by literary disciplines (dumb but true, IMO), but that she could switch to rhet/comp, where YA is studied (also true). She got very upset about the benighted views of the professors, persisted in doing YA for 7 years, and eventually left academia.
I thought the profs were doing right by her in telling her how things really are in time for her to change programs, but I kept my mouth shut so as not to offend anyone. A skill I got better and better at practicing in academic settings, alas.
How was what you said ageist? I think there is ageism in the world and I think the way things focus on DEI, ageism is getting worse.. But that is ageism against " the old." And CLASSIST? Wait. Let me guess. You don't consider that to be good literature and someone with little education might think it is great? Fucking hell
It's a weird combination of tradition, prestige, and the need to matriculate a certain number of graduate students in order to attain/retain R1 (research 1) status.
I personally know a number of professors who don't believe that they should be admitting nearly as many graduate students to their programs as they are, but they are pressured into it by colleagues and administrators. I also know one professor who accepted a prestigious appointment on the condition that he would NOT have to advise graduate students, because he believes that his field shouldn't be awarding graduate degrees. But 99+% of arts and humanities professors have to take whatever job they can get and are in no position to dictate the terms of their offer.
That's great advice for normal fields without a massive oversupply of job candidates.
If you'll forgive a bit of 'splaining: In the academic humanities, the supermajority of newly minted PhDs will never get a tenure-track job. In history, only 27% of 2017 graduates had tenure-track jobs by four (!) years after completion of the PhD. This excellent thread by Megan McArdle explains both the problem and the solution (that most PhD-granting programs don't want to adopt, by the way) elegantly: https://twitter.com/asymmetricinfo/status/1564329262349524995?.
I had a friend who searched for academic jobs in the humanities for over five years and finally landed a tenure-track job. She was able to negotiate the salary UP to $44,000/year.
That's the backdrop for the complaints and desperation in humanities/arts academia. McArdle is correct to say that most students should be told not to start or finish the PhD. The reason that I, personally, am not perpetually filled with rage about this is that my undergrad professors did tell me what I was getting into. But many of my classmates in my PhD program had no clue about the stats and were fed optimistic falsehoods by the professors (who weren't really trying to be mendacious, but as humanities types couldn't imagine that there might ever be a quantitative answer to a question).
Real story. At my PhD graduation I was obviously very excited and we were placed alphabetically. I tried to be social (first mistake) and started talking to the person next to me (second mistake). She mentioned she had a PhD in English and gender studies and I inquired about her job (third mistake). She was still post docing at our institution. Being polite she inquired about my job, which I mentioned was straight to tenure track (fourth mistake). I'm always fascinated by the fun titles of PhD dissertation so I asked hers and it was Young Adult fiction of the 1920s to which I excitedly said "YA is my guilty pleasure' (5th mistake) which she informed me was "classicist and agiesm" and what she was fighting against. End of conversation but in my head shes leading a Twitter mob against Kat Rosenfield . God speed Dr YA. God speed.
A PhD classmate of mine declared in her first year in the program that her field was YA. The professors told her that YA isn't considered a field by literary disciplines (dumb but true, IMO), but that she could switch to rhet/comp, where YA is studied (also true). She got very upset about the benighted views of the professors, persisted in doing YA for 7 years, and eventually left academia.
I thought the profs were doing right by her in telling her how things really are in time for her to change programs, but I kept my mouth shut so as not to offend anyone. A skill I got better and better at practicing in academic settings, alas.
How was what you said ageist? I think there is ageism in the world and I think the way things focus on DEI, ageism is getting worse.. But that is ageism against " the old." And CLASSIST? Wait. Let me guess. You don't consider that to be good literature and someone with little education might think it is great? Fucking hell
So why do universities produce so many surplus academics?
It's a weird combination of tradition, prestige, and the need to matriculate a certain number of graduate students in order to attain/retain R1 (research 1) status.
I personally know a number of professors who don't believe that they should be admitting nearly as many graduate students to their programs as they are, but they are pressured into it by colleagues and administrators. I also know one professor who accepted a prestigious appointment on the condition that he would NOT have to advise graduate students, because he believes that his field shouldn't be awarding graduate degrees. But 99+% of arts and humanities professors have to take whatever job they can get and are in no position to dictate the terms of their offer.