If You Decide to Go Anyway


For your own sake, consider the 100 Reasons before committing yourself to graduate school. If there is no hope of convincing you not to go, here are three bits of advice:


1. Stay out of debt.

If you go to professional school (medical school, law school, business school, a school of education, etc.), you typically have to cover tuition and other expenses yourself. Students in professional school often have no option but to take out large student loans to get them through their degree programs. This makes sense only if you will graduate with a degree that will lead to a job with a salary high enough to make paying back your debt possible. For medical school graduates, this may not be a problem. For indebted law school graduates, the scarcity of jobs in the legal profession has become a crisis.

Graduate school, however, is different. In graduate school, you are not (ostensibly) being trained for a “practical” trade, but are instead becoming a scholar, undertaking the study of an “academic” subject for its own sake. This, of course, is nonsense, but it is the premise behind the idea that there should be generous financial support for graduate students (as opposed to professional students). Departments “fund” graduate students by giving them either fellowships (scholarships) or assistantships (jobs). You should NOT begin a graduate program if you have not been offered funding.

Some will say that being offered admission to a graduate program without funding is like being given a polite rejection, but universities will be happy to collect tuition from you if you are willing to pay it. No graduate program is worth the cost of tuition, especially if it requires you to go into debt. In reality, graduate school is professional training. It is training for a career in academe, and the academic job market is terrible (see Reason 55). Academic jobs are extremely hard to obtain and do not pay well, so if you go into debt for a graduate degree you are putting yourself at risk of being unable to repay that debt. Student-loan debt cannot even be discharged in bankruptcy.


2. Go to a prestigious school.

Where you go to graduate school matters. It is difficult to over-emphasize the importance of this point. As everyone knows, there is a hierarchy of universities, but no one takes this hierarchy more seriously than academics (see Reason 3). There are so few jobs in academe that the competition for virtually every open position is a national (and often international) competition. Those with the best chance of securing employment are the products of the nationally (and internationally) prestigious institutions. There are very few genuinely prestigious universities, and almost all of them are private. They are the Ivies and the quasi-Ivies like Stanford and MIT. The number of genuinely prestigious public universities in the United States can be counted on one hand, probably on three fingers, and quite possibly on one.

The large, perfectly respectable public university in your area is almost certainly not one of them, even if it offers an enormous array of graduate programs with extremely competitive admission standards. The problem is that there are hundreds of universities just like it all over the country, together producing tens of thousands of graduate degrees every year. If you happen to earn your PhD at such a place, you will be at a severe disadvantage on the job market, where you will be pitted against people with degrees from the genuinely prestigious universities.

Be wary of characterizations of “prestigious departments” or “top programs” at universities that are not themselves highly prestigious institutions, and bear in mind that the prestige of an institution may have no relation to the quality of education that it provides its students. As far as landing an academic job is concerned, the prestige of your degree is more important than anything you learned in the process of obtaining it. If you are not admitted to a graduate program at a highly prestigious university, then you have all the more reason to ask yourself if a massive life investment in graduate school is worth it.


3. Finish as quickly as possible.

This is by far the hardest piece of advice to follow. Circumstances tend to conspire to turn what is already designed to be a long, slow slog into an even lengthier ordeal. Everything from unreliable funding to onerous teaching assistantships can slow down your progress through graduate school. But every year that you spend in graduate school is a year of opportunity costs. It is precious time in which you’re not earning a salary, you’re not establishing seniority in a career, and you’re not exploring opportunities in fields with better job prospects than academe.

Remember that you can quit graduate school if you don’t like it, but this is far easier said than done (see Reason 11) and it is better to quit after one year than after five or six. Even if you do finish a PhD, there is no guarantee that you will ever find an academic position for which your degree is a requirement. Minimizing your time in graduate school limits your opportunity costs, as well as your exposure to an environment that can be stressful, competitive, and deeply discouraging (see Reason 50).

There is no simple way to ensure a quick path through graduate school, but following the advice in Point 2 will help. The most prestigious schools tend to offer the most generous funding packages, which can serve to relieve you of the debilitating financial worries that complicate the typical graduate-school experience. You would also be wise to choose an adviser who keeps you strictly accountable (see Reason 45) and to start working on your dissertation long before you take your comprehensive exams. You will find it very hard to prioritize your own research and writing when you have job obligations involving students and faculty, but if you do not prioritize your own academic work, graduate school can drag on for many years.

142 comments:

  1. Wonderful, sound advice. Thanks, blogger. I wish I'd taken my "polite rejection" and burned it instead of saying "Wheee! I got in to Middling Reputation State School!" Now I'm gonna be stuck with gobs of debt if I wanna finish--all so I can adjunct in a discipline I hate. No thank you.

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    1. In the event that you need more convincing about how important prestige is when choosing a grad school...

      "Groupthink in Academia: Majoritarian Departmental Politics and the Professional Pyramid" by Daniel B. Klein and Charlotta Stern

      Independent Review, Spring 2009

      http://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?a=731

      From the article:

      [Consider a conventional ranking of two hundred economics departments worldwide, where the top thirty-five are treated as the apex (Klein 2005, 143). In these top thirty-five departments, more than 90 percent of faculty received their Ph.D. degree from the same thirty-five departments; the top is almost entirely self-regenerating. According to the regression line, the department ranked one hundredth would have about 65 percent of its faculty from the top thirty-five. Departments farther down the pyramid are generally much smaller, so the top thirty-five departments train and mentor the people who populate most of the top two hundred departments. The profession, especially at the higher echelons, consists for the most part of people directly indebted to and personally loyal to those at the apex.

      Yet these results do not fully capture the domination by the top departments, which also have vastly disproportionate influence in regard to journals, grants, second-generation degrees, and so on (Klein 2005, 144–45). In sociology, for instance, Val Burris documents the extraordinary power that the leading U.S. departments exercise:

      Graduates from the top 5 departments account for roughly one-third of all faculty hired in all 94 departments. The top 20 departments account for roughly 70 percent of the total. Boundaries to upward mobility are extremely rigid. Sociologists with degrees from non–top 20 departments are rarely hired at top 20 departments and almost never hired at top 5 departments....

      The hiring of senior faculty by prestigious departments is even more incestuous than the hiring of new PhDs.... Of the 430 full-time faculty employed by the top 20 sociology departments... only 7 (less than 2 percent) received their PhD from a non–top 20 department, worked for three or more years in a non–top 20 department, and, after building their scholarly reputations, advanced to a faculty position in one of the top 20 departments. (2004, 247–49, 251)]

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    2. I wrote an article expressing very similar points to this about college not preparing you for a specific trade, which I guess is similar graduate school as well.

      "http://beyoubesure.com/2013/01/25/dear-college-what-next-prepare-us-for-reality/"

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  2. Which schools would be on the 3 fingers I wonder.

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    1. the school on one finger would, i'm betting, be berkeley.

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  3. that's what I was wondering!!
    Blogger, please clarify. Here are some guesses:

    1. UC Berkeley (aka "Cal")
    2. Madison Wisconsin
    3. U of Michigan
    4. UCLA

    I'm/We're dying to know!

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    1. ummm...are you kidding?

      those four schools are most certainly not on the list of 3, or on the hand for that matter...that's my guess

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    2. He said "Public." According to the US News & World Report National rankings, the highest-ranked public schools are:

      Rank('13): School
      21. Berkeley
      24. UCLA
      24.(tie) UVA
      29. Michigan
      30. UNC-Chapel Hill

      And already, UNC-Chapel Hill doesn't seem to have the brand value of the others.

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    3. The ranking is differ for every field (and sometimes subfield). People may argue about 3. Vs 4. But among mainstream academics there is pretty good agreement (this comes with being socialized into the profession). And wen it comes job placemen the ranking of ones OhD program cannot be overemphasized.

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  4. You don't have to ask which public universities are prestigious. You didn't imagine that list arbitrarily.

    If I was forced to choose, I would say Michigan. Berkeley and UCLA compete with Stanford. Madison is like Michigan except it's not Michigan.

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    1. UCLA competes with Stanford? In what. Who is further south?

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  5. Top schools, Ivy league schools are Harvard, Yale, University of Chicago, Stanford, Northwestern University - maybe a couple of others in addition.

    @Anonymous 12:00pm: #3 may make it, but the others definitely not.

    If my list of schools is wrong, please let me know.

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  6. whoa! ivy league schools are: harvard, princeton, yale, dartmouth, columbia, cornell, brown, and upenn.

    u of chicago, northwestern, stanford, mit, cit, etc. are all just quasi-ivies.

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    1. Thank you. I hate when people say schools are in the ivy league that are not and vice-versa. Stanford, MIT, etc are probably better / higher ranked / more prestigious at least in some fields than are some of the ivies, but that doesn't make them part of a sports league that they're not actually in.

      As for the original article, I sort of agree with the prestige comment but sort of do not...the fit really matters (where will you do your best WORK) and so does the prestige and overall quality of your primary advisor(s). The school's overall prestige value definitely matters, but it is much more inclusive than the author states. I've seen so many highly successful people in my field come out of public schools that wouldn't be in the top 5 but would maybe be in the top 15 (e.g. University of Iowa) and private schools that decidedly not in the ivy-plus category but are still somewhat prestigious (e.g. Boston University, Vanderbilt). And those programs they came from offered plenty of financial aid, etc.

      Also, as for "finish as quickly as possible," this is not necessarily the best advice, either. If 5 years is the standard for your field/program, there's no need to force yourself to finish in 3.5 or 4 if you have funding. If you have funding for a 6th year and a lot of momentum with your projects, you might as well hang around and build up your publication record, hitting the market stronger. I think this advice should have been "don't let the PhD drag out," but "finish as quickly as possible" is a little crazy.

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  7. @Anonymous 10:28pm

    Yes, you're right, those are ivies and are quasi-ivies, but they are top schools and worthy of consideration.

    Either top school or cheap, is the way to do it. Avoid student loans like the plague. Student loans are slavery.

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  8. I think there are some sound "reasons" on here, but they can mostly be summed up to "don't go to graduate school because it's hard." Couldn't one come up with "100 reasons" not to pursue any and/or every profession/pursuit? I think it really just comes down to whether you want to do it or not, and whether you're willing to stick it out.

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    1. Granted, Grad School is hard--but that "hardness" has a certain uniqueness to it, that is difficult to find outside of Graduate School. It's a very good idea to know what you are facing before you decide to go in, and if you do decide, it's nice to be prepared for them. As I've seen from the comments, these reasons have also given Graduate Students "Aha, so that's what's wrong!" moments, that have helped them get out of poisonous situations.

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    2. Adding on - 'hard' meaning that 30% or fewer complete their degrees. And this is of good people. Even allowing for some people who shouldn't have been there, the success rate for the good people is 50% at best.

      Hard - in that it's 5-7 years of a rather difficult life. During that time your are paid rather little, very vulnerable to abuse, and restricted to one location.

      Hard - if you finish your degree, and it's from a school which is in the top small slice of your field, the odds of getting a real job in your field slim.

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    3. I agree with this... but the real question is, what about if you have a true passion for something like the hard sciences. Besides working a menial job as a lab tech or similar, the options for something that you care about are virtually nonexistent. I am in a PhD program now and can relate to much of this, but I think a good chunk sums up to it not being for people who don't actually have a passion for their work.

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    4. Anonymous October 11, 2012, is grad school free as well? I know many European countries provide free education until the first degree...

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    5. Free for few, prohibitively expensive for most, and this division doesn't appear to be on a 'merit' basis.

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    6. Grad school may be "hard" but the job market is getting even harder. I got my Master's from Yale exactly 20 years ago this year, and I don't recall it being this hard to qualify for THAT all those years ago. As I apply for PhD programs NOW, in the European schools where it's tuition-free, I'm being asked to come up with every place I've been and everything I've been doing since HIGH SCHOOL graduation, and I don't know but maybe that just wasn't a requirement everywhere "back then"?? But then, back in the 90's coming up with every place I'd been since high school graduation wouldn't have been such a big deal, certainly not the massive pain in the ass that it is now. Making people over-40 do all that is tantamount to age discrimination. The older you get, the longer-ago that particular year is, and you're still asked to account for all those years since then anyway - so much for the European market being "slightly friendlier" to the over-40 crowd than the US/Canada market. I would wonder how much of that is attributable to a worldwide post "9-11" need to "vet" everybody who wants to come into the country but even THAT should only go back TEN years...!

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    7. Curious to know if you are undertaking your ph.d now and what is the experience. Like you I am in my 40's and considering this route. Would like to hear how it turned out.

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  9. I would also add:

    1) Fully vet future advisors. Have their students have been successful in obtaining tenure track positions? Look at their publications. How have they dealt with co-authorship?
    2) Learn some time management skills. Buy a book or attend a seminar.
    3) Learn to write every day. Stick to a writing schedule.
    4) Approach the search for a thesis topic/advisor with the same mindset as the search for a spouse. Grad school has a similar impact on life.

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    1. to (4): It really is like that, but don't actually look for a spouse in an advisor. When I was in rotations, I had these moments of 'clicking' with a potential advisor, and was mixing it up with feeling attracted to this person vs. feeling that this person was just the right advisor for me. It's hilarious to think about in retrospect because it can be such a fine line to walk.

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    2. So glad to know it wasn't just me! I had a major crush on my Ph.D supervisor, but like you pointed out, it was more to do with feeling he was brilliant and a great guide through the process (as a supervisor) more than anything else... Thank God I didn't try anything inappropriate or stupid!!

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  10. This is generally good advice, through I would stress that everything varies by discipline, so the weight of one or another factor depends. For instance, in sociology, there are top departments that are more "prestigious" than their university; and their very prestigious universities that everyone in sociology knows don't have great sociology graduate programs. So at least in sociology, you should consider the "prestige" of the program as much, if not more, than the university as a whole. To take an example, sociology programs like Arizona or Indiana are more highly ranked their universities, and even more highly ranked than some Ivy League universities. So if you come onto the job market in sociology with an Indiana or Arizona PhD it can be just as good if not better than a sociology PhD from certain Ivy League universities.

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    1. Oh my. Sociology ain't so special. I know, I'm about to leave it. My program loves to boast about how highly we're ranked in various subfields. Really? Then how come our graduates get jobs only in SLACs in the hinterlands, if at all?

      I'd say that the "everything varies by discipline" advice may be most true of the arts, where an MFA from Iowa still comes in at #1 (or Cal Arts for animation, USC for film, etc.)

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    2. This is good advice. In my discipline, the top grad programs (currently placing students in top jobs) are at institutions otherwise best known for their NCAA sports. If you don't have an advisor who can tell you for sure what the best programs are in your field, you're not prepared to go.

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    3. Or fire up google. In an hour or so you should have a good idea of the rough ranking of PhD program in you field (and every ranking is rough ). But it is still very real. It can make or break your future

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  11. The most important factor is really placement. How successful have graduates from this program been compared to graduates from other schools? That information captures a lot of other important information such as program quality, prestige and expected job market outcomes. In Economics, for example, Minnesota places far better (and has a more respected program) than ivies such as Cornell and Duke. The university isn't anything special, but career outcomes from a PhD at Minnesota are very very good (comparable to Yale). So, it's not just school prestige, but program prestige - especially for academic jobs.

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    1. It is not always easy for someone (especially a naive undergrad-- which we all were once) to obtain accurate placement data. Don't take too much on faith. If a program's recent placement record is poor, it is not in their interest for you to know it.

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  12. Overall good advice but of course every individual experience will differ. I finished grad school in two years, attended a prestigious (yes it was private) university, but didn't receive funding until my second year. Therefore, I went into debt. I still believe it was worth it even though I no longer work in academia. I may not "need" my master's degree for what I do, but I didn't attend grad school for anyone but myself.

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    1. You hit the nail on the head. Anyone who goes to grad school to study an "academic" subject better be there for more than just a career.

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    2. I'll go one better. Anyone who goes to grad school to study ANY subject better be there for more than just a career.

      Doesn't matter how "practical" it is. Doesn't matter what the claimed demand is, either. The bottom keeps falling out for too many people who have done their best to plan responsibly.

      The best advice I can give is, study something that you can turn into a business (or better yet, multiple businesses) by yourself, with a minimum of available capital and a minimum of investment of anything except your own sweat equity. DO NOT make the mistake of studying something that is dependent on someone else (employer, overpaid HR dimwit, subsequent school, investor, etc.) to see the value of. The rules have changed, and most of us are on our own.

      Other than something you can pursue as an enterprise, study that which will reduce your expenses and your dependence on others - how to grow and prepare food, household mechanics, hunting, trapping, house repairs, plumbing, construction. "Home economics" is a set of subjects that is woefully neglected in the US, unlike, for example, Japan. At least the unemployed Japanese kids can always darn their own socks and prep their own meals, but the unemployed American kids will probably wind up having to buy theirs.

      When it comes to banking and investment, at the risk of sounding paranoid, I put it to you that there is nothing that you can invest in that cannot be taken away. Not one thing. I have no solution to offer here except to advocate support for the protection of property rights, to advocate changes in the tax code, to advocate a return to the rule of law and broader recognition of the harm of administrative fiat, and to promote the notion of transferable skills, the abandonment of which has relegated the educations of so very many people to the scrap heap. The best bet in any case is diversification of one's assets - just remember, your assets are not protected by anything other than your diligence, and that includes your education.

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  13. I take an issue with the third bit - finish as quickly as possible. There are real costs to finishing to quickly once you step onto the job market. If you are out in five years, while median time to graduation is eight, you are likely to find yourself competing with people with longer CV's and more extensive professional networks. I'd say, don't rush it, you might regret it. An extra year of graduate school could be of great advantage when it comes to racing for tenure.

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    1. Reply to Anonymous, 11:53:

      I've heard that "don't rush to finish at the expense of publications" from a number of graduate students in my own department. I'm sorry to say that it is not only mistaken, it is a false choice.

      I am currently on two hiring committees at a mid-level school, and we have dismissed out of hand recently graduated candidates who took 8 years to complete a PhD, regardless of their publication records. Committees are trying to avoid anything that smells like slow progress and possible problems at tenure time, and slow completion of the PhD makes a candidate seem risky in that regard.


      Sorry- in keeping with the tenor of the blog, I'm telling you how it is, not how it should be. The standard is both quick completion and publication. If you need some extra time to publish, the place for that is a postdoc.

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    2. I don't think that is universal.

      I am a student rep on the hiring committee of my department (top five in a social science) and we have dismissed a couple of candidates out of hand because they took only five years. Six to eight is the gold standard for quantitative researchers, but we do not penalize qualitative candidates up to about ten years to degree, especially if they did international work & managed to publish a couple of books while they were working on their degree.

      As I said, I am sure this is extremely institution and discipline specific. I only want to point out that this is not necessarily "how it is" everywhere.

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    3. There was recently a Chronicle of Higher Ed piece on this topic and the upshot was that many hiring committees ARE favoring folks who took longer and have more pubs. Obviously not universally, but it's a trend.

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    4. There are people who finish in a hurry AND publish like crazy. It's not really an either/or. If you want a job, be one of those people.

      #2 still betters #3. All else being equal, the Yale PhD who took 8 years is going to get the job over the Michigan PhD who took 5.

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    5. This is a trade-off, cost-benefit analysis. You aren't getting any younger. And taking an extra year to write papers doesn't giantess any publishable papers. If you take noticeably longer than average noticeably more. ( by way of publications) to show for it

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    6. Well, let me tell you that that "longer CV" thing is not necessarily a good thing. Some of us out here are OLDER and have "longer CV's" only because we're being made to account for every damn year and every place and every job or temporary assignment we've ever been on ever since high school graduation. Accounting for every year since 1989 makes your CV "LONG" as hell but not necessarily WORTHWHILE. It just says "I'm OLD and have been every place in the world I could think of and either didn't find a job, didn't get the job I went there for, or didn't work out once they saw me..." and most importantly it screams out "I'm over 40!!" A "longer CV" is useless if all it does is point out painfully that you're over-40 and have done a hell of a lot of "nothing" everywhere in the world. That's why I have such a problem being asked to craft something like that for an application for a PhD program!!

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  14. You say that completing a phd doesn't mean you'll find a job that requires one and that is a reason not to go to grad school. That is beside the point because many jobs that don't require a phd will still prefer to hire a job candidate who does have that credential. We're in an academic credential arms race with each other and there are not enough jobs for every one who is qualified. ...so, we try to become overqualified.

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    1. There is virtually no evidence for this. None.

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    2. Have you heard of "over-qualified"?

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    3. To be perfectly fair, a couple of years ago I applied for an entry-level analyst position, in a field where the candidates had to have two separate competencies. After looking at the management, I felt comfortable that my M.S. degree put me one degree ahead of the management, I had spent several years acquiring the language competency, and my focus for three years had been on working in that exact niche. I was comfortable assuming that they were going to be lucky to get six viable candidates, among which I ought to have fared reasonably well. And yet... I lost out to a PhD in the same field who had spent over three years in-country working for one of the big name companies in the field, in the same role he would have in this entry-level position. Didn't even get a call to interview.

      So, it does happen - but I doubt it happens very often. Usually my M.S. degree is enough to scare the employers away.

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    4. Science lab technician is a perfect example. It doesn't take a PhD in Mathematical Computational Physics to wash the laboratory glassware in a Biotech company but without one, there's no way your resume is even getting looked at!

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  15. As someone who is glad to have a PhD in mathematics, but didn't want to stay in Academia after obtaining that PhD, I would like to endorse these items. In particular, it can be rather distressing to have gobs of student debt, of which the monthly payment is almost as much as you pay for rent, but you don't pay anything because you can't afford to (perpetual deferment is that best friend who will stab you in the back with interest payments).

    And I got those gobs of debt after accepting a fellowship--so be aware that, even with a fellowship, it's still awfully tempting to get loans, especially when the fellowship won't necessarily cover all your cost-of-living expenses.

    I'll also say this: #2 is crucial only if you plan on staying in Academia; of course, as far as I've seen so far, having a PhD in Academia is pretty worthless. Thus, if you want to learn the material, and if you're seeking a higher degree for better pay (eg, if you're a public school teacher), #2 won't matter so much. But, by all means, keep out of debt and get it over with quickly!

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  16. I'm still on the fence about Grad school, but I definitely am going to wait at least a year after undergrad to clear my head and save up money. I also worry that I won't be able to do #3, because as prolific of a writer as I can be when I'm on my A-game, I usually now try to engage in various social justice actions while working a job at the same time, which makes finishing quickly in the harsh environment of Grad school seem absurdly intense and nigh impossible.

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    1. If you are a good writer, engaged in social justice activities, and an autodidact who loves to teach and learn, you might find grad school a soul crushing experience. I actually look back on grad school with very fond memories, but I remember feeling crushed that it wasn't the open minded, free spirited, social justice oriented environment I hoped it would be. I was in two departments for my program - one of them was a really humdrum, suburban parent environment, and the other one had a lot of cool people but they weren't interested in much of what I was in.

      I did meet some amazing people in grad school who shared my beliefs and opinions, but that was just chance. I've met just as many great people in my non-academic jobs since grad school. Just be prepared for the fact that grad school is primarily designed as training for a life in academia, and not anything else. It can be very hierarchical and judgmental. Look for volunteer or paid positions at non-profit orgs if you want to find some people who do social justice work for a living.

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    2. absolutely - the way grad students brandish their jargon (at least in the humanities)! it's pathetic and amusing at the same time. i have seen VERY few people with the ability to retain their independence and creativity in grad school.

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    3. I recently started graduate school and it's been VERY disappointing. It is nothing but a bunch of old, white people blathering about how everyone that came before them was racist. I received my undergraduate degree from a very liberal East Coast university, and I was never exposed to this type of reductionist nonsense masquerading as critical thinking.

      Bland generalizations are constant, and "minorities are disadvantaged capitalism is bad" is what passes for critical thought. I have no respect for my professors who are nothing but white middle aged hippy burnouts who spend most of their time patting each other on the back for being 1960s radicals. There are no jobs in the field and I would honestly rather kill myself than work with these delusional "academics". They are just middle aged narcissists who parrot tired cliches from the 1960s while patting themselves on the back for being oh so progressive.

      Graduate school in history is an utter waste of time. Here is all you need to know: presidents were old white men and therefore bad, women are important and everyone forgets about them, so the lives of whores is considered a legitimate area of study, if the persons skin is brown they are oppressed, everyone is racist except my middle aged hippy burnout white professors who are angels of progress.

      Blah, blah, blah racism, blah, blah blah, ebil white men, blah, blah, blah, we are sooooo progressive, did I mention we are progressive?, everyone that came before us was racist and sexist, "social history" blah, blah, blah, we're not racist, blah, blah, blah .

      I could do many things with 20 grand, any of them would be better than wasting it on this brain dead crap.

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    4. There are alternatives, you could go to some kind of business program... except my business program somehow failed to net me anything but temp work, and nothing in what I had spent two years on.

      Too, you could be pursuing engineering, although I found engineering grad school to be even less apologetically about non-white race empowerment than the pc liberal nightmare you're describing.

      The liberal politicization of the academy killed it. We the "survivors" are on our own.

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  17. By the by, I'm wondering if you can maybe offer some alternative paths to graduate school? I'm a philosophy student and I love learning and teaching, but I really don't know where else I'd do this outside of the academy, other than teaching at free skools.

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    1. When you've been a student your whole life, it can be hard to imagine any other kind of life. You can stumble into grad school because it seems like the natural next step. It sounds comfortable. It might even be comfortable for the first couple of years, before you realize the mess you're in. Grad school eats people alive.

      Don't make the mistake of thinking that you can't have a stimulating intellectual life outside of the academy. Don't finish college and then work for a year at a coffee shop while you send out grad school applications. Go out and get some kind of challenging professional employment, even it's entry level, and then give yourself some time to adjust to it. You might hate it, or love it, or something in between, but give real life a chance.

      Every industry, company, government agency, and non-profit needs smart people and good writers. If you're humble and open-minded about the kind of work that you're willing to do, you can get your foot in the door somewhere. There are plenty of unemployed PhDs out there looking for the kind of opportunities that are open to people just getting out of college.

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    2. Try teaching English abroad. It can pay fairly well, and will give you some good life experience! Check out EPIK or Jet. Both programs are suited for undergrads from English speaking countries to teach kids in Korea or Japan. I know several people who have done it, and all have said it was a rewarding experience. Many people even build careers teaching English around the world.

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    3. Teaching English abroad as a career? These are careers without advancement, that start to become very difficult to continue around age 47. Usually there's no health or retirement plan.

      Teaching English abroad is not a resume enhancer, not even if you've bothered to study the language while there. This was even true when it was comparatively rare.

      You CAN put away a few thousand bucks every year, and one used to be able to do that with comparatively few class hours (say, 12/week). With the explosion of interest in teaching abroad (because nobody can find a decent job at home), and the growth of online learning, you can't do that anymore. However, Uncle Sam and local authorities are cracking down on tax evasion. You'd be surprised what Uncle Sam considers tax evasion, but someone's got to fund that ca.1788 French farce that's taking place in Washington D.C. today. Oh, and good luck finding a foreign bank that wants the hassle of dealing with the IRS if they so much as take you on as a customer - it's the shoebox under the bed for you. In South Korea you might get two years of income tax-free vis. Korea.

      Years ago an expat observed that all things considered, the best thing to do was to start your own school. Today, here comes Uncle Sam, who has to pick your pocket over and over again just to cover the new expenses of his largely Democrat aristocrat class - and is not above abusing his authority and violating the law to do so.

      Delete
  18. If I have a passion for a field that amounts to fanaticism, eschew getting married and starting a family, and am guaranteed full funding, is grad school for me?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Possibly.

      "Full Funding" is a slippery term, something you'll realize when you're denied food stamps based on your "student" status.

      Also, you're going to want to disabuse yourself of the notion that the majority of your time is going to be spent immersed in free intellectual engagement with your field. Your day-to-day experiences are more likely to be:

      A) Dealing with students fulfilling GenEd requirements and trying to whine their way out of attendance and work via e-mail.

      B) Negotiating the tricky advisor situation. Even when it's good, it's not that good.

      C) Teaching meetings. Hours wasted, nothing real accomplished. No connection to your field, unless your field is pedagogy. In which case, you'll quickly become frustrated that none of your co-teachers cares.


      If you're that fanatical about your field, read the relevant texts on your own time while working in the real world. Take advantage of the nights and weekends you WOULDN'T have in graduate school to explore the field. Attend conferences regularly (nationwide), and write a couple of scholarly articles a year on topics in your field. Keep them in a personal diary, and be sure to follow the major journals of your field.

      If you're not fanatical enough to do that outside of graduate school, your fanaticism alone isn't enough to justify going. And you're welcome to stay single in the real world, as well. Even if you don't want marriage, graduate school makes forming healthy relationships (romantic or otherwise) all but impossible. The time commitment, the narrow focus, the poverty, the socialization into a group that speaks, acts, and thinks in a way that puts most people on the defensive...

      Graduate school may be for you -- but it's a matter of personality and character, rather than raw material. You might have the makings of an academic, but remember that there's a very good reason that not everyone with a slim build runs marathons. It just isn't for most people. And it's really bad for your joints.

      Delete
    2. "If you're that fanatical about your field, read the relevant texts on your own time while working in the real world.
      ..., and be sure to follow the major journals of your field."
      This works if you live in a major city or university town, and have access to institutional libraries. Otherwise your access to "the relevant texts" and the major journals (subscriptions to which are EXPENSIVE and aimed at libraries and institutions) will be severely constrained. Texts in many fields run between $30-$200+ if available.

      "Attend conferences regularly (nationwide)..." This gets expensive. If you're on an institutional dime, that's fine, but as an individual you may find yourself shelling out a couple of thousand dollars (airfare, hotel, food, conferences) to show up at an event where because of your lack of institutional affiliation you may not even be welcome. Can you get the time off to go?

      "...and write a couple of scholarly articles a year on topics in your field." Again, this presupposes access to real libraries with journal access. You CAN find some free papers online (sometimes researchers will post their work on their institution or personal webpages) but frequently your access will depend on your willingness to shell out money - sometimes lots of it - in this bold new 'pay-to-play' world of academic research.

      Fifteen to twenty "must-have" reference books, a couple of conferences, a professional society membership (usually at higher rates for individuals without institutional affiliation) and a couple of journals could set you back over $10,000. How much do you make every year?

      Delete
    3. In addition, there's the fact that universities now charge high rates for library access by the general public. For example, I live about an hour away from a middling state university, which charges $125/year for basic (limited) borrowing privileges, and $250/year for maximum "community borrower" privileges. This is not the worst case scenario. Some university libraries charge daily fees for access.

      Delete
    4. Seriously? Someone contemplating grad school the associated costs is complaining about the potential cost of learning on their own? You do know you buy books for school as well, right?

      Delete
    5. There is conducting private research and there is learning on your own. Which one of these was I discussing?

      There is expense, and there is exorbitant, "keep the amateurs out" pricing. Which one was I discussing?

      Learn to read for content before you open your trap again.

      Delete
    6. Put another way:

      If you go to graduate school:

      - access to libraries and their subscriptions is included
      - access to department resources (may include department library with textbooks currently in use, old textbooks, reference books plus related journals) is included
      - you have an 'institutional affiliation' that you are likely covered under to attend professional events
      - you have an 'institutional affiliation' that you are likely covered under, for annual memberships to related professional societies
      - your institution may cover your expenses for attendance at conferences and industry events
      - in the sciences, access to labs, related equipment, and supplies (probably uneconomic and possibly impossible to acquire as a non-affiliated individual)
      - at the end of the day, there is some chance that you will acquire a degree

      Whether these incentives are worth the sticker price minus whatever discounts you get is up to you. But let's not pretend that real independent scholarship isn't extremely expensive and actively discriminated against by attitudes and pricing structures.

      Delete
  19. Grad school can enhance career prospects if the student also keeps the career in mind. Doing a five year Phd may be crazy, but doing a one or two year Master's helps to reduce the level of competition from the massive undergrad field. However, I would advise that students should keep one foot in the professional world throughout university, and take some time to work professionally even prior to doing any Master's if possible. Only the combination of a good education, and professional work experience really helps to create a profile which stands out a little bit from the masses. My two cents. That being said, half the students pursuing undergrads would be better off pursuing a trade, because unless your highly competitive in almost any program, you are wasting time and money. If you spend more time at toga parties and keggers, this probably applies to you.

    ReplyDelete
  20. I think you should differentiate between an M.S and a PhD. Most of your complaints about "grad school" don't hold up for a sharp little 2-year M.S. program. I'm 1 year in, and I've already differentiated myself from all the undergrad scrubs that sleep through the labs I T.A. I also get a decent stipend for it, and as an alumni my tuition is free. What's not to love?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's a little scary that you made it all the way to grad school without learning that "alumni" is plural. Your tuition waiver probably has nothing to do with the fact that you're an alumnus. That's part of the standard compensation for a T.A. at most schools.

      Delete
    2. Actually, your insulting comment is one more reason to add to the list of reasons to avoid grad school; one can avoid pretentious snobs that have to try to appear smart by trying to make others feel dumb to feel good about themselves. Can't stand people like you.

      Delete
    3. Agreed with soshdog on this one. You gained nothing by your insight, and your entire blog seems premeditated on keeping yourself inside of a tiny bubble. Have fun living in a world where the only small joys you can find in your petty, miserable existence are making snide, rather dull insults against people on the internet.

      Delete
    4. Disagree with "ubiquitousnewt" - M.S. programs can be every bit as bad as PhD programs and sometimes worse.
      Tactics used by bad M.S. programs to extend time-to-degree:
      1) Use incompetent profs. to teach core and required subjects. Repeat for maximum impact.
      2) Use foreign profs. who can't even ask the time of day intelligibly to teach difficult, recondite topics requiring highly precise communication.
      3) Change degree requirements - make the changes retroactive.
      4) Cherry-pick each student's applicable courses for degree after the student's already taken the courses to be discarded.
      5) If student is a TA or RA, make sure (s)he doesn't get a workspace, desk, or workstation.
      6) If student is a TA or RA, change his/her work hours during the semester. Repeat for maximum disruption.
      7) Change lecture/lab meeting times during the semester, but after the add/drop period.
      8) Allow TAs to grade graduate work of peers.
      9) After an assignment is given and collected, retroactively cancel certain items and/or increase grading weights on others.
      10) Every project will be a GROUP project - this helps ensure that some capable students will be taken down with their less capable (or even lazy) group partners, and get ground down as it's happening.
      11) Use "secret" materials (textbooks, articles, websites) to be divulged to some students but not others - then grade on access to these.
      12) Increase degree requirements, and make the new requirements retroactive.
      13) Allow cheating. Honest students will be bewildered and turned off, but they've got more 'skin in the game' - so they'll persist even as they're being demoralized.
      14) Allow plagiarism. Make sure it is known that some students are immune from prosecution for plagiarism - the effect will be the same as 13).
      15) Allow faculty targeting of students.
      16) Allow student targeting of fellow students.
      17) Deny reasonable parking access to students.
      18) Keep students from taking comprehensives while material is fresh (for maximum effect, delay until there is faculty turnover in one or more areas of coverage).
      19) Cherry pick comprehensive exam subjects - do not allow students to take exams in their focus areas.
      20) Reduce/delay access to scholarship/aid resources.
      21) Deny access to library resources. This is especially effective with required materials on reserve that somehow never become available.
      22) Have post-hoc assessments of the acceptability of course offerings, then do not allow some course offerings to be used towards the degree.
      23) Conversely, require courses that are not offered. Repeat for maximum disruption.
      24) Delay payment for work done by students on behalf of the department or university.
      25) Offer courses without any real expertise, make the students find their own materials and teach themselves, then grade them on what they *should* have studied about the topics.
      26) Every question from the spectacularly obscure aspects of the discipline to those with answers informed by experience, to those involving extraneous practical matters (e.g. setting up the workstation to use the lab printer, or troubleshooting some arcane bit of university bureaucracy) should be met with, "Look it up yourself." Repeat frequently enough and eventually students will have lost a whole semester through loss of time, misconceptions formed and mistakes made.
      27) Nickel-and-dime TAs and RAs in the performance of their duties - make them pay for almost everything they need to do their jobs.

      Remember, it's all about the university maximizing profit and getting the most it can out of its captive customer base!

      Delete
    5. Yes!! I concur, especially with your points about comprehensive exam bs, group projects, and allowing cheating. Here are some more...
      28)Require an hour-long commute to take core classes at a small satellite campus.
      29) Don't let students know until they have committed to the program that, unlike virtually every other program of its kind, it is "not a 2 year program"
      30) Instead of requiring a GRE or some sort of entrance exam, let the program's reputation and accolades give it an aire of credibility and rigor. Let in a bunch of people who can't string together a sentence, and then put these people in groups writing "group" papers so that the competent can carry their dead weight.

      I started my masters program with illusions of integrity and I've pretty much lost all faith in the institution. What a bunch of BS. Sad thing is a grad degree is necessary nowadays, but its worth so much less than it used to be. A masters is the new bachelors.

      Delete
    6. "Sad thing is a grad degree is necessary nowadays, but its worth so much less than it used to be. A masters is the new bachelors."

      This is the kind of wrong-headed thinking that gets people into trouble in the first place.

      Delete
    7. @Anonymous 4/27/2014 12:26 PM -
      I think 4/26/2014 11:30 PM has it right. The Atlantic ran an article a couple of years ago claiming that 53% of college grads are unemployed or underemployed. Most are not working in their major fields. That includes STEM graduates.

      Some masters' graduates are taken somewhat more seriously for entry-level major field job positions (including STEM). If you want to go into post-secondary teaching it's the minimum degree credential. However, most of these "entry-level" positions also require 2-3 years prior experience relevant to the job - so in many cases the prospective job seeker with a masters' degree is still stuck trying to get entry-level experience that will never become available without personal and political connections.

      Business has fluctuated on whether new graduates are lacking in "hard skills" or "soft skills" (thus rendering them unemployable). The pervasiveness of the "new graduates are unemployable" memes over the last 20-25 years, coupled alongside such dysfunctional phenomena as unpaid work, offshore outsourcing, and widespread failure to train employees leads one to suspect that the American enterprise sector has gotten into the excuse-making business.

      The other options are to enter the work force as an HS graduate or enter the work force as a college graduate. It is increasingly recognized that both options appear to yield similar employment outcomes in the majority of cases, despite conventional wisdom and widespread U.S. government propaganda to the contrary.

      Weissman, Jordan "53% of Recent Graduates Are Jobless or Unemployed - How?" The Atlantic, April 23, 2012

      Delete
    8. Higher education is being overproduced. The manufacturing, blue-collar-type work that would have absorbed alot of these people 50 years ago is gone. Dinosaur gone. This makes for lots of people with no academic aptitude clamoring to get into universities. And universities are welcoming them with open arms--warm bodies are job security!! My program is pumping out graduates like crazy. About half of the people I've worked with in groups cannot read and write above a highschool level and have poor academic problem solving skills. Apparently, that's why the program doesn't require any pre-admission testing. If they did that, they wouldn't have enough students to justify their jobs. At first, I was mystified at how these people get into and stay in a grad program. As I've been seeing how integrity-bankrupt the higher education system is....I'm starting to get it. There was something to be said for the old days when people had to actually be smart to get into grad school.

      Delete
    9. Don't get me wrong. I think a masters is worth having if you can do it with minimal (less than 15k) or no debt. But it's still a small part of your package as you market yourself. I see people in my field with no college degree at all doing very well with 10 to 30 years of experience. Getting my career to where I want it will probably take the same amount of time. So was the time, energy, and money I invested in grad school worth it? Or should I have put that energy into building my resume, learning in the field, and networking??? I don't know. I guess I'll find out.

      Delete
    10. "Learning in the field" only works if there are (entry-level) jobs or other opportunities in the field.

      "Building (one's) resume" only works if there are jobs.

      "Networking" is for people who have jobs who want to keep their jobs or who want different jobs.

      "10 to 30 years of experience" is fine - if you can get the *appropriate experience* (as defined by human resources "experts") for what you want to do. However, if you don't have it already, you'll never get it - it is HR's job to ensure chronic shortages of experienced employees. If you want to be an entrepreneur, learn to bluff and act to get that first decade of experience. You may starve if you don't.

      Most masters are only worth having if you can get a job with them (alternately, if you're only studying for personal fulfillment, and your masters' program gives you that somehow). But it's not worth spending two years of your life on if there's nothing at the end of the tunnel for you. In the unfortunate event you find yourself in a 3+ year masters' program (which does happen owing to university and department dysfunction and even malfeasance), QUIT NOW. Go somewhere else where your progress means more to the institution than tuition dollars or indentured labor.

      Delete
    11. I had an entry level job that I obtained, in part, by using my undergrad. I just wasn't satisfied with it or the money. I decided to focus on a masters to help get me over the mid-career hump.

      If you are getting a masters to just basically "get a job" you are in trouble and you are wasting time and money. You will be over educated and under qualified for just about everything. If you don't have at least a little job experience in your field, don't bother getting a masters until you do.

      Delete
    12. "I had an entry level job that I obtained, in part, by using my undergrad." This is great, but keep in mind, this doesn't happen for many regardless of their merits (prior experience, industry, academic merit).

      "If you don't have at least a little job experience in your field, don't bother getting a masters until you do." This advice is given frequently, but my experience is that this doesn't necessarily work. I had over a decade's related work experience in my masters' area and couldn't find related employment after graduating.

      "If you are getting a masters to just basically "get a job" you are in trouble and you are wasting time and money." This is debatable but leaves open the question of just what such a person *should* do. "Get a job" only works if there are jobs available. "Volunteer/intern" only works to the point where the individual judges there is no return on the donation of labor. There's always "start one's own business" but this often requires high levels of 'sweat equity' and funding. As for "overeducated and under qualified for just about everything" I find I reached that point with my college degree, and maybe even with my high school degree.

      Delete
  21. I would add a fourth essential item to this list. That is: pursue every professional developmental opportunity you can while you are in grad school. Internships, co-op terms, writing workshops, field schools - the kinds of things that provide opportunities for professional development outside of the traditional university setting.

    Having these types of experiences and skills will prove vital if you end up having to pursue non-academic lines of work, which the vast majority of us end up doing due to the abysmal academic job market. Despite what your advisor or other professors will tell you about the marketability of a degree, very few places will hire you merely because you have a MA or PhD. The skills that employers want -- things like business writing skills, the ability to write for a public audience, facilitating meetings, supervising staff, etc. -- they aren't built into most degree programs (esp. the humanities). Even if they were, you wouldn't be able to convince employers of it because most academic experience is seen as one and the same outside of the ivory tower.

    As a non-academic employer myself, I can tell you that putting down "critical skills, "analytical prowess", etc on your resume will get you nowhere with non-academic employers. These are vague and meaningless things to anyone not in the academic stream, no matter whether you have a PhD behind your name or not. Employers want applied skills and demonstrated ability and the closest you can get to acquiring these things (aside from working part-time in a non-academic field while you are completing your studies, which I too don't recommend) is by doing the kinds of things I mention above.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I call BS - not to be combative, but it's just not my experience after over 20 years of American "job market" stupidity.

      Most employers just want young, stupid, and cheap. Pretty helps and easy helps also. Otherwise only those with directly applicable experience within the excessively limited parameters of HR's asserted requirements need apply.

      The crash is coming and the industrial West will be sorry.

      Delete
    2. Lol people have been saying that since karl marx.

      Delete
  22. You nailed it, Author.

    ReplyDelete
  23. I think all prospective and current graduate students should read this latest article from Inside Higher Ed:

    The Myth of Ivy Advantage by Karen Kelsky
    http://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2012/08/22/essay-assumption-only-elite-university-phds-land-jobs

    ReplyDelete
  24. Hello All,
    I need advice. I am confused I am going to grad school, but not a fancy PH.D program. I originally was going to law school, but I don't enjoy reading legal material and I secretly hated mock trail lol. I back out at the last minute because the potential debt and lack of employment terrified me. My whole centered on becoming a lawyer someday so I felt lost. One of my professors asked me to speak on a panel (loved it), lead tutoring workshops, and I got a tutoring job on campus. After all this in one semester I decided to become a teacher. My famiy and friends are disappointed that I will not be some hot shot lawyer, and it is hard seeing people you love seem so disappointed in you. I am naturally good at teaching/creating.

    I love the arts. I like critical theory, literature, photography, paiting, blogging etc. I want to travel while providing for myself. I have a friend that is teaching English abroad while completing an online masters in secondary education at Grand Canyon University. I thought I would do the same. I am currently in my second class online and I want to transfer to small state school. The state school's Master of Arts in Teaching English is one year, ends with teacher certification, and will cost about $12,000 to complete. I don't feel like I am truly earning anything because the online program is really easy. Now, I'm thinking I should transfer to the state school then apply to teaching positions abroad. I need the master's degree to teach in my state. I have a liberal arts degree and I feel it is useful but it seems employers do not. I am single, child free, late 27 years old, and I have about 30,000 student loans with no credit card debt. I want to complete graduate school by the time I am 30.

    I am thinking I want to transfer to the state school this summer, finish it in a year, and then go teach abroad for year and then come back to the states to become an adult just in time for my 30th birthday.

    At the end of the day I just want a job that I don't hate, I need to be able to live and pay back loans, and have time to live my life.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Get out of Grand Canyon University and get into a state school in your state. Likely the tuition will be much lower. The connections you make while in graduate school are important in getting employed. You really need to ask yourself where do you want to work and what are the job prospects there.

      Teaching English in foreign countries pays 9-12 bucks an hour, and the living conditions can be hellish. If you want to teach in public high schools, etc. you should probably just stay in the US and go to work. Make sure that you are all squared away with your licensure requirements in your state if you want to teach in public school, etc.

      Delete
    2. Thanks for the reply!! I'm going to a state school.

      Delete
    3. Look, whatever you do, don't go to the state schools in your state. Although NAU might be OK, ASU is a real shower of shit and U of A may not be much better. Move to another state if you want to go to public university.

      Delete
  25. #1 is essential. #2 is overstated. Search committees are honestly not stupid, and know the current reputations of "prestigious" and "non-prestigious" schools, and they also read the cv below the first line (as well as your rec letters.) More important is that you go to a school where you know other people had jobs. (I'm at the same Ph.D. program as my undergrad advisor, who got a job at a prestigious Northeastern private school.)
    #3- I agree with the other commenters. It's not that you finish as quick as possible, but that you are always working towards improving the c.v. while working on the dissertation through publishing, conferences, etc.

    The most important thing that I wish would be said: go (for the doctorate) if You Can't Imagine Living Without Being in Grad School. By this, I don't mean for prestige, professional reasons, or boredom. There is a topic and you need to study it, and your life would be much less worth living if you weren't. And if you fully realize the positives and negatives about grad school, you realize what masters and doctorates are for, and you are able to work in that weird mix of independence and institutionality, then you should be in grad school.

    ReplyDelete
  26. #1 and #2 are pretty U.S.-specific, isn't it? In my country higher education is free, and almost all prestigious universities are publich...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. the entire blog is US-specific.

      Delete
    2. Well good for you. Than why doesn't your country solve all of the world's problems? Why does everyone in the world leave it to the USA to fix the wars and problems. Shut up Anonymous October 11, 2012, and do something to fix the problem.

      Delete
    3. Anon Dec. 3, 2012 at 8:32 PM, because the US solves all the world's problems.

      Delete
    4. To Anon 10/11/2012 2:45 PM and Anon 12/02/2012 3:29 PM:
      #1 and #2 are not US specific - in fact all three issues pertain to countries other than the US, including the PRC, where problems involving education debt and graduate unemployment are mushrooming.
      Yes the blog has a US focus, it is written almost entirely in English, and it would appear that most of the participants are from and in the US.

      To Anon 12/03/2012 and Anon 05/29/2013:
      The US does not solve all the world's problems and it certainly creates some. It does appear, however, to have done better at addressing the world's problems than any other nation to date, and has expended considerable resources and lives to do so, at high cost.

      Delete
  27. Great blog, I'll post it on the face-book. So we are all screwed. I've decided not to go to grad school, since my BFA in graphic design from a state college is worthless. That is the pay is about 8.00 dollars an hours because everyone and their dogs have that same degree be it from any school. I wish someone would have told me that Art and Design and theater are worthless degree's and that I would have been better off working at Wal-Mart at age 16 than spending several years getting a BFA going to college. It has not only has placed me in debt, but has given me a worthless expensive piece of paper which to this day has not earned me any money. When will this college bubble burst? Will everyone feel as rejected and vulnerable as me? Will the media stop reporting BS results of you will earn more money with a degree than without? I doubt it and the next generation falls victim all over again. I really do hate art and how their are no jobs that pay over 8.00 dollars for the work, and if it wasn't bad enough artist are giving everything away for free in hopes of getting more clients or jobs, to quote craiglist user " It would be your privilege for you to take pictures of me at my wedding for your portfolio." What is wrong with our society, the bride doesn't even want to pay photographers any money for their work? It's our privilege to take her portrait? I called just to see if anyone had taken her up on her offer of free labor and yes three stupid artist photographers showed up for the wedding. The art community is driving it self into a grave, and the world doesn't deserve free artwork and that bride makes me sick. And shame on all artist for working for free, you're destroying the art world one project at a time.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. amen. as someone with a BA in graphic design, apping to a humanities phd program, i am completely screwed.

      Delete
  28. Thank you for the tips! It is true that even as graduate students we need to be aware of these unfortunate circumstances. In a flailing economy we cannot simply believe that it is just going to get better. It is important for us to acknowledge these misfortunes and indeed acknowledge the fact that graduate school is not a guarantee--it is a risk. If you are willing to take a risk you are indeed gambling with your future...

    ReplyDelete
  29. And I have got my 101st reason why I should not go to graduate school too :) Basically, online trade schooling is being offered continuously. :)

    ReplyDelete
  30. Amongst business college courses that are available, I am most interested in the field of Sales. :)

    ReplyDelete
  31. Finishing early is a great tip; stretching out the time in graduate school can be costly and lead to bigger student loans. Finishing quickly takes more dedication but is doable.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. But if you finish too quickly then you're stuck graduating into possibly the SAME job market you were trying to "wait out" by going for the PhD in the first place. As in, you'll be many years older, with another degree, and the job market for people "your age" will not only not have changed but gotten worse because now you're OLDER.

      Delete
  32. If you agree with this article, then you are clearly dumb. Anyone that performed well as an undergraduate should not run into the problem of paying for grad school unless you have a weak major (i.e. Business, English, etc.). As an engineering major with a 4.0/4.0, I will be paid to attend graduate school at top tier schools along with my tuition being waved. Also, this graduate degree will significantly increase my starting salary as a practicing engineer. Bottom line is that graduate degrees are becoming more and more prevalent and undergraduate degrees will eventually be as useless as a high school diploma and to say that graduate degrees are only necessary for academia is nieve to say the least.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You might want to learn how to spell "naive," because it's a word that you're going to be using a lot when you look back on your life in a few years.

      Delete
    2. He's too busy watching his tuition being waved to notice the snow job.

      Delete
    3. Maybe he/she meant Steve Nieve, keyboardist for Elvis Costello. I am not sure what Steve Nieve's academic credentials are however.

      Delete
  33. Even at at top university, either have a trust fund or lick the boots of a powerful advisor.

    ReplyDelete
  34. I don't necessarily disagree with much of what this list and these articles say, but there's precious little mentioned about how difficult it is to get ahead in MOST fields. Most things worth doing involve one, more, or all of the following to be successful: hard work, talent, luck, risk, connections, and debt. Does going to grad school with the intention of landing a tenure-track job pose peculiar challenges? Sure, but so do a lot of other endeavors. Just look at business....how many people who start them fail, versus the small percentage of those who REALLY end up succeeding? This blog has some good advice, but a little larger perspective might be good as well. I'm speaking as one of those "lucky" ones who went to a very-good-but-non-elite doctoral school, amassed some debt, and yet managed to land a tenure-track job recently.

    ReplyDelete
  35. What about music? I will graduate from a well-respected university in my state with a music education and a performance degree. I auditioned at a more "prestigious" school and a small program at a bigger state university than the one I am at now. I got rejected to the prestigious school but was accepted with open arms to the smaller program at the state school. The benefits to this are that I would get to work one-on-one with an outstanding faculty member, who is young and recently joined the faculty. As I have not yet developed a strong ability to work in competitive environments, this seems like a good choice for me. I could take a full tuition fellowship plus an $8800 stipend to roll the dice and see if I really improve in my musical playing in the next couple years, or I can take an entry-level K-12 everything teaching job in my small Midwestern state for 35K.

    Leave, take a risk, and see what happens?

    Or stay, be safe, and never know?

    ReplyDelete
  36. I love that you suggest "don't go into debt" and "choose a prestigious school" in the same article. Not fucking possible, unless you are a genius. I'm smart, but not smart enough to get into Stanford or MIT or whatever Ivy League schools there are. Give me a break. Beggars can't be choosers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Natalie, you're exactly the kind of person who gets screwed in this business because you don't understand how it works.

      Grad students at good schools get free rides from the day they're admitted. Decent grad students at so-so schools get free rides, too, but you don't want to be one of them because they don't have a prayer against the first group. You REALLY don't want to be somebody who gets loans to go to a so-so grad school.

      You don't have to be a genius, but you have to know how to play the game or it will crush you.

      Delete
    2. Sorry, but with this attitude you could end up a beggar.

      Delete
    3. No, with that attitude you'll AVOID ending up as a beggar.

      Delete
  37. I would add "go overseas to pay off debt" Middle East and Korea are looking for anyone with a degree from a North American University. The higher the degree, the higher the pay. Get your TESL (Teacher of English as a 2nd Language) as an add-on to your resume in case your job falls through. Yes you'll have to put up with a totally different culture (unless you have an affinity for the Muslim or Korean culture) but you'll get to see the world while you pay off your debts really quick.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I suspect this is one of the worst things you can do to develop your career.

      Yes, you can make lots of money... relative to the average local in the same profession. Your cost of living may be somewhat lower, so you can sock some away. In South Korea you can enjoy a tax holiday of two years on your earnings.

      BUT...

      After you return you will find it very difficult to find work. You will have been identified an an ESL teacher, and mostly you will not be considered capable of transitioning out of ESL teaching. In fact, you probably won't even be able to transition out of ESL in the country that you are working in. You could have relevant training and education (e.g. an information systems, business, or engineering degree), and speak/read/write the local language fluently, and you will still not get a look-in because you are just another ESL teacher.

      Why is this? I think it must have something to do with how ESL in particular and the people who teach it are viewed by the broader professional community. Beyond this, I suspect very strongly that American business has a bias against foreign language and area knowledge for multiple reasons (travel viewed as a privileged commodity, suspicion of education, suspicion of 'going native,' and belief that any needs in this area are best addressed locally or via immigration).

      Finally there is a saying that encapsulates how our new economy works - "If you make the potato salad, you will always be the person who makes the potato salad."

      So how bad could that be?
      - Not likely to have health or retirement benefits
      - Dependent on vagaries of temporary immigrant labor policies of your host country (possibly highly variable) and unlikely to be allowed to migrate permanently
      - Limits on income unless you start some other business (and you may not be allowed to do so) or go into ESL at a very different level (e.g. chain school operator, course publisher).
      - Dual tax reporting responsibilities
      - Your ability to find work may start to dwindle at age 45-47 (as discriminatory as US hiring policies are to the middle-aged and elderly, East Asia is much worse)
      - Courtesy of our current administration, US citizens are not welcome customers of any banks available to them if they are living or traveling abroad. Their banking options include the shoebox or under the mattress.

      If you still feel this is your option, I suspect Korea is the best bet currently, although it's one of the most formalized. Most employers there require a security check (to be carried out in this country) and that can take several months to over a year owing to the backlog. You may also be contractually tied to your employer for some time. However, once this obstacle is cleared, the ROK government appears to allow for long stays and even has a formal program to recruit foreigners into the public school system.

      Delete
  38. What the hell, almost everyone that makes a comfortable income, or a job that they enjoy does not graduate from Ivy Leage schools. What fucking planet do these people live on?

    ReplyDelete
  39. The awesome thing about this blog is that it has stood the test of time. It was written over a year ago and it's a great caution for anyone considering their life's work. Timeless peice. Great conversation that can go on a decade.

    My graduate work was done in a school-way-too-expensive-to-end-up-being-a-public-school-teacher. What was I thinking? I wasn't.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am in that same boat, now I have a shitload of loans. If I didn't have a wife and kid I would probably step out in front of traffic. But then again they would get my life insurance money....

      Delete
  40. someone wrote a counter to this:

    "One hundred reasons why YOU SHOULD go to graduate school"

    http://facciani.weebly.com/1/post/2013/08/one-hundred-reasons-why-you-should-go-to-graduate-school.html

    nice to see differing perspectives on the issue!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Those 100 reasons were written by someone currently in the midst of a PhD and set on becoming a TT prof. Pretty hard to take such a perspective seriously since they haven't got real experience outside the ivory tower.

      Delete
  41. I've hired a lot of people in my 30 years in corporate America-mostly Ph.D.'s and all in the sciences. After your first job, it doesn't make a damn bit of difference what school you got your Ph.D. from, who your advisor was, or what your grades were...often, it doesn't make a difference even for your first job. You'll either get that job or lose it based on your interview...example: don't ask if you can leave early on Fridays because you like to play golf (an actual experience).

    Also, take a long view of the Ph.D.-in my field, there have been times when anyone with a pulse could get a six-digit salary and other times literally hundreds of Ph.D.'s were applying for the same job.

    ReplyDelete
  42. I agree with most of the 100 reasons and also the first two bits of advice. Thus, I was surprised to see how crappy the final bit of advice is. It's really only relevant to graduate students who either aren't enjoying their work or aren't being compensated fairly.

    I'm getting paid over $32,500 a year (yes, I am in a prestigious university and have a prestigious fellowship), I have free healthcare, I have subsidized housing, and I can walk to work. I can also make my own schedule, have a free gym membership, and free internet access. On average, I probably eat three free meals every week. I work for a legitimately famous intellectual, and get to meet with a lot of intellectual giants on a regular basis. Sure, my job is harder than most, but it's also WAY COOLER and has a lot of hidden perks.

    The purpose of my response isn't to brag to strangers. I just want to say that graduate school can and should be rewarding in and of itself. If you aren't enjoying your life in graduate school, then you should probably quit, because chances are you aren't really helping your career much by staying put. But if you love what you are doing and can support yourself by pursuing knowledge - even if only for a time - then don't let a bitter blogger tell you that you shouldn't do just that. And if you're happy, and making money, then take your time with it.

    Furthermore, in addition to prolonging the enjoyment of getting paid to do what you love the most in life, prolonging your graduate study can make a difference in your career. A friend of mine chose to stay a sixth year in graduate school in a five-year program, and wrote the majority of his papers in that year; he made a similar decision during his postdoctoral work. It seems to have worked out quite well for him. If my situation is similar to his, I plan to do the same.

    ReplyDelete
  43. A graduate degree is not all bad. Take for instance a Masters in Computer Science is a good one to get for opportunities in jobs. Of course nothing is ever guaranteed but remember it's an investment and it will give you a fighting chance.

    ReplyDelete
  44. See:

    Kirkwood, Lauren "Arts Majors Jump Ahead of Tech Grads in Landing Jobs" USA Today, 07/30/13. The article claims an unemployment rate of 14.7% for information systems graduates, and nearly 9% for computer science graduates.

    The same situation is reported in the UK:
    Bacon, Liz and MacKinnon, Lachlan "Computer Science Graduates: Why Do They Top Unemployment Tables?" date unknown (2013?) The Guardian. Liz Bacon and Lachlan MacKinnon are both professors in computing at the University of Greenwich. Succinctly put, the article speculates that higher unemployment rates in computer science is a function of the higher numbers of "BME" students ("Black and Minority Ethnic") in university programs, as well as a function of claimed skills and experience shortages in developed world countries coupled with wholesale abandonment of workplace training by employers in those same countries. The authors further note that offshore outsourcing has reduced the quantity of entry-level positions available in-country. The article goes on to advocate parity of treatment for "BME" students, returning to the practice of having employer-provided graduate training programs, and ending offshore outsourcing.

    Costa, Daniel "STEM Labor Shortages? Microsoft Report Distorts Reality About Computing Occupations" Economic Policy Institute, 11/19/12. Costa is an attorney and immigration policy analyst. He notes that contrary to a recent Microsoft report ("A National Talent Strategy [2012]") there is an existing and growing surplus of experienced and educated citizen STEM workers in computing, and that the numbers of workers imported under the H-1B program from 2010 through 2011 exceeds total growth in the employment level for the entire STEM workforce over the same period. Costa intimates that as many as 5 out of 6 of the job vacancies Microsoft touts as evidence of a 'skills shortage' result from Microsoft's own lay-offs, and that this has become common practice. Furthermore, many if not most computing jobs are not filled by people educated as computer scientists. Between these factors (i.e. broad recruitment from outside the field, excessive use of and corporate campaigning for importation of labor, and an existing educated and experienced STEM-and-computer-occupations labor surplus), claimed opportunities may well not exist.

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  45. DO NOT GO TO CAPELLA UNIVERSITY!! THE SCHOOL WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO GRADUATE AND FIND OUT THAT THE DEGREE IS WORTHLESS. IT WILL TAKE YOU WAY LONGER THAN 7 YEARS TO GRADUATE AND THEY WILL KICK YOU OUT OF SCHOOL AFTER 7 YEARS. DO NOT GO TO CAPELLA UNIVERSITY!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm in complete agreement. My experience is the same, and I'm about to leave after my Program chair falsely claimed to provide dissertation support (falsified school records).

      Delete
  46. Having followed this site closely during the last years of my doctoral work (starting at about Reason #4), I return periodically to this site to see how other grad students are doing & what they are thinking (also to support the Blog author so that he/she can make it to 100 - I'm pulling for you).

    The three "bits of advice" listed above are indeed fundamentally important. If I could add one more item what would it be? I suggest finding a good supervisor is a possible fourth critical item (100rsns already discusses this - see Reasons 44, 45). Many grad student surveys consistently indicate that the relationship with your supervisor (adviser) can become a serious issue / fundamental barrier to finishing. Easy to say after the fact, very hard to address when you are starting out, and impossible to change as you get close to finishing. If you are married, getting a divorce is probably easier than changing supervisors.

    ReplyDelete
  47. I learnt (and still learn) for the sake of learning. As I wrote before, I had fellowships all the way through: undergrad, grad school, and postdoc. But still these were poverty level wages or below (which got slightly better as I advanced). It's only as a faculty member that I got to the 2%. But even there, are you able to do what you love to do or are you focussed too much on grants and administration to have an impact in the field is the question you need to ask yourself.

    Yes, you can get a position at the top universities but they chew you up IMO. Even a place like UNC (which I turned down a generous offer from) and U of WA (which I went to for 14 years) think they're part of the "public ivy."

    In the sciences, it comes down to publishing, grants, and teaching (if you don't do the former). Grants are what really matter in terms of power, but again, if you are seeking to build an empire that's different from doing it because you love science.

    IMO, if the world doesn't mix, the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. Your skills may fit well with the top institutions, but your contributions may have value elsewhere. There's a balance to be achieved between the two.

    ReplyDelete
  48. Hmm, I just realised this is focussed on the social sciences, so I'm sorry if my comments aren't necessarily due to experience in that area, but I do want to say again (since my other post doesn't seem to have made it) that playing the prestige game is only going to lead to ulcers. Do what you love to do because you love it, not to make money or other impure motives. The rest will work itself out.

    ReplyDelete
  49. I believe that nothing here is new. Universities/colleges and the job market have always balanced and off balanced each other since the begging. By begging i mean since capitalism. First of all (unless you are going into academia) HR doesn't not care if you got A's in your major or u wiped your ass with the tests u got C's on. HR will try to hire the first gullible person with the highest possible degree and "experience" that will make HR look good, it's all business. HR get their money for finding the candidates(not necessarily the smartest ones) and Universities get their money by Handing out degrees weather they are useless or not. They don't care since you already paid them. And if you got grants even better. The best example of the people outplayed this system is the swarm of Computer science high school nerds who learned to code on their own and got employed at the best companies and have a salary that goes up to six digits depending on your skill . But obviously this doesn't look good to the University-HR Mafia so what did the government do? they made IT employees required to have some form of higher level education. Now the gap is closed so no one can ask questions. I am sort of a think tank, i live my miserable life getting paid to help people avoid annihilation by giving them some common sense before they go into the "job market"(the game)

    ReplyDelete
  50. I believe that nothing here is new. Universities/colleges and the job market have always balanced and off balanced each other since the begging. By begging i mean since capitalism. First of all (unless you are going into academia) HR doesn't not care if you got A's in your major or u wiped your ass with the tests u got C's on. HR will try to hire the first gullible person with the highest possible degree and "experience" that will make HR look good, it's all business. HR get their money for finding the candidates(not necessarily the smartest ones) and Universities get their money by Handing out degrees weather they are useless or not. They don't care since you already paid them. And if you got grants even better. The best example of the geniuses who unknowingly outplayed this system is the swarm of Computer science high school nerds who learned to code on their own and got employed at the best companies and have a salary that goes up to six digits (depending on your skill) . But obviously this doesn't look good to the University-HR Mafia so what did the government do? they made IT employees required to have some form of higher level education. Now the gap is closed so no one can ask questions. I am sort of a think tank, i live my miserable life getting paid to help people avoid annihilation by giving them some common sense before they go into the "job market"(the game)

    ReplyDelete
  51. It's better if I read this last year before I decided to enrol. Now. I'm so depressed and I feel so inferior. I graduated cum laude in college and I am a national placer in one of the licensure exams in my country but when I enrolled in gradschool, I felt like I was so small, so bird-brained, so alone, and all the other negative feelings. It was because of a bitter experience with a professor who embarrassed me infront of the class while doing my report. My report was an epic fail because I got the wrong references but I think the professor's action was not and will never be justifiable. That was the most embarrassing moment in my life and I never experienced such treatment from a teacher during my basic education and college years. The university in which I am currently enrolled is said to be the one of the best but with that kind of professor, grrrr! I hate that school now. Until now, that experience haunts me. I also find other subjects so difficult that's why my inferiority complex is getting worse. The pressure in my work also adds up to my worries. I don't want to enrol anymore but I don't want to disappoint my parents,and my colleagues who still think that I am still the intelligent, hardworking and dedicated student who became one of the topnotchers in the licensure exam. I really feel depressed and I don't anymore consider myself the "einstein" (just like what my grade school and high school classmates would call me).

    ReplyDelete
  52. Dan Drezner - "The Cult of the PhD"

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/16/the-cult-of-the-phd/

    ReplyDelete
  53. Alexandre Afonso - "How Academia Resembles a Drug Gang."

    http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2013/12/11/how-academia-resembles-a-drug-gang/

    ReplyDelete
  54. Since 2010, I have followed this blog as I worked as a doctoral student on a STEM research topic. While the blog’s primary goal is to “offer those considering graduate school some good reasons to do something else”, I found the materials and the discourse it created to be helpful as I moved from ADB to completion.

    Periodically, I return to 100rsns to monitor the posts. A recent theme here is a debate on whether the blogger will be able to produce a full set of 100 reasons. I suggest this is irrelevant. The 100rsns blog, the discourse, and the links to external resources together provide an important and useful perspective on contemporary grad student experiences circa 2010-2015.

    This blog could be of continuing use not just as a caution to those thinking of attending grad school, but also as a resource for people who are currently working their way through - perhaps as a reduced list of the essential pitfalls, barriers, or issues that any grad student might encounter.

    ReplyDelete
  55. On the issue of the ideological monoculture of American academia:

    Duarte, J. L., Crawford, J. T., Stern, C., Haidt, J., Jussim, L., & Tetlock, P. E. (2015). Political diversity will improve social psychological science.

    http://heterodoxacademy.org/2015/09/14/bbs-paper-on-lack-of-political-diversity/

    ReplyDelete
  56. Some good points here about job prospects, if one only aims for the tenure track professor position, but there are other professional options. After completing my PhD in 2010, I found success and happiness teaching at a private boarding school, then working in state government. I still research and publish. New PhD's must look broadly. Also, I disagree that graduate school is "giving up ten years of your life." Those (six years) were some of the best of my life.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's nice that grad school was the best six years of your life, but that's not the case for everyone. Many people are/were in graduate programs that are corrupt and toxic.

      Humanities PhD programs do not encourage students to explore non-academic options, nor do they train them to. Unlike STEM, Humanities PhDs do not have an industry that they can escape to if academia doesn't work out.

      Delete
  57. This blog contains great advice that should be considered by anyone considering a PhD or at least a non-science PhD.

    The most important thing for anyone, young or old, to understand, if they want to live a life outside of hand to mouth, is this, from post #97:

    “You’ll wind up rich—not just in money” if you simply spend less than you earn, invest the surplus, and avoid debt.

    This is not the be-all of life, but if you do not earn more than a living income - and debts significantly raise that number, they should be avoided - then you are likely going to be fighting life your whole life.

    I spent five years in graduate school for history - MA plus three years doctoral work - at a top rated (one mentioned above) public university. I left because i liked what i was foing but didnt love it. I recognized this as I was on the verge of taking comps, and reading a journal article that there were three PhDs graduating that year (when I was 3-5 years away) for every job available. And that had been true for years and would be for years. Those are awful job dynamics. They hardly exist outside of academia.

    That said, I don't regret having done this (though I probably should have cut it short earlier). It enriched my life.

    I avoided debt as much as possible (Not totally). I had worked in business previously (but I ran through my savings, and lost out on earnings for five years). I was able, when I called it quits, to go back to work for the same person I had worked for before.

    My bottom line advice is: if you want to pursue a career requiring a PhD, you should be sure that that field is what will make you happy and that you do not believe you will be happy but for doing that. Because unless you go to a top school, and unless you are one of the 30-50 percent that make it through, you will likely suffer financially long past the too-many years of the PhD. People who make it into top PhD programs are smart enough to succeed in many roles and fields, that pay a lot better. A lot. Even a person who lands a tenure track role is sacrificing financially in a significant way versus what they could earn using their skills elsewhere.

    Money is not everything, but fighting and failing is not good, and fighting and succeeding but suffering is not great.

    I don't know the solution to the job dynamics, but some combination of better self-screening among graduate students to even matriculate; graduate programs significantly reducing the number of students admitted; any programs assuring essentially full financial aid for any students they admit, or they shouldn't admit them; deemphasization of a highly specialized, over researched dissertation; and the
    strictly limiting the time expected and permitted to graduate (I think more than five years sunk is too much, I'd say five years with application for a sixth for good cause), all are necessary.

    I recovered financially and am in good shape now. I have a library full of history books, which I can read in my spare time (though I read just as much outside of history); and the reasons are that I had skills and job experience that was economically vsluable; avoided significant debt; and after grad school always made sure I spent less than I earned, and saved a large part of my income.

    If you love your field, you can always read all you want in your spare time. Regular work is not harder than being a disciplined grad student or professor. If you pursue a degree, be sure you are in the most impelled and compelled of all possible students, are accepted into a top program*, and they have success placing graduates, provide significant financial aid, and pay TAs/RAs well more than minimum wage.

    Then, if you have read the 97 articles and are still committed, do it! And don't be ashamed to change your mind...

    *if you can't get into a top program, take a part time load in a top program and get As.

    ReplyDelete
  58. ^same poster...
    I had great advisors and liked my classmates; getting an MA has an opportunity cost, but two years isn't the end of the world; and if you love it - truly love it - after two years, that's a good sign. But it probably won't improve if you don't, and being a professor is probably somewhat similar to being a grad student, with higher earnings (but sadly low), need to get on tenure track, a little control on your geographic destination.

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  59. Adjunct prof in history here.
    Great blog, great advice. I have started passing it on to my students.
    I would add: choose a topic that will sell.
    A few months after finishing comps, I had a paper awarded best grad paper at a major international conference. I was probably doing something right, but I’m pretty sure the topic helped.
    I hate to say this, but studying Lesbian nurses in 19th Minnesota is not something that will sell. Supervisors and advisory committee will politely say “that’s really interesting and it’s a great reconceptualization of the Midwestern female experience.” But the reality is that nobody will care.
    I remember this PhD student in Australia working on the Indonesian genocide. She seemed like a rock star even before she finished and I’m sure she’ll have no trouble finding a job.
    And in the UK, lay publications, interviews, etc. are now being increasingly valued in academia – arguably more so than the currency or peer-reviewed articles (which nobody outside your field reads anyway).
    So choose your topic wisely.

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    Replies
    1. To Adjunct Prof in History (January 19, 2018 at 2:59 AM): Your last paragraph, re lay publications being increasingly valued in academia is particularly of interest to me since I am debating whether I should sacrifice 5 or more years towards a Ph.D (since I am in my late 40s). How does one get noticed by academia, how could I start? I have found this blog to be super insightful.

      Delete
  60. What a good blog! Thank you for writing all these good stuff!

    ReplyDelete