…
I’ll make this December article from The Economist – unfortunately, the author isn’t named on the website) – mandatory reading for every undergrad or MA student who walks into the photocopying room (since we lowly Ph.D. candidates don’t have our own offices at Old Clay Shards Yay Central) with the grand idea of getting a Ph.D.
Especially if this idea springs from vanity, from “oh, I don’t know what else to do right now”, from “it’s a safe place to park while the job market is tight” or from “I don’t know what to do with my life, but like this I can think about it for a few years more”.
Even if they come out of the only motivation I encourage – “I want to work in academia, period.” or “I need it for a specific job I have my sights on.” – I’d make them read this article, especially in Humanities.
The saddest thing is that those students are usually the brightest and the most motivated, the most talented, those who’ve been top of their class for their whole life. Those that believe that knowledge has a value that cannot be counted up in mere money and who strive on learning and teaching. Put them in a Ph.D. program and they’ll learn the hard way that it’s not about intelligence, ethics or the joy of knowledge, but about networking, lack of scruples and money, money, money. If you’re lucky, you get to work on something you love. But at some point, you also need a retirement plan and you need to pay the rent (and there are very few faculty jobs, which tend to go to the jerks with less scruples).
The worst part of it – something I see reflected in the eyes of many of my colleagues after the second year of the process – is to see their fire and passion, their joy and their confidence fade away, leaving bitterness, disappointment and big dents in their self-confidence.
At the moment, I am supervising the BA theses of two undergrads – both women – who are among the three the most promising students I’ve taught in the past five years. They’re highly intelligent, can think out of the box, have high work ethics and a passion for the their subject and reading their essays is a joy. Both of them have already mentioned that they’d like to go the MA/PhD route. And I need to advise them, but I really don’t know what to tell them.
At this point, I’d add a melodramatic “Sometimes, I hate my job”, but since mine (and my colleagues) contracts all ran out with the end of 2010 (budget cuts) and we’re working on sheer good will and CV cosmetics at the moment, I can’t even say that.
If my supervisors had made me read this article six years ago, I don’t know what my decision would have been.
Queer Lorgnette 
Anik –
I agree with you that in almost every way the graduate student period is hellish and soul-crushing. But surviving that can teach you more than any class-work.
My tactic in academia has long been to simply not work with jerks, don’t teach them anything, and completely ignore them. Encourage the nice people, we need more of those!
Hope your contract issues get ironed-out.
mfg,
Jane Legion
“Competition in academia is so vicious because the stakes are so small.”
— Laurence Peter, “Peter’s Theory of Entrepreneurial Aggressiveness in Higher Education,” Peter’s People 1979
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Anik,
While I was working on my PhD, a woman at a B&B we were staying at said to me over cocktails, “Oooh, a PhD. That sounds like fun! Maybe I should do that.” My response was probably much blunter than this woman expected. “Fun?! No, this is not fun. I love what I do, but I am not having fun. And don’t do this unless you really need it.” She just stared at me like I was insane and wandered off.
I am not sorry I got mine, but as the job market is so tight in my field, sometimes I have wondered if it was the wisest thing as the jobs I have had since I got it are mostly administrative with some teaching thrown in or jobs not needing the degree at all.
Hope things work out and best wishes with your undergrads!
Anita Bradshaw
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being surrounded by many PhDs from europe, i’d say doing a PhD (at least in science) in Germany or France is very different from that in the US: it’s a job in europe whereas in the US it’s more an experience. That said, if I were to advise undegrads (in science) who want to continue with PhD, i’d tell them (among other things) to do it if their goals are to learn, to improve themselves and hopefully others, and to contribute. If they are in it for the money or hope for secured job quickly out of schools, I’d caution them. After finishing my PhD, i realized the most important thing a young and ambitious student need is good guidance from a knowledgeable advisor, the kind who steers you toward good and productive projects and advises against hitting-the-wall ones. Such advisors are so rare that most unlucky students end up stuck in a hole with all their passions extinguished. So you can tell these students to talk to current + past students of the future advisors they want to work with to get an impression. It’s also true that after getting a PhD, many of us bounce around almost like freelance scientists, and it’s not uncommon to not have a secured position 10 yrs after you graduate. I’m in the same boat (bouncing). The one great thing is that i absolutely love what i’m doing currently subject-wise, and wouldn’t want it any other way. others might view me as a failure (getting a phd and now still dont yet have permanent job), but i look at it more on my contribution to the field in the last few years (while slowly padding up my CV for future position 🙂 ).
I hope you will manage, Anik, both in finding job soon and advising students.
(ps- that article sounds very negative, my (and almost all my friends’) experience is much more positive.
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Anik & friends –
When I was working on my PhD some 25 years ago, I don’t think I was thinking in a teaching career, my interests were (still are) about doing research. In fact, in my mind I wasn’t getting a PhD, I was acquiring the knowledge and skills I needed to be able to investigate the things I was curious or intrigue about, applying a broad set of intellectual tools. However, already back them to work for a PhD was becoming a “career advancing” issue, and I got to see many people carving their way to incredibly undeserved positions (in academic and in the private, for-profit sector). Still, whenever an undergrad approached me to inquire about my motifs to pursue my nonsense, I replied: “I’m doing this because it fulfills me, regardless of the long days, and nights, and regardless of whether I would be able to find “a job” in my field when I finish; if money is your most important driver, then, don’t take this way to heaven…” Well!, …after all these years of struggle, I won’t say it hasn’t felt like hell sometimes, but certainly it has been worthy! I will do it all over again!
I’ll tell you what, everything I do that involves my vocation I consider it “work” (because is my way to contribute to my people at large), however I haven’t got paid for all of it. Some things you do because you ought to do them…
Don’t surrender your intentions and your most intimate goals! Life is a process, with many intertwines and turns, and its real meaning probably resides on doing what you feel you must do (YOU!) 🙂
The Economist has reproduced an “economic opinion”, but that doesn’t encompass all the grandness of life.
LiSA… 🙂
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thank you all for weighing in!
It made me realize how disappointed I ended up myself and reminded me that despite not being able to dodge the jerks (small field, few positions) or pay the rent with it, at least I absolutely love what I do.
Going into research in Humanities meant from the get-go that this was not going to be about money, but in all modesty it would be nice to be able to pay the rent on a one-room apartment after over a decade of academic research and degrees and teaching (I’m not even talking about a retirement plan or having children any longer). “Ph.D. on social welfare” was not really my initial plan… – though I’m lucky, most of my colleagues have lived on welfare during the Ph.D. process at some point, even though they were (and are) teaching. I’ve managed to dodge the fate until now.
Here’s hoping for the “intertwines and turns” that Lisa mentioned, and some freelancing in the near future. 🙂
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Like LiSa, I did graduate studies long ago, but I never completed the Ph.D. Those were four of the best years of my life: smart people, hard thinking, learning as gluttony. But I don’t enjoy teaching, I don’t enjoy assembling footnotes, and I don’t need a professional credential to study what interests me. Unless your needs are different, I suggest you consider a certificate in technical editing and the straightforward compensations of the training and user-assistance economy. Yes, the intrinsic psychic income is limited, but I can buy any book or disc I want, travel, pay my debts, give to my causes. The linkage between graduate studies and university employment is practically a form of grooming, and au fond anti-intellectual. Getting your mind buffed is a worthwhile investment in itself (except for those jerks), however you earn your living. Anik, I don’t know if the name still means anything, but my abandonment of academics started when Jacob Finkelstein said, at a party, “How do you prove anything in literature? You can’t even make predictions. It’s all just arguments.” Like a magic mirror, that broke the spell.
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I’m not sure what the magic mirror is when it comes to old shards – perhaps we already operate on the premise of things being broken?
If I think back across the past 6 years, the first were painted by enthusiasm, but being left alone with my project, while the last few brought a lot of disillusion – witnessing how people who only measure pecuniary outcome make decisions that go against my ethic, witnessing candidates getting admitted and defend with nothing but the emperor’s new clothes…
I’m the oddball that strives on the footnotes and I love teaching, but I hate the backstabbing, the pretending and the fact that the jobs tend to go to those who scream the loudest, even if their utterances are incoherent. Since that’s the same in almost every field I’ve seen, though, I’m not sure where that leaves me other than following Petrarca’s idea of a retreat.
On the other hand, it’s calming to know that 800 years ago, people were facing the same questions already. 😉
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Oh Anik. You were always like a “dentist” to me: stabbing right into the heart of the matter – there where the pain is. Thanks for summing up MY thoughts in such an eloquent way – as always. I’m going to have some serious job discussions (obviously not in academia!) over the next two weeks … and yet not sure, if still carving out a (time) niche for my job-unrelated PhD is worthwhile. To put it differently (and to come back to one of your tips): WHAT exactly IS the lesser evil? *sigh*
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the lesser evil… from what perspective?
Tough decision. Since it’s not work-related, the question would be whether you need it for yourself, whether you need it to be happy. Then there’s the question of how far along you are – if you have more than 50%, I’d go on. Given, of course, that you have the time for it. If continuing the Ph.D. lessens your job options (e.g. taking up time you would need to accept a promotion) and you don’t need it to be happy, then I’d drop it.
Wait, I should have asked at the beginning whether you’d like to have anesthesia before the procedure starts…
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Ouch! 😉
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