More Humanities Ph.D.s--WTH?!
A friend of mine sent me the link to this article in IHE. He was as shocked as I was. Why in the world would humanities programs be -increasing- enrollments? Given the current state of the job market, especially post-economic meltdown, this strikes me as irresponsible, if not unconscionable. (Oh, how I love the hyperbolic format of the blog!) I know that in my department, we have been working in recent years to reduce the number of graduate students we admit, especially at the PhD level. Years ago, the most prestigious programs cut their enrollments substantially, but mid-level programs stepped in and increased their enrollments, leading to a net gain in PhD students in the humanities. This trend apparently hasn't subsided, despite the continuing drop in tenure-track positions.
I was at least somewhat relieved to read that the president of the MLA Graduate Student Caucus indicates that graduate students are well aware and have been sufficiently warned about the realities of the job market. The article also contains links to a couple of now-famous (and notorious) postings that have long since gone viral within the academy--the blog posting "No, You Cannot be a Professor" and the fantastically depressing 100 Reasons NOT to Go to Graduate School. These sorts of things should be required reading for all graduate students, but hopefully to motivate or goad them, not to make them feel despondent. Being a grad student is tough; getting a job is tougher. Much tougher.
However, among the diatribes found in the comments section of this article, one stood out to me and made me think about why I wanted to do this way back when--"maybe people undertake the risk (and, often, debt) of the Ph.D. because they love the subject. Maybe it's just sheer interest. Maybe it's intellectual hunger."
Easy for me to say now because I have a job, but that is how it felt to me. I remember a professor saying to me, "Only do this if you can imagine that if it didn't work out, and you were driving a truck for a living, that you would still be reading this stuff." That seemed like sensible advice to me at the time, and left me unwavering in my desire to pursue a PhD in literary studies. If I were doing something totally different today, I would still be reading the stuff I love.
I was at least somewhat relieved to read that the president of the MLA Graduate Student Caucus indicates that graduate students are well aware and have been sufficiently warned about the realities of the job market. The article also contains links to a couple of now-famous (and notorious) postings that have long since gone viral within the academy--the blog posting "No, You Cannot be a Professor" and the fantastically depressing 100 Reasons NOT to Go to Graduate School. These sorts of things should be required reading for all graduate students, but hopefully to motivate or goad them, not to make them feel despondent. Being a grad student is tough; getting a job is tougher. Much tougher.
However, among the diatribes found in the comments section of this article, one stood out to me and made me think about why I wanted to do this way back when--"maybe people undertake the risk (and, often, debt) of the Ph.D. because they love the subject. Maybe it's just sheer interest. Maybe it's intellectual hunger."
Easy for me to say now because I have a job, but that is how it felt to me. I remember a professor saying to me, "Only do this if you can imagine that if it didn't work out, and you were driving a truck for a living, that you would still be reading this stuff." That seemed like sensible advice to me at the time, and left me unwavering in my desire to pursue a PhD in literary studies. If I were doing something totally different today, I would still be reading the stuff I love.