
Thesis Hatement: Getting a literature Ph.D (2013) - jseliger
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/culturebox/2013/04/there_are_no_academic_jobs_and_getting_a_ph_d_will_make_you_into_a_horrible.html
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panglott
This is about humanities PhDs, written by a lit PhD. The English PhDs have
long been the most vocal of this line of criticism, where the problem has been
most extreme.

English and humanities BAs are eminently hireable, as the author points out,
but the academy has decided to so relentlessly overproduce professors as to
make it untenable as a profession. 75%+ of humanities courses are taught by
adjuncts and graduate students—and the graduate students are just adjuncts-in-
training. The MLA recently had a big symposium about this, which concluded
that there was basically nothing wrong, they should continue to train
professors (and benefit from their underpaid teaching), and make more of a
show to go on about jobs outside traditional academia (in museums? libraries?
It's unclear). While the norms of the academy is that anyone who isn't a
professor is a failure.

Source: I dodged this bullet.

~~~
mistersquid
I received my doctorate in English Language and Literature in 2002 and landed
a tenure-track job.

The university was an R2 (according to the Carnegie-Mellon Research
classification) [0]; I graduated from an R1. Most my colleagues graduated from
R1s.

I was very unhappy in my Midwestern University town and left my academic post
(having declined to pursue tenure) to return to my native state.

Faculty at such highly-ranked research institutions use graduate students
because such high-achieving graduate students

1\. Are a pleasure to teach, able to understand the highly complex and
intricate theories about literature and culture we faculty research.

2\. Are able (and thrilled to teach the low-level classes (e.g. Composition)
which we would rather not teach.

The lie many faculty tell themselves is that such students are apprentices to
the profession. That lie has been called out for the last 20 years and is,
slowly, being accepted by younger faculty at such institutions. The problem is
that tenure, as the article mentions, is dying with the faculty when they
retire and these tenure lines are being replaced with graduate students and
adjunct faculty.

Tenure will not completely go away. It will simply be restricted to the R1s
and R2s. Every other institution can expect their ranks of faculty to be
poorly compensated and to have no job security.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_research_universities_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_research_universities_in_the_United_States)

~~~
api
Universities are taking measures to trim faculty pay and job security, and
meanwhile tuition is increasing at a rate much faster than inflation and has
been for a long time. It's disgusting.

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pmiller2
Much of this holds true in other fields as well, even technical fields if you
intend to go into academia rather than industry. I realized about halfway
through grad school in math that I was preparing to enter a field where I'd
literally have to wait for someone to die before I got a job. Even if a
suitable opening existed, since there are so many more candidates than jobs,
it wasn't likely I'd end up with one. And, even if I did, I wouldn't get to
choose where I lived, because I'd have to go where the job was. I'm glad I got
off that track.

~~~
heinrichf
If it's not indiscreet, how did you do your "reconversion" from a math PhD and
in which field ?

~~~
philipov
I'm not the person you asked, but from my observation there is demand in the
financial industry for math/physics/engineering PhDs serving as some
combination of quant, business analyst, and QA. They typically start as summer
interns while working on their doctorate and are hired when they graduate. The
internship is effectively an extended interview process.

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tsunamifury
I have an advanced degree in the Humanities and it has served me
extraordinarily well career-wise. The thesis-centered thinking, concise
communication, and artistic drive in my work has always set me apart, and I
owe that to my training. Even more specifically, learning from high-integrity
journalists taught me that a complete and honest rendition of the facts is
very rare and valuable in the business world.

Both myself and my partner from the same program have coveted positions in no
small part because of this training.

That being said I went to a #1 program at UC Berkeley, did not even consider
becoming a professor, and worked hard at technical skills in the background. I
too would have failed miserably on the tenure track.

~~~
panglott
There is such a huge disconnect between people humanities professors and
humanities PhDs who are successful but did not seek to become a professor.
Programs don't keep track of them, there is a general disdain for anything not
tenure-track, there are no "scripts" to prepare students. Professors think
there are jobs for PhDs outside the academy, but in general have to way to
prepare grad students for them.

~~~
tsunamifury
I and my partner were socially shunned from my program for leaving the field,
not tracked, and never invited to an event... until suddenly when they wanted
money.

After coming back and visiting, I found the vast majority of professors
shallow and self centered, coddled by positions that afforded them little to
no emotional growth or challenge that is demanded of the rest of humanity.

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astazangasta
This is the logical product of turning what should be the product of blissful
idleness (pontificating about Kafka) into a fucking job, where you must work X
hours a week Y weeks a month and churn out enough "value" that your university
can charge people money to pay your salary. I.e., the world is a Kafka-esque
nightmare where something perfectly straightforward and natural (reading good
books, having deep, worthy thoughts about them) has been connected to a soul-
sucking apparatus that reduces everything to monetary value.

------
dibujante
Arts education really needs to decouple from vocational education, however
this happens (tracked system like Germany? Just split Arts and STEM apart?
Plenty of STEM is closer to Arts than vocational training).

If a literature PhD isn't going to land you a six-figure job then maybe it
should re-calibrate its tuition and time expectations to be something that a
professionally active adult can pursue simultaneous to their career.

~~~
btdiehr
Serious question... Why don't these active adults just read some books and
watch free online lectures instead? I fail to see the value a university is
providing here.

~~~
avs733
I'm sorry but that is terrifyingly shallow. The consumption of information is
not nearly the same as the processing of information.

~~~
btdiehr
Are you trying to imply that those who don't or can't afford university aren't
processing information? Now that is terrifyingly shallow.

~~~
alecbaldwinlol
You're being downvoted by plenty of people who have devoted their lives to
pleasing the spouse that beats them, aka the academic profession.

Congrats on rattling the hornets nest!

~~~
btdiehr
The one thing academics love to do is argue about the merits of academics
existing. You could devout an entire PhD to it!

~~~
alecbaldwinlol
I love it. It's also why they are so against distance learning (Quartz has a
poll out on it, only 30% of faculty "support" it).

Academics have the gaul to set up an extortionist racket, and then find
someone else to pay the costs of running it!

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pdubbs90
I'm very glad that where she wrote "Multiply that 0.6 percent chance of
getting any given job by the 10 or so appropriate positions in the entire
world, and you have about that same 6 percent chance of “success.”" she was in
the regime where p*n ~= 1-(1-p)^n and her conclusion was still correct.

~~~
madcaptenor
My PhD is in probability.

When I was applying for academic jobs upon finishing my PhD, I said to one of
my professors "every time I apply for a job, I feel like I have probability
epsilon of getting it".

His response: "apply for one over epsilon jobs".

I told him I wasn't willing to accept such a large probability of not getting
a job...

~~~
KKKKkkkk1
Apparently even probability professors can fall into the trap of ignoring all
but the first moment of a probability distribution.

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Balgair
I mean, at some point, one I think we have crossed, there is a moral issue
with this.

Those PhD selection committees and professors have an obligation to at the
very least, educate students on the truth, much as a doctor must tell patients
that smoking is bad for them or that they need to run more. What that exactly
looks like, who knows, but it really feels ... scummy. As other commenters
state, unless you go to a top 3 program, you factually have a 0% chance. Even
then you have little hope. Where is the, pardon the pun, humanity of these
professors? Who would want to be taught by such hypocrites that willfully
ignore, and possibly make money off of, the lives of their students? It
boggles my lesser mind.

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bambax
Article published on: APRIL 5 2013. At the end we find: "Correction, _April 5,
2014_ : This essay originally misspelled William Pannapacker's last name."

So it took exactly a year to find that spelling mistake. That's kind of funny,
in a sad way.

~~~
btdiehr
Do you expect all authors to linger on every word of an opinion piece? Someone
emailed them and they corrected. Standard, not sad at all.

~~~
bambax
My point is that the time it takes to correct a mistake in person's name is
correlated to the popularity of the article times the popularity of the
person.

If it takes a long time, one of those values is low, possibly both.

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altotrees
Not sure being an emotional wreck and being a horrible person are necessarily
equivalent...

~~~
jonnathanson
No, but being the former can sometimes lead to being the latter.

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amelius
Note that this is about a "literature" Ph.D.

It is a pity that this is missing in the HN title.

~~~
jkot
To be fair non-IT STEM is not much better. I have many friends in astronomy
and marine research, it is very difficult to find a job.

~~~
vijayr
wow, really? With all the excitement going on in the space field, it is
surprising (and sad)

~~~
jkot
Space startup could be ok. Academia has way too much overhead, there are no
money left for research.

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dzdt
Actual title/subtitle:

 _Thesis Hatement_

 _Getting a literature Ph.D. will turn you into an emotional trainwreck, not a
professor_

Suggest new HN title: "A literature PhD will turn you into an emotional
trainwreck, not a professor"

~~~
logicrook
With this subtitle, there is actually no need for an article.

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skywhopper
Needs a title edit. The article is about literature PhDs. Some PhDs (such as
accounting) are in extremely high demand these days in the academy.

~~~
jseliger
Good idea; I added "lit" to the title.

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forgetsusername
Arguments about the humanities versus the hard sciences aside, we'll need
fewer and fewer PhDs as the teaching tools become better and distance and
"free" courses become more commonplace and accepted.

It wasn't difficult to see coming. Supply and demand; when one great professor
can teach thousands over the internet, who wants to learn from a half-ass
instructor (of which there are many)?

~~~
panglott
The evidence I've seen suggests the opposite: the self-motivated natural
autodidacts that do well in MOOCs would do well in nearly any educational
setting, whereas the many people who need more scaffolding, support, and
personal instruction do much, much worse.

Teachers do add an extraordinary amount of value: if what you're doing can be
summed up as a reading list and lecture series, rather than a conversational
interaction and personal attention, then it isn't actually adding a whole lot
of value to the instructional setting.

The problem is that while university teachers add can add huge amount of
value, their profession makes actual teaching a chore to be foisted off on
graduate students and adjuncts rather than a goal, in favor of really dubious
publication.

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KKKKkkkk1
The problem is the same as in any field dominated by unions. The incumbents
conspire to create a caste system in which newcomers are kept out or relegated
to secondary roles and taken advantage of. In academia this is magnified 100x
because tenure makes it into a winner-takes-all game with no second shots.

~~~
btdiehr
The real problem here is no value is being produced. Nothing to do with
unions.

