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<blockquote> <p>one always has a PhD, but not always a Mrs. <<</p> </blockquote>
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<p>So true, BW...</p>
<p>Do not under any circumstances go into debt for a humanities Phd. Do you realize that graduates from the top Phd programs in literature (Harvard, Yale, etc.) are not finding academic jobs in the U.S.? Read this:
Graduate</a> School in the Humanities: Just Don't Go - Chronicle.com
Just</a> Don't Go, Part 2 - Chronicle.com</p>
<p>jonri - I am sure you mean well, but you are speculating and wrong on all accounts. I needed advice on the situation as I described in my posts, not random facts about PhD degrees, immigration and so on. I know well how the system works (I’m good at research, after all), and would appreciate it if everyone could just assume that my statements are true.</p>
<p>I once had plans to attend Harvard Summer School (and would have gotten funding for it), but changed my mind back in February because I found a much better programme. </p>
<p>Thanks again, everyone, for the advice. This thread can be closed, because the final decision is now up to myself. :)</p>
<p>Best of luck to you! Hope it all works out.</p>
<p>thanks annaroku–I sent those article to my DD who is 25 and has just decided she want to be a vet because, while her first love is English and she is working at a publishing house she realizes the situation should she go for her PH.D. And she is jazzed about this new forward motion in her life.
I did not read all of the posts. I do not know if has been mentioned–but as I remember that the OP is 24, I would just like to say that 24 is quite young in our world. Yes, of course, many marry and are successful. But the facts are that marriages are more likely to be successful when the partners are 27-37ish. I am generalizing but know that the stats are older rather than younger. And I am also a therapist so can attest to this fact through work experience.</p>
<p>Additional points of apparent concern. Why not live in a house while you are married? House is much better than apartment. And still another point, there are tons of work places that pay for college (graduate school included) education. Both mine and my husband’s were paid. My Phd brother was paid and in addition, his thesis was based on what he was doing at work (I assume that he got some sort of permission to do so). Job, marriage, kids, house, hobbies, nice vacations and so forth are your support system in achieving the highest degree of education that your heart desires. If they are obstacles, then you are in a wrong situation all together, not only for your personal goals but for your well being as a person.</p>
<p>Yep, a quick google reveals that I got a lot wrong. Briseis appears to be a student in Australia, and may well be an Austrailian citizen. So, I read too much into the M.Phil.
However, some of the rest, especially the statement that she can’t get a stipend greater than $2,000 a year at a supposedly “top” program still baffles me. </p>
<p>I do agree with Briseis that she has to make the decision for herself. I wish her much wisdom in making it.</p>
<p>Why is house much better than apartment? I go to graduate school in NYC, and not only could I not afford to live in a house in this city, house is not always much better than apartment. I like my small cozy space in uptown Manhattan and I like calling the super when something breaks rather than having to shell out money to do it myself. Some people don’t want to tend to property their whole lives.</p>
<p>Like ellenmenope, I want an update. I especially want a reason why OP thinks she can’t get into a program with full tuition remission and a stipend, even at top programs, because most top programs (in the U.S., at least) offer that kind of support and as was already stated it’s not wise to go for any Ph.D - much less one in the humanities - without tuition remission and a stipend and health insurance. At the very least during the coursework phase. OP is refusing to give any information on why she believes that, which makes me wary that the reason is misinformation.</p>
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<p>This is confused. PhD is the abbreviation for the normal terminal graduate degree at nearly all British universities except at Oxford where they say DPhil for the same thing.</p>
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<p>And the guy is Scottish?</p>
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<p>I agree with ClassicRockerDad:</p>
<p>My husband and I graduated with our Bachelor’s degrees and moved half way across the country so he could pursue his Master’s and PhD. We lived together for 3 1/2 of the 5 years his program took while I got progressively better jobs. I look back now on what seemed like mere subsistance and I remember it as a wonderful time in our lives (as everyone then said I would!) and even take some pride in having provided for us (albeit with considerably more help from him than a $2k stipend).</p>
<p>Trusting that you know your heart and your mind, why don’t you get engaged, commence with your PhD program, and set a date when all the circumstances in your lives make it the next logical thing to do?</p>
<p>Go for the PhD. You can defer the house if you also decide to get married. You will have more options for your dream career with your Ph.D. than without. If you can’t take a stab at your dreams when you’re 24, when can you?</p>
<p>Moreover, I think you need to maximize your ability for independence…by not only going for the Ph.D. but actually living independently. daughter -------> wife doesn’t match that protocol.</p>
<p>Briseis: Just watched the movie “An Education” yesterday and I hope you are not going for the “David” character in the movie. But one thing is clear marriage might give you few years of happiness but your quest of Ph.D. might provide a life long happiness.
In my view if Ph.D. was your dream since childhood it will haunt you throughout your life if you won’t do it.</p>
<p>I am so sorry I can’t read this entire thread – just too much right now. So please forgive me if I am being merely repetitive.</p>
<p>I have a PhD in English and teach in higher ed, and even teach the Iliad Breisis, every semester. Which translation do you prefer? I like Lattimore. DS is reading it in Greek. Very sneaky of him. LOL.</p>
<p>I married young, bought a house and completed my PhD. I had some of the same concerns as you. It was very difficult.</p>
<p>Here’s how we managed. I turned down my Ivy acceptance to grad school and continued studying at the same state u where I had gotten my BA. I was fullly funded each year, tuition + teaching stipend. I think the teaching stipends are now over $11,000. We lived frugally and took education loans for the down payment on the house.</p>
<p>Eventually my H divorced me because I kind of got stalled working on my dissertation, and he didn’t think I was earning enough money, even though I added teaching adjunct courses to supplement teaching stipends, something the other students weren’t doing.</p>
<p>He left, and I kept our little house and worked three jobs to buy out his share. I also rented out the second bedroom to a Scots post-doctoral student to cover expenses.</p>
<p>I got hired at community college as a ABD, found another guy, had a baby, got married, had another, sold the little house and got a mortgage we really couldn’t afford, got tenure, raised the kids and am almost finished sending the second through college.</p>
<p>How do I parse my experience?</p>
<p>If I hadn’t been married to H1 I would have gone to the ivy and would now have a more prestigious job. i know this to be true because my dissertation, even at podunk U, won best dissertation of 1987. But most prestigious institutions just threw out my resume.</p>
<p>Am I bitter? Not at all. I love my job. I love the students I teach in the context I teach. I have the luxury of teaching the students, not the material. My kids, who attend(ed) prestigious institutions, tell me that the kids at their schools are too curriculum driven to want to take my classes. My community college students love them.</p>
<p>I have met all my personal goals: PhD, being a professor, being married, and having kids. I have also recently written two novels and published poems in an anthology that now exists in 20 languages.</p>
<p>Did it involve compromise? A lot. I sacrificed going to my dream school for a guy who wasn’t worth it, but I didn’t sacrifice getting a PhD or my profession. </p>
<p>I am a half full kind of gal, and I think it all worked out.</p>
<p>You have to figure out where you and your fiance figure in this story, that is if your fiance is H1 and H2. But you can “have it all” with appropriate compromises.</p>
<p>Oh, there was a terrible recession when I graduated too, and things have been difficult financially. H2 is not Mr. Rockefeller, but he really supports my professional aspirations.</p>
<p>^^ My advice too. Don’t compromise you dream for a guy. I, too, am content with where I am; but it’s not where I would have been had I not made compromises for what turned out to be the wrong guy.</p>
<p>mythmom: Love your post.</p>
<p>The original post was last March - I wonder what OP decided to do? I wish she could have read mythmom’s post^ before she made up her mind. Though D is far from having to think of such things I’m going to have her read it - it is wonderful - thanks mythmom for sharing.</p>
<p>Thank you all. Your appreciation helps. I always think I’m talking too much.</p>
<p>nevermind.</p>
<p>Nah, mythmom, you’re great. What an inspiration!</p>
<p>But gosh. OP is 24. At that age I was a bohemian art student living in a garrett on the Left Bank in Paris (what an excruciating cliche, but I swear it’s true). If anyone had suggested to me at age 24 marriage-homeownership-Ph.D. I would have run like the wind. </p>
<p>And some of these are life decisions. Ah well. Here’s a wee morsel for ya:</p>
<p>TO THE VIRGINS, TO MAKE MUCH OF TIME.
by Robert Herrick</p>
<p>GATHER ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying :
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.</p>
<p>The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he’s a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he’s to setting.</p>
<p>That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer ;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.</p>
<p>Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may go marry :
For having lost but once your prime
You may for ever tarry.</p>