Another article shedding light on the Humanities Ph.D.

[Oyama]

<p>Career</a> Advice: Ah, Bartleby; Ah, Humanities - Inside Higher Ed</p>

<p>Essentially the summary:</p>

<p>
[quote]
Since the events of 2008, which essentially crippled the academic job market, the grim realities of finding work in the humanities have been laid bare like never before.

[/quote]
</p>

[homarus]

<p>

1. Three and a half years after beginning graduate school, you pass a qualifying examination in your field of study, giving you the green light to start writing your dissertation.</p>

<ol>
<li>A year later, in the fall term of your final year, you commence applying for positions as an assistant professor.
…</li>
<li>In March, you pass your dissertation defense. You submit a revised version of your thesis to the university library in April, and in May you receive your newly minted Ph.D. to uproarious applause during spring commencement.

</li>
</ol>

<p>Epic fail. Few students in the humanities will have a PhD after 5 years. See here:
[Quantitative</a> Data by Field for the Ph.D. Completion Project - Council of Graduate Schools](<a href=“http://www.phdcompletion.org/quantitative/book1_quant.asp]Quantitative”>http://www.phdcompletion.org/quantitative/book1_quant.asp)
Especially “Attrition data”, table 6. In the group studied, 11.8% of humanities students will have degree in hand at the 5 year mark. (20.7 will have already dropped out.) Even after 10 years, slightly less than half (49.3%) will have their degree.</p>

[proletariat2]

<p>I hope things don’t this bad in the sciences! I wonder how the situation is in other countries, though…</p>

[Oyama]

<p>homarus, I think you missed the point (which was addressed right before that chronicle of events):</p>

<p>

In a perfect, pre‐economic‐crisis world, the path from graduate studies in the humanities to the professoriat went something like this:</p>

<ol>
<li>…

</li>
</ol>

<p>That step-by-step is the ideal, not the ‘what-is’.</p>

[homarus]

<p>The point is, frankly, beside the point. It’s the subtext that interests me. This guy has this “good old days” mentality that I’m not buying. For most of the people entering PhD programs now, the good old days were before they were born. My father is a university professor in a field with a perennial undersupply of PhDs. He got his degree in the early 80’s, and even then it was tough to get a TT slot, especially in more desirable locations.</p>

<p>Besides, the author comes across as a bit of an a-hole. “You are well on your way to a disappointing career as a high school teacher.” Hmm? I was a high school teacher, and it’s not a bad gig. If you’re not tough enough to face the possibility you might not come out on top (and be OK with that), your ego is probably too brittle to be in academia.</p>

[juillet]

<p>What homarus said. Talking to academics, they said the job market started to go south in the 1970s, and it hasn’t been like the author of this article is telling it for at least 20 years. Even in the 1990s you couldn’t get a humanities degree in 5 years.</p>

<p>Plus, he’s projecting. Yes, the job market is awful and a lot of doctoral students are depressed and anxious from being in their programs so long and the grueling amount of work. But his problems with his doctoral committee are personal problems.</p>