<p>I will add that even the best university training (friend’s son went to MIT and Harvard), in a scientific field, doesn’t assure a TT position. This young man is on his second post-doc, and has lived separately from his wife for quite a few years now. They were on opposite sides of the country for quite some time. It is a very very tough market for PhDs seeking tenure track positions,even PhDs in a scientific field with the best academic pedigree.</p>
<p>That said, our son just started a PhD program in a scientific field! The way I look at it is that he’s doing what he wants to do and is getting paid for the next 5 years (which in this job market is a good thing). His eyes are wide open in terms of the job market and he has no illusions. </p>
<p>My husband is a tenured professor who was lucky enough to find a job many years ago, but as someone earlier pointed out, we had no choice as to where we now live unless he passed on the offer, and we both hate living here and would give anything to go elsewhere. We’re grateful that he has a job and he loves what he’s doing, we just hate where he’s doing it!</p>
<p>My daughter and her housemate are close to a number of English Dept. graduate students at the university where they got their BAs – ex-boyfriends, ex-TAs, ex-advisors, and one good friend from middle school/high school. It is pretty clearly a top program, probably ranked in the top 5-6 nationally. Things are very, very difficult for its graduates. Some do land good quality tenure track positions – certainly more than would be the case if the program were not so highly ranked. But that’s less than half of the graduates. It’s a lot of struggle, and there are lots of people artificially deferring completing the program so that they don’t go into the numbers as unemployed graduates. Depression is pretty common – almost an occupational hazard.</p>
<p>No guarantee of well paid permanent jobs for lawyers or investment bankers either. I agree that chances of getting a tenured track position (and then tenure) at a school you want to teach at in or near a place where you to live are very small, but teaching is surely still an honorable profession, and although not one where you will get rich, one where you will perhaps earn a living wage with decent benefits. </p>
<p>I can also say from direct observation that increasing numbers of young PhDs from top schools are also teaching at good private secondary schools, getting paid what they might at some colleges, and being well treated and respected. May lack the prestige factor but is one other way to go with a PhD–and they do get the usual summers and midyear vacations off, with resulting time to write, travel, think, and do some good in the world. </p>
<p>I know, they may get some pitying or mystified looks from people who think its banking, law, teach at a top-ten LAC, or bust, but I’m not sure that’s all there is to life anymore. There are no financial and career guarantees, and I suspect there never were–we are just more aware of the uncertainties now.</p>
<p>A student who wants to pursue graduate work should make the right professorial contacts and do good work now, and see what the future will hold in terms of job placement when the time comes. Remember, too, that there are also PhDs out there in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors doing non-classroom and nonacademic work–it’s a great credential after all.</p>
<p>I am currently a student in a highly ranked Ph.D program in English. The realities of the market are indeed bleak. I think, however, that the statistics can be somewhat misleading. </p>
<p>Far, far too many schools offer Ph.Ds in the humanities. Do you have to go to a top 10 program to get a job? No. But while I’m not sure exactly where the cutoff should be (30? 50?), given the level of competition, it is frankly criminal to admit students to a program where their chances of getting a job are truly dismal. I think the numbers would look a lot less scary if we considered only programs at a certain level - and I wouldn’t suggest that anyone, no matter how much they love literature, go to a program below that level. Apply again if you need to (I did, and it isn’t terribly uncommon), but don’t settle for a program below that magic threshold. </p>
<p>The programs worth going to will give students a manageable stipend. They will also, normally, have a reasonable enough teaching burden that it will not take nine years to graduate. It is very rare in my program for anyone to stick around past year seven, and many get their degree after six. While it is fairly highly ranked, I would think long and hard before going to CUNY, for instance, because of the low stipend and teaching burden (which begins in year 1, I believe).</p>
<p>I’m not terribly worried about worst case scenarios. If I can’t get the kind of job I want after a few years knocking around as an adjunct, I’d probably become a high school teacher, either at a private school or going “alternate route” at a public school. Granted, I could have done that without getting a doctorate, but I will have higher earning potential because of my advanced degrees, and will in any case have had the experience of doing the kind of high level work that I love without going into debt - indeed, while earning a modest amount of money. As far as worst case scenarios go, this one isn’t all that bad.</p>
<p>I know at least two PhD students, with completed dissertations put to the side, furiously working on other projects while their departments continue to support them and waiting to officially turn in the dissertation until a job listing finally appears. One of them may have a book accepted by now.</p>
<p>I can’t speak for students of English, but in my scientific field (biomedical research) the job market is very tough if you insist on getting an academic position. You might do more than 2 post-docs while hoping for that first assistant professorship. But the vast majority of PhD grads in that field do not go into academia. Most go into things like biotech, pharma companies, venture start-ups, and government jobs. And pretty much everyone gets a good job sooner or later provided you are willing to be a little flexible about where you live. </p>
<p>If someone earns a new biomedical PhD and ends pumping gas or waiting tables long-term, they are either very unlucky or they insisted on living in a town that offered very few opportunities in science.</p>
<p>Note that the graph here:
[Education:</a> The PhD factory: Nature News](<a href=“http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110420/full/472276a/box/3.html]Education:”>Latest science news, discoveries and analysis)
shows a recent rise in the production of PhDs in medical and biological sciences; the rise is much less in physical sciences and social sciences. Also, note the decline in PhDs going to tenured or tenure-track faculty positions, with a corresponding rise in post-doc positions.</p>
<p>Hi; I too am an aspiring English professor, and I was curious–if one earns a PhD in English at a top program in the United States, is it significantly easier to get a teaching position in another English-speaking country (e.g. Canada, Australia, New Zealand) than it would be to get one in the US? Or is it equally difficult to secure tenure-track or even a part-time permanent position with benefits in those countries? Thanks.</p>
<p>I have kept thinking about this query and the comments and I want to add another thought: how disturbing I find it that people should assume that teaching–even university teaching at the highest level–in some way is not “good enough” as a career, does not require the “smarts” needed to become a doctor or lawyer or investment banker. Career outlooks for many professions are poor right now. Getting rich is not the be all and end all of success, though steady employment may be.</p>
<p>I also must note that having a flair for law or economics in no way would imply an equal ability to become a good doctor. Or writer. Or teacher. Or executive. It’s not just about memorizing organic chemistry. But on a more profound scale, being an English professor (or teacher), or history professor (or teacher), or anything along those highly respectable lines should not be perceived as something for the less smart and less motivated. It takes a a lot of motivation to spend six yeas researching a dissertation that only a few thousand people will ever read even if it is published by a good university press.</p>
<p>Surely our country is in its present state in part because all people could see was dollar signs?</p>
<p>^ I don’t believe anybody on this thread has suggested that you don’t need to be extremely intelligent and skilled to be a college professor. Of course you do. I just happen to know that my (multifaceted) daughter has the smarts and (separate) skills to be all those things that I specified. She could also be a pretty good opera singer too by the way but I’m not going to suggest that as a more secure career! </p>
<p>The focus of my query, and of this thread by and large, is how difficult or rewarding the career path of an “English professor” is going to be and to what degree (if any) should a parent say anything about it to the college student.</p>
<p>Encourage her, but make sure she knows that it does run the risk of not making as much money as lets say a doctor in private practice. It is ultimately her choice and as a mom you should help her as she makes these crucial decisions.</p>
<p>Some food for thought based upon my daughter’s experience. She is currently teaching English Literature at a highly rated prep school in the NYC area. She has a master’s degree (from Harvard) which isn’t easy to get but is much easier and faster to obtain than a PhD (which she might do some day but isn’t required to do to keep her job). Her compensation is probably a little less than a tenure track assistant professor at an Ivy or equivilent would make, but much better than most adjuncts or assistant professors at lesser colleges and universities. She has no obligation to engage in research and publishing and gets to enjoy teaching very bright high school students. Her benefits are excellent and she has more job security than all but tenured professors. </p>
<p>So she asked herself: “why would I want to teach college when I can do this?”</p>
<p>I was at a gathering last weekend which included three English profs from two LACs. One of the profs was talking about how she was planning to strongly discourage her daughter from seeking her PhD in English. The reason–there are no jobs in academia, especially because her daughter does not fit into the demographic of those who are selected for those extremely rare open TT positions. That is to say, her daughter is white, straight and not disabled. The other two profs agreed. Lest one think they are in some kind of cluster of rednecks, I assure you they are not. They have been involved in the committees that chose candidates for their colleges’ open TT positions. They said minority status/ disability/ gayness etc are the qualifications that trump all other qualities.</p>
<p>On a side note, I think it is unethical for colleges to sell students degrees at 50+K/year–and then rule out from employment the vast majority of the students to whom they’ve sold such degrees. Scandalous.</p>
<p>I agree that teaching at a high-end prep school is a lot like being a professor at a small LAC. I actually know some humanities PhDs that teach high school that publish occasionally; they just aren’t pressured to do so.</p>
<p>Or that the faculty job market is flooded with candidates of stellar academic credentials, so that other qualities (whether or not you agree with them) become more important in a relative sense. This is similar to how the most selective universities are flooded with “near maximum” academic stats freshman applicants, which causes non-academic criteria like extracurriculars to become more important in a relative sense.</p>
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<p>Why is it scandalous that most students who graduate from any school do not become employed by the school after graduation? Surely, you are not saying that newly graduated bachelor’s degree holders should all go work at the university, newly graduated MD holders should all go work at the medical school, etc…</p>
<p>That’s not the case, though. PhD students – at least at reputable programs – are like apprentices, or at worst indentured servants. They work side-by-side with their advisors, and are paid something, just not very much. They have opportunities to earn more on the side, too, as time goes on. But they aren’t paying out of pocket for their degrees – there is hypothetical tuition, but that’s a matter of university accounting among grant sources, not something ordinarily charged to the students. Of course, the students do bear the considerable opportunity cost of not having the sort of job and income they would get if they weren’t in a PhD program, and of not accumulating experience in some industry where they could have an actual career.</p>
<p>Most of the potential (and actual) humanities and social science PhD students I know look at it this way: “Having an academic career would be like winning the lottery, and I’m not going to count on that. But you can’t win the academic career lottery if you don’t play. And I’ll make about the same money as a PhD student that I would make if I were temping, waiting tables, or tending bar and trying to be a freelance writer or something like that, and I will be doing what I love 70% of the time rather than 20%. If I start hating it, I can go to plan B, and along the way if I’m doing what I love maybe I can develop better, more meaningful plan Bs. And anyway I’m not ready to grow up yet.” Really, there’s nothing terribly wrong with that.</p>
<p>I can still remember today how difficult it was to call my parents from college and tell them that I was switching from Pre Med to be an English and Poli Sci major. While I was certainly able to do the work required for Pre Med (and be successful) I hated every minute of it. </p>
<p>While taking a required English class in summer school the full professor teaching the class came up to me after class and complimented my writing and class contributions and asked if I was an English major. When I answered that I wasn’t he made a comment that really made me rethink what I had been doing, why I was so unhappy doing it and asked myself if it was worth being so miserable all the time to make mom and dad happy.</p>
<p>That was all it took. I had always had the passion for and love of writing but having it validated by one of the most esteemed people in the English department fanned the flames. I went back to the place I was living and immediately called my parents to tell them what I was about to do.</p>
<p>I wanted to be a professor. My father, a lifetime educator and administrator, did everything he could do over the next two and a half years to discourage me and I let him win out. Today, at 59, not a week goes by that I don’t regret the decision. </p>
<p>I’ve created training programs at almost every company I have worked for, been the featured speaker/presenter in video training programs used worldwide for General Motors, Cadillac, Toyota/Lexus and and several other Fortune 500 companies. I’ve done extensive corporate training and consulting in the automotive industry as well as other sales and marketing organizations. Sadly none of it has scratched the itch of being a teacher/professor. Throughout my career I have been told countless times what a great teacher I would be.</p>
<p>As much as I love my father I am still bothered by the fact that I let his growing frustration for what was happening in education (mid 70’s/post Vietnam) steer me away from the one thing I was really passionate about.</p>
<p>Allow her to choose her own path. If she figures out she made a mistake, hopefully it will come before she’s got a family and responsibilities and making too much money to change direction.</p>
<p>Finally, we need more people who are truly passionate about educating the next generation. That role is being filled today by many (not all) who are passionless and simply putting in time.</p>
<p>P.S. Please don’t use this reply as an example of my writing. ;)</p>