<p>Depressing reading for parents whose kids are considering grad school in the humanities. </p>
<p>Graduate</a> School in the Humanities: Just Don't Go - Advice - The Chronicle of Higher Education</p>
<p>"The reality is that less than half of all doctorate holders — after nearly a decade of preparation, on average — will ever find tenure-track positions."</p>
<p>I sent that to both kids - one a CS major and the other undecided. But she really likes the humanities but I’m hoping she goes into business. I think the article is appropriate for all majors as things can get difficult, even if you’re in a hot area at the moment.</p>
<p>Does psychology count as a humanity, or can we consider that a science??</p>
<p>Out of curiosity - what is the likelihood that some of these people will obtain high school teaching credentials, and raise the bar for high school humanities teachers?</p>
<p>Psychology is a social science.</p>
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<p>I don’t have numbers, but I bet less than half of all PhDs in biomedical science (my field) ever find tenure track positions either. The difference is that there are large pharma and biotech industries out there to to soak up the leftovers, and even some government jobs to boot. In the humanities not so much.</p>
<p>Don’t some people with PhDs in pharma and biotech want to do research, rather than teach??</p>
<p>I think this is misleading. Not everyone who gets a Phd in humanities does it with the intention of ever getting a tenure track position. So the fact that less than half achieve tenure track positions, does not neccessarily tell you anything about how “useful” a humanities Phd is. </p>
<p>For example, some who has a Phd in government may work at a think tank, or in government, perhaps teach a few courses on the side or lecture as well, but never seek academia as their full time position. Having the Phd is just another credential that makes them more valued in their other work. </p>
<p>A person with a Phd in Education may never seek to teach other teachers, but instead be focused on teaching at a high school, or even middle or elementary level, or becoming a superintendent or working or heading up a state or federal education offices. I know someone with a Phd in education who chose to be a high school social studies teacher, not because there were not university jobs available to them, but because they felt they were more needed in the classroom. BUT what I can tell you is that Phd is VERY useful in bumping their salary up well beyond what you would think a public school teacher could ever make (she makes low six figures.) </p>
<p>Some people will never see the utility in an advanced degree that doesn’t translate directly to a field of work they’re familiar with. But I think that shows a lack of imagination rather than a lack of utility in certain degrees.</p>
<p>A flood of unqualified (either by inability or personal temperament) of students applying to science/engineering programs as the result of the economy will only assure more heartache for those ill-prepared for the new world economic paradigm. </p>
<p>The world has changed.</p>
<p>Although I do think that this is important reading, it isn’t new. The date on the article is January 2009.</p>
<p>I heard this malarchy over twenty-five years ago when I decided to get a PhD. in a Humanities discipline. In fact, I wasted three years in the work world and and also got 1/2 of a Masters in a more “practical” field when I gave into my heart and entered a PhD program. I did it with less seriousness than I should have, having been swayed by all the nay-sayers. And later I turned down the Ivy acceptance for the local State U PhD because, again, I thought I was doing such a frivolous thing and did not want to add insult to injury. (The Ivy degree demanded I redo my masters and pay full tuition for that year; the State U never cost me a dime.)</p>
<p>Upshot: I have been steadily employed as a teacher/professor for 29 years. I think this coming semester is the first in 58 that I won’t be teaching at all, even including those my children were born in. I am having my hip replaced instead, all on sick days from my job at no loss of funds, no loss of benefits.</p>
<p>I have been employed as a tenured employee for twenty years.</p>
<p>Have there been down sides? Well, yes, income hasn’t been what some would hope for. Just etching into three figures with significant adjunct work. But inching in.</p>
<p>Have there been benefits? Beyond count. I adore my work. I adore my students. I feel like I am doing what I was born to do. I raised my own children – no nannies or significant child care. (Full disclosure – took off four years to stay home with tiny ones, but my contract mandated that I could do this. Returned right on track.)</p>
<p>Has the situation changed? Yup. More adjuncts. But it was always so. More one year contracts. Sigh. Things are difficult in our economy.</p>
<p>I tried to listen to the doomsayers. I really did. I am not usually lucky. Maybe this time I was. But someone has to be. If I hadn’t thrown my hat in the ring how could it have been selected/elected?</p>
<p>At a lunch with a partner in an over $1 billion investment firm we got into a discussion as to who the firm likes to hire. He said for those who do the day-to-day spreadsheet work they prefer the business/economics types from top schools. For mid-management they liked MBAs, but for those positions which required planning and analytical thinking that allowed them to seek new opportunities they preferred (drum roll) graduate-level humanities majors. He himself had a Ph.D in comparative literature from Oxford. A humanities degree does not close the door to business, it actually may open it. I wonder how many humanities majors know this. At my business we have a bias toward humanities majors as well. It is important that people be able to write and think analytically, we can teach them whatever else they may need to do the job. It is no surprise the philosophy majors are at the top of LSAT scorers.</p>
<p>Hmm… I am currently an undergrad humanities student, and I do plan on going to graduate school. I’d rather be poor doing something I love than rich doing something I hate. I’ve been poverty-level my whole life, so it’s not like it would be anything new to me. However, I’ve learned from my parents that if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life. So, again, I’d rather pursue what I love rather than be miserable my whole life going into something more “practical” like medicine or business.</p>
<p>Many of the “practical” majors I know can only regurgitate information that they have learned, but few have the ability to think critically and be innovative about situations. I think that is the one major plus of humanities students over “practical” majors is that we are forced to think critically rather than simply regurgitate what we have already learned (obviously this does not apply to everyone in either side of college, but it has just been my overall experience).</p>
<p>S2 is headed off to college this fall, exactly where is TBD, but he is interested in majoring in philosophy and I wholeheartedly support that decision. If he can do well in a philosophy program, he can do well with anything, including law school if later decides he needs a profession.</p>
<p>I read this when it first came out, and consider it important reading for any student considering grad work in the humanities. Just like for any student pursuing a career in the arts, or sports, someone pursuing a PhD in Classics or English or Philosophy needs to have a backup plan, because the odds are that they will not get a college-level permanent teaching gig. Sheer love of the field and intellectual talent isn’t enough. If a college teaching post is the reach, what’s the match or safety? Is the student preparing for those options, if needed? That means not only identifying the options, but making sure you can afford them and that you’d be at peace with them. </p>
<p>idad’s post about an investment firm that hired humanities PhD’s was a total pleasant surprise to me, and I’d bet it’s a big surprise to a lot of humanities students as well. Not to mention being a surprise to their grad program advisors!</p>
<p>My child and his friends from undergrad who are in various humanities PhD programs around the country have full tuition awards, health insurance and stipends to cover living expenses while studying what they love. I doubt many of them will get jobs in their fields. Does that really matter? I think only if you assume the time could have been better spent. Most of them probably couldn’t find a “real” job at present that paid more than their stipends. Several talk as though some sort of professional school school is inevitable in their future.</p>
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<p>Sure, but the most desirable, or at least the most prestigious, research jobs in biomedical science are tenure track postions at major research universities or perhaps NIH.</p>
<p>Plus, a lot of PhDs who go into pharma and biotech don’t necessarily end up in Research there either. A lot find themselves in Marketing, QA, Administration, and sometimes even Manufacturing.</p>
<p>I thought this was interesting.</p>
<p>Philosophy majors also fare well in the GRE apparently -</p>
<p>[GRE</a> Scores by Intended Graduate Major](<a href=“http://www.ncsu.edu/chass/philo/GRE%20Scores%20by%20Intended%20Graduate%20Major.htm]GRE”>http://www.ncsu.edu/chass/philo/GRE%20Scores%20by%20Intended%20Graduate%20Major.htm)</p>
<p>Of course, some things to bear in mind -</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Anecdotally only, I suspect a lot of science and engineering majors may not be native speakers.</p></li>
<li><p>The sample sizes here may be very different.</p></li>
<li><p>Philosophy is probably the most analytical of the humanities (don’t yell at me, just my impression. And I am a science/eng guy myself).</p></li>
<li><p>Obviously people are going to do best in what they concentrate on in school.</p></li>
<li><p>A high GRE does not necessarily translate to employability.</p></li>
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<p>Glad to hear that people looking at or in PhD humanities programs have plans alternative to a tenure track teaching job. I’m tenured and work with a lot of grad students. An amazing number of them are prepared to work for peanuts as adjuncts. Some secretly believe that they will somehow be the exception land a tenure track job. I try to tell them, either A) it’s not going to happen or B) if it does, will happen for a tiny percentage, and ONLY if you truly bust your butt, publish, hob-nob at conferences, do the winning-personality thing, and have REAL skills that will make you stand out and C) show that you can bring money to the University. </p>
<p>Sadly, the vast majority of grad students in the humanities who are preparing to scrape together adjunct work do not have a plan B for when they get to be, say, plus 40 years old. Mythmom works in a state where there are (it appears) unions. Not so, here in the West: consider this idea: teaching 5 classes a semester, say 125 or more students at two or more institutions with no sabbatical, no paid parental leave, not even sick pay. This is the REALITY for many. The ones who count themselves lucky get work in one institution, teaching those 5 classes a semester plus adjuncting. If your children do not already know how to write by the time they enter college, the chances that they will actually learn to do so from someone who has this kind of teaching load is quite slim.</p>
<p>This is, my friends, free market capitalism at work. Aside from the ill-effects on people’s lives, that is, as dedicated teachers try to making a living, or as employers wonder how to find employees who can write memos, think independently, research, plan out the future, consider, too, the impact on the humanities over the long term. </p>
<p>I find that there has been a dramatic decline in writing skills of the “best” undergraduate students. This is a group that I also work with. Your brilliant biomed majors, your Marshall Scholars etc. I, for one, do NOT want a doctor (primary care) who doesn’t read, has never spent significant time in another country, has never learned to communicate in a language other than English, has never considered the representation of lives beyond his or her experience, as is offered in literature, the arts. I have had both kinds of doctors and I will take the well-schooled humanist, any day: she/he will know how “read” people, and understand how to think about ethical problems that any doctor faces, day in, day out.</p>
<p>To answer the above poster who wondered if any humanities doctorates will go into secondary education and improve some of the appalling schools: the short answer, quite few. The money is going to encourage more people to enter “STEM” fields in secondary ed. Years ago, I used to get students with bio majors and the like who could write well, but that, my fellow parents, was two decades ago. </p>
<p>Of course I still write recommendations for undergrads looking to enter humanities grad school. The ones who really make me shake my head in wonder are NOT the ones going for Ph.D’s. That group at least knows that they can get work here and there, adjuncting and editing, since the PhD is a union card of sorts. No, the ones that really blow me away are those who take out LOANS to get MFAs! </p>
<p>Well, now I am going back to read the stack of thesis and dissertation drafts.</p>
<p>Would unionization make a difference?</p>
<p>Another little tangent -</p>
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<p>Any old timer MDs. Didn’t the old MCAT exam require you to know history, english, literature, stuff like that? I never took that exam, but I vaguely recall my pre-med friends studying this type of stuff back in the 70s.</p>
<p>Nothing like that nowadays. If I’m not mistaken, I think the MCAT is now basically a couple science tests and a critical reading section.</p>