Humanities grad school -- "don't do it"

Parents Forum
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The market is much, much worse now than 25 years ago.</p>

<p>Interesting anecdote from idad (post #12), but I wonder how many humanities PhD’s have any interest in investment banking. There are also quite a few physics/engineering PhD’s who ended up on Wall St., though that was not their original goal.</p>

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Where does this myth come from? I have never met a science/math/engineering grad who doesn’t think critically. Most good high schools have no trouble turning out students who know how to think critically; it’s really not a rare skill.</p>

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<p>or to have grad programs quit admitting students for whom there will realistically be no jobs? which would (am I mistaken?) lead to the elimination of many grad programs so that, in some places, tenured faculty would only teach undergrads, perhaps leading to the elimination of many adjunct positions since there would be fewer teachers needed. </p>

<p>I support the union idea, but don’t see a real way out of the problem of oversupply. Do you?</p>

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<p>^^anneroku, as I said, it has been MY experience. Obviously, it is a limited experience, but it seems to me as though math/science/etc majors today merely know how to do only what their teachers tell them, rather than be innovative. Again, MY experience as I explicitly said.</p>

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<p>“Most good high schools have no trouble turning out students who know how to think critically; it’s really not a rare skill.”</p>

<p>From what I saw as a college professor, and from what I’ve seen on many Internet boards, critical thinking is indeed a rare skill.</p>

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<p>What? And give up grad student “slave labor”?? Never!</p>

<p>I was a Ph.D. student in the humanities at a top 10 private university in the 90s (yes, I was an “old” grad student!!) when the job market was abysmal. There was a very tense meeting between the grad students and faculty in our department when it bcame abudantly clear that many of us would never get tenure-track jobs (or, even worse, if you listened to faculty, get jobs at non-elite universities.) The question was asked . . . are you (faculty) going to cut the number of incoming grad students? The answer was a resounding no. The faculty needed us to teach and to grade. End of discussion.</p>

<p>And, alas, I have a number of very talented grad school friends who never did get a teaching job. Most found other work (some are now happy that they didn’t get a teaching job because they love what they’re doing - but it was VERY painful while they were looking for teaching jobs and going through the transition to different kinds of work.)</p>

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<p>romanigypsyeyes, my experience has been the opposite. I also don’t buy into this false split between “science or humanities people”, though I know it is a popular belief in this country. Every math/science professor and student I know is well read and has a strong interest and or/participation in the arts. These fields are not mutually exclusive. My own educational background is arts/humanities, but I would argue that it takes plenty of creativity and critical thinking to design airplanes, cell phones, and computers.</p>

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<p>Ok, that is your experience. I’m not trying to argue with you, I was giving my own experience.</p>

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<p>Um, my dad, a top level business exec, hired English folk too. He thought communications skills the most important skill set. His major? Statistics. He was, however, an incredibly gifted writer.</p>

<p>I am not going to argue for greater ability in one area or another. There are brilliant, brilliant people in every discipline, tunnel focused work folk in every discipline, and dumb dunderheads in every discipline.</p>

<p>I have been the butt (I and my cohort, not I personally) at many parties at which the physicists talked about how stupid I am. (I have the great/mis fortune of living very near Brookhaven National Labs and being in social situations with many its staff.)</p>

<p>The point they made was that any fool can appreciate Shakespeare but it takes a genius to do their math. Hm.</p>

<p>I will say that I was a very capable math/science student, which is something I bring to the Humanities. I do think it very helpful for what I teach.</p>

<p>Whoever countered my post by saying that things have changed since I was advised against going into the Humanities, the point remains that if I’d listened I’d have missed my life.</p>

<p>More worrisome to me is how little influence the Humanities have in public life, if we consider their ultimate goal is in making us more humane. This is the fault of the Humanities since my discipline has shifted into something much more jargon filled and “technical” than I think it should be. To me, the goal of the Humanities is to create a more insightful “common reader”, rather than an anal specialist who can manipulate the trendiest new theory.</p>

<p>At its best, the Humanities hopes to be a library for the collective artistic and literary insights of our race. Someone has to preserve them.</p>

<p>I don’t think we want Latin and Greek to die so that no one living can read them. Or Sanskrit or hieroglyphics. Or Shakespeare. We don’t want a world in which everyone (and not just my CC students) ask for “an English translation of Shakespeare.”</p>

<p>Someone has to dedicate herself to this. To know in advance that there are not enough paying jobs to go around is fine. There are not enough paying gigs to be Willy Loman either. I’m glad that Dustin Hoffman tried, anyway, because my life was very enriched by his performance, as I’m sure his was.</p>

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<p>I’m really glad to see the general tone of the responses to the original article. I read the article and it’s interesting but I don’t know… I’m of the opinion that an education is never a waste. I think that avoiding the real world is a perfectly acceptable reason to be in graduate school and there is something to be said for chasing a dream.</p>

<p>If after you finish your degree you decide not to pursue academics then there are other jobs. Finding one’s niche takes time and any graduate degree might be an important part of that journey.</p>

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<p>I wonder if in general, getting humanities and arts doctorates and MFAs will become retirement pursuits. I actually know some women who were ages 60-70 who did just that for the pure pleasure of learning, not because they had any plans of using their degrees to get jobs.</p>

<p>I wouldn’t mind getting an MFA in theater – after S graduates from college. :)</p>

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I generally agree, but I am alarmed when I hear that someone is considering taking out loans for an MFA or PhD. It’s fine to go if you’re fully-funded and understand the odds. It’s very unadvisable to go into debt.</p>

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<p>This thread, along with the similar thread for mid-life career changers in the Parent’s Cafe, has been sober reading for me, to say the least.</p>

<p>D2, a high school senior, has consistently been passionate about reading literature and creative writing going back to elementary school. She’s been looking forward to pursuing her studies in this area on a more challenging level in college. Her career goal has been–yes–to work toward a PhD in English and teach at the college level. Granted, there are other subject areas that have increasingly piqued her interest, as well, such as psychology, neuroscience and education. I also am aware of how often a student’s major can change midway through college. FWIW, she’s also seriously considering double majoring in English and possibly one of the other subjects that she’s interested in. </p>

<p>D is already aware that she would face a pretty steep uphill challenge in pursuing a career in academia, both in the number of years needed to complete her education, as well as the limited job prospects. When she’s discussed possibly pursuing studies in the sciences instead, as a practical matter, with her friends, the general response she gets is that that would be “selling out” and she would ultimately regret not pursuing her real passion, which would be English and Creative Writing. I have always strongly emphasized to my kids how critical it is to build a career in a field that is truly fulfilling to each of them(including encouraging her love of literature and writing, along with her career plans), and not just the “hot” career of a particular era. ( OTOH I have advised D that if she does subsequently decide to pursue a more science-oriented career then she should, as long as the change was driven by a genuine interest and passion for the new area and not solely by career expediency. ) I have to admit, there is a nagging worry that I haven’t emphasized the “practical” side of things enough (although my H definitely has been trying to encourage D to study more “lucrative” fields, such as business and/or law) and I could possibly be setting D up for frustration and a lot wasted years? :(</p>

<p>Sorry if I’m rambling, here. This has been a frequent topic of discussion in our home and this thread definitely touched a nerve.</p>

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<p>I had a similar thought, not about retirement exactly, but rather about a second career. I like the idea of making money for twenty-five years or so, then semi-retiring into the “life of the mind” with no illusions about the money, and hopefully less need for it, too. And I like the idea of older adults becoming “sages” after they’ve had plenty of real-life experiences. Not to disparage all the fine young teachers out there, but I think a 50-year-old philosopher has more credibility than a 28-year old.</p>

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<p>I shared this with my daughter last night (recent English-major BA, the kind of person one would expect to apply to PhD programs but decided not to for the moment, now teaching high school English in the Bronx under the auspices of Teach For America and getting an MEd). Her reaction was pretty much the same as alh’s: Nothing new here. No one I know in grad school expects a reward for it, they are just doing something they love, getting subsistence pay and health insurance for it, and putting off real life a little longer. In the current climate, it’s not a bad gig.</p>

<p>I have always thought of the early 80s as The Slaughter of the Innocents in this regard. Forget grad students – maybe half of the junior faculty who taught me at The World’s Greatest University (no, the other one) followed me into law school. I read a bunch of their resumes in a later job – my Intro to Philosophy professor, my Micro professor . . . . Of all the people I knew in my cohort who went to grad school in English or Comp Lit, only one has had a career in the field, and he was far from the most gifted. (I will say, however, that all of my English/Comp Lit TAs have had very successful academic careers.) My cousin who had a tenure track appointment at Princeton spent three years looking for his next job, and was in the process of taking community college computer programming courses to retool himself when he finally found one, teaching freshman composition to ag school kids at a third-tier state college in the rural Midwest.</p>

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<p>There are people who love what they do for a living. Then there are people who choose a career and then gripe that it doesn’t pay enough. I meet few people who belong to both groups.</p>

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<p>The problem seems to be that there are very few encouragements left to folks whose natural gifts bend toward language, not numbers.</p>

<p>My D is getting similar disincentives for her plan of enrolling in law school in September (graduate in American Studies/with emphasis on Law and Literature, thesis on lynching or vigilante justice.) She has wanted to be a lawyer since she was 4; she does not this this as a “practical career” but as the fulfillment of a passion.</p>

<p>If I tell her to forget grad school (her advisor really wanted her to go because she quite accidentally stumbled on a very fruitful area of research not referenced in this post) and law school where should I send her?</p>

<p>JHS: Your daughter really sounds grounded with a good head on her shoulders.</p>

<p>And for some, a 3rd tier in the midwest would be heaven.</p>

<p>I was very flattered by the attentions of a young PhD at Starbucks one day. It’s always nice to know one’s epitaph has not yet been written. I was not interested in his interest beyond that, but I was interested in discovering he had been trying to secure a full-time tenured teaching job for five years. Hm. That interested me, so I helped him rewrite his vita and his application letters and he got offered three jobs. One was to a Latino population in Texas, all disadvantaged kids. He was thrilled.</p>

<p>His vita and cover letter were fairly easy fixes; I say a pox on his department (Comp Lit.) He claimed his work had been completely vetted.</p>

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<p>I am skeptical of claims that humanities majors automatically think more critically than science majors. However, your statement goes rather too far in the other direction. How many math/science students do you know? I go to a math/science HS, so I know a lot. A surprising number of them participate in the arts but dislike the humanities; they’re not really that similar. MOST of said math/science friends are not very well-read and will freely admit it; they don’t have the time, nor see the benefit or pleasure, in leisure reading.</p>

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<p>This article isn’t all that different from the kind of thing I was told when I was in college, 35 years ago!</p>

<p>I made the mistake of listening, and going to law school.</p>

<p>I hope my son doesn’t make the same mistake.</p>

<p>After all, there are a whole lot of unemployed law school graduates these days!</p>

<p>Besides, if my son ends up with a Ph.D. in art history, and doesn’t find a teaching job he likes, he can always become one of those young, gay, art dealers who’s adored by all the elderly women on the Upper East Side who need someone to flatter them, and advise them on what to buy, right?</p>

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<p>Damned straight! Oops! Not what I meant. I’m with you, Donna. Follow your bliss.</p>

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<p>Keilexandra, I’m a parent. Between my college classmates, my professor husband and his colleagues and students, and my children and their classmates, the number of math/science students and adults I have known is well into the hundreds. And I can’t think of a single exception to my statement.</p>

<p>Now, many of these people are foreigners from countries where there is no assumption that an interest in math/science makes you “nerdy” or disinterested in the humanities. I would agree that a large number participate in the arts. At my kids’ college, the performance majors in the highly ranked music department are often displaced by the many engineering majors who successfully audition.</p>

<p>I have never observed the science/humanities divide that exists in the popular imagination. You seem to feel there is a further divide between the arts and the humanities, and that science/math people particularly dislike reading. I’d have to disagree with that.</p>