'The Great Shame of Our Profession' How the humanities survive on exploitation

[ucbalumnus]

@Fairilina

That’s astonishing. I know that humanities jobs specified tenured are hard to find but I didn’t know it was for this reason. I ended up leaving my social science major for that reason. Choosing instead to buckle down on my biology major.

Biology also produces an oversupply of graduates relative to biology-specific jobs available to them.

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-Degrees_that_Pay_you_Back-sort.html

It is not good at the PhD level either.

https://www.nature.com/news/2011/110420/full/472276a.html

@Cyranoski

In 1973, 55% of US doctorates in the biological sciences secured tenure-track positions within six years of completing their PhDs, and only 2% were in a postdoc or other untenured academic position. By 2006, only 15% were in tenured positions six years after graduating, with 18% untenured (see ‘What shall we do about all the PhDs?’).