Is graduate school a mistake?
by Al
Today, I read the following two articles while looking at a discussion amongst graduate students online:
I’ve read the first one before but the second is fairly new and done by the same author. It makes the arguments, basically, that there are few real job prospects towards actual academic careers for graduates in the Humanities and that graduate school, itself, is very difficult, isolating, and often unhealthy as an environment. Basically, that grad school for the Humanities is a bait and switch game and you’d be better off finding another career.
I’ve thought about this before and I continue to think about this. By the time I start at GTU this Fall for their PhD program, I’ll be 38. I did my MA while working full-time because it was something that I’ve wanted to do. I will probably be able to keep working half-time while doing the work on my PhD (to keep working was advice given to me by a number of fairly recently minted PhDs in the last years). That said, by the time I graduate with my PhD, I’ll probably be at least 43 years old and more likely to be 45.
What does a 45 year old with a newly minted PhD do with it? What does this new doctor do that couldn’t be done, for the most part, with an existing MA? I basically decided this because I had been thinking about it for several years and had been wanting to get a doctorate since I was an undergraduate. I picked an area of close importance to me (Buddhism) and decided to follow that path for a doctorate but I do wonder, at times, if I’m making a horrible mistake.
I have one friend who has just been accepted to a Clinical Psychology doctoral program. Unlike a Humanities PhD, there is a pretty clear and straightforward career path for him once he graduates doing various kind of psychological work. The same goes, to a lesser degree, for the various people doing Engineering that I’ve known.
I’m fairly well paid and have a career in the tech industry. I could keep doing what I’m doing, growing in that position, for quite a while, amassing savings, paying into the 401K, etc. I have to wonder if I’m engaging in a quixotic quest at times or looking for the greener grass.
I had one friend outright ask me if this is the case and I had a hard time articulating to him why this made sense for me from any sort of financial or time investment point of view. The argument that makes the most sense has to do with my love of learning, the life of the mind, and opening up the field of my life to other possibilities as I live out the (hopefully) next four or five decades of my life.
It is definitely not a golden era for the Humanities or any of the non-sciences when it comes to the historical set of careers. It seems like people either need to carve out their own kinds of careers or settle for something other than the old tenure track professorship as a goal. Out of the PhDs that I know personally as friends and acquaintances, I cannot think of any in a tenure track position. Most serve as adjunct faculty, fairly early in their careers, teaching classes at local universities as they are offered to them.
Comments
So it’s clear – if you’re entering a humanities-based graduate program for the job prospects… just don’t do it. If you’re end goal is a sweet academic career… well, people play the lottery too (hell, SOMEone’s got to win, right? Right?).
But if you’re doing it because you love to learn, you love the subject, you’re thrilled at the prospect of dealing in ideas… if you’re doing it to enrich your life (while doing the opposite to your bank account) then I say dive in.
Let me respectfully remind you:
life & death are of supreme importance.
Time passes swiftly and opportunity is lost.
Each of us must strive to awaken.
Awaken!
Take heed, do not squander your life.
A poem by Ryokan (1758-1831):
No luck today on my mendicant rounds;
From village to village I dragged myself.
At sunset I find myself with miles of mountains between me and my hut.
The wind tears at my frail body,
And my little bowl looks so forlorn –
Yes this is my chosen path that guides me
Through disappointment and pain, cold and hunger.
Seems apt.
Al,
Please make sure that you pass this pair essays on to everyone you meet. After all, the less humanities PhDs there are in the world, the better our chances are that we’ll get that sweet tenure track job! Mwuahahahaa!
In all seriousness, though, to Dr. Benton (aka, Pannapacker of Hope College), if you’re goal in life is to get a job, why go to college at all? Why not just, uh, get a job?
Scott
Jiun, Scott, both give the same advice that I’ve given myself. I didn’t apply to the program for at least a year, after all, because I was afraid of the financial and longer term prospects. I finally decided that I wanted to do it and I’d regret not going for it later if I didn’t at least give it a go and find out what it was *really* like.
Scott, you’re one of the success stories. You may not be tenure track (yet!) but you’re actually working within Buddhist Studies with the very people that trained you. Not so bad, eh?
And it’s not like you’re an English major… you have possibilities in anthro, history, religion, etc.
Combine that with the number of Buddhist universities showing up (Naropa, IBS, Maitripa, etc.) and the fact that a number of faculty I know make some *serious* change with multiple adjunct positions with schools that offer online courses… and it doesn’t really look so bad.
… and who knows, by the time you’re done, Five Mountain Buddhist Seminary might be accredited and making enough money to actually pay someone ;-)
I still think, even with my more “Zen” position these days, that SOMEONE needs to write the English language book that really discusses Japanese mikkyo so American Buddhists can understand something about it.
Hey Al,
That’s a very reasonable way of looking at it. Possibly your best chance of actually getting an academic position is to become a known expert on something nobody else knows much about. And when it comes down to it, you can get a full-time gig doing QA whenever you want, so it’s not exactly like staring into the abyss and having it stare back at you, or something similarly dramatic. Too bad, though, as the metaphor would probably work very well in Japanese.
One friend asked me if doing all of these years in tech wasn’t in order for me to have the opportunity to do something like this…
As someone struggling to get into a grad program (doing post-bac, M.A., etc.) because I squandered my GPA in undergrad, I gotta admit, job prospects at the other end can be daunting and discouraging. That said, I’ve gotta say two encouraging things: 1) Buddhist Studies (if that’s your plan) is becoming a bit more popular in religious studies departments thereby hopefully creating job prospects, and 2) if you are a practitioner as well as an intellectual, there is always room for giving talks at dharma centers and translating texts. Grad school is aimed at training you for publishing research and teaching; certain dharma centers will encourage both.
Buddhist practitioners who are also scholars are needed for the transmission of Dharma into the “West”. If that sounds enticing, then go ahead. Also, given your background in tech, you have a healthy backup plan if all else fails. We will always need techies in the 21st century. My advice, take the plunge.
In the same boat myself, though I’ve only been out of undergrad for five years and am about to commence–if there isn’t a goddamn zombie apocalypse–on grad studies (full time, which is frightening).
I know part of my problem is personal, in that I realized that if I don’t study professionally, I’ll work 16 hours a day in a field I hate. I mean, after all, I am an American male, that’s what we’re supposed to do, be overworking jerks, and it’s what I do today.
But if i understand it does seem like the liberal arts are dying w/r/t teaching. After all, does our interconnected Technonarcissist Clean Greener Fascist Future really need to produce well-rounded people capable of critical analysis? [/rant] We’re turning into cyborgs. So spending a couple years studying the humanities seems like a losing financial proposition. Add on top of this a cyclical Crisis of Neoliberalism.
I wish I could feel otherwise.
If you can’t imagine life without doing it, then you simply must do it. If you are looking for a tenure-track or contract position in humanities the PhD is a plus but not necessary (I know from experience because I was just awarded a full time contract and am a 2006 HUX grad).
It sounds like it’s your passion … so there’s your answer.
I’ve been told it is hard to get a position with just an MA, even if you’re qualified, since there are so many people with PhDs out there. It is good to hear from another HUX graduate.