The key question involved money: Where, in a tight economy, could it be found? Tentatively, I suggested to my academic colleagues that it might be time to think more aggressively about fund raising among historians who had left academe.
There was a pause.
"Well," said one academic slowly, "I suppose we could ask nonacademics. But I just don't see cabdrivers and people like that having disposable income and giving it to a historical organization."
I was puzzled. Even as my academic counterparts made this comment, I was sitting among them, proof that nonacademic Ph.D.'s are often gainfully employed. Sure, I'd arrived at the hotel in a cab, but as a passenger.
I left academe in 2000, after four years of teaching, two in a tenure-track position and two in a visiting post. When I left, I did not know what a historian of early modern Britain could actually do in life, other than teach. Desperate, I ransacked the public library's career section. Because Susan Basalla and Maggie Debelius had not yet published their wonderful book, So What Are You Going to Do With That? Finding Careers Outside Academia, I was limited to general career books. Those books and the Internet had good advice, but no one discussed the specific problems facing Ph.D.'s who entered the nonacademic job market.
At a loss, I spent nearly a year unemployed. Being single at the time, and with no other means of support, I was incredibly terrified about my future. At one point, I heard a story on NPR about flophouses on the Bowery. That night I awoke in a cold sweat, convinced that that was my future. I can laugh about it now, but that year was, and will hopefully remain, the worst of my life, barring the one in which my father died.
A few years after I left academe, I decided to turn those experiences into something positive. I created a Web site, Beyond Academe, that offered everything I had learned about the nonacademic job market. I limited myself to providing free career advice to historians because that was what I knew.
In some ways, I sought, via my Web site, to expiate the ghosts of that awful year, but the site also reflected my very real belief that understanding history has value throughout our society, not just in academe.
To my surprise, once my site became known, I began to receive e-mails from graduate students and nonacademic Ph.D.'s who shared their own struggles and fears about leaving academe. Like me, many of them stumbled during the first months after they made the break, but the overwhelming majority ultimately found work and satisfying lives. Most of them also confessed, with a twinge of guilt, that they now earned more than their academic counterparts.
Reading their e-mails made me even more passionate about nonacademic careers. So I continued to write about the subject, drawing on my own experiences and those of other nonacademic historians. I spoke to graduate career counselors at universities. I found nonacademic Ph.D.'s everywhere simply because I now looked closely at the people I met. Best of all, I discovered the Versatile Ph.D. (formerly known as Wrk4Us), a fantastic e-mail list devoted to nonacademic careers for Ph.D.'s in the humanities.
Along the way, my view of the world broadened. I do not believe that academe is a bad place, but I know now that it is not the only place that humanities Ph.D.'s can find intellectually satisfying employment.
While I have loved learning about the staggering diversity of nonacademic careers for Ph.D.'s, I have become increasingly frustrated by academics' utter obliviousness about their nonacademic counterparts—as evidenced by the comment I mentioned above during a recent meeting of a historical organization.
Time and time again, I hear nonacademic Ph.D.'s describe the same disturbing treatment. These are fully employed public historians who have published books with leading presses and organized major museum exhibits. Yet they are routinely told to take comfort in the fact that their work will set them up for a "real" job, meaning an academic job.
Academic departments fail to list the employment of nonacademic alumni on their Web sites, even when we provide that information and, amazingly, even when the Ph.D.'s in question are university administrators, public historians, editors, translators, and federal anthropologists—people whose work, in other words, closely parallels that of their academic colleagues. Conference sessions on nonacademic careers are sparsely attended. Offers by nonacademic Ph.D.'s to speak to graduate students are rejected.
Sure there are exceptions to such stories, but far too few, especially given the extraordinary crisis facing universities. The heavy dependence on adjuncts, the tightening of budgets, the declining numbers of humanities majors—those trends are extremely alarming, particularly to anyone about to graduate with a Ph.D. in the humanities. The trends are also of great concern to those of us who love the humanities, wherever we work.
Within academe, responses to the crisis have varied. Cut admissions to graduate programs, cry some. Stop employing adjuncts, say others. Provide full financial support to all graduate students. And, finally, give this advice to undergraduates considering graduate school: Just don't go.
While it has been interesting to read those suggestions, I have been puzzled about why no one seems to have thought to speak to those of us who have left the academy. We've had to be extraordinarily creative in both how we use our education and how we approach our careers. As a result, we have insights into how, and why, graduate study in diverse fields has value, even outside of academe. We also know how to better train historians, archaeologists, linguists, and Ph.D.'s in similar disciplines so that they can find work in their fields outside of higher education.
While that will not solve the problem of the overproduction of Ph.D.'s, or of the overreliance on adjuncts in higher education, a revamping of how graduate students are trained could resolve some of the immediate and glaring problems facing Ph.D.'s. Reform could also, indirectly, transform how academics interact with their nonacademic counterparts by encouraging faculty members to better understand how their disciplines are understood and used in the broader world.
My own field of history is a case in point. The failure of graduate programs to educate historians so that they can work outside of academe has been especially egregious. History departments almost universally neglect to train their students to work in museum education, in preservation, as curators at historic sites, as federal historians or historical consultants, and even in writing for a popular audience. In fact, the more prestigious the program, the less likely a graduate student will be exposed to such professions.
Unfortunately, employers looking to hire a Ph.D. historian tend to balk when the job applicant has absolutely no experience outside of academe. Consequently, jobs with tremendous potential to transform how the American public understands history often go to people who lack extensive academic training in the subject. On the rare occasions when those jobs do go to an academically trained historian, it is because the historian—independent of her program's requirements and often unbeknownst to her adviser—held an external internship or attended courses on preservation and workshops on museum evaluation.
Given the extremely conformist nature of academic culture, where graduate students live and breathe by the word of the adviser, it is rare to find students who buck their advisers by preparing for nonacademic careers. Much more common is the Ph.D. who must scramble upon receiving his degree to educate himself on the practice of history. Only after he completes that postdoctoral education is he competitive for a job in a museum, at a historic site, in a state preservation office, in a historical consulting firm, or as an agency or corporate historian.
Not surprisingly, many academically trained historians give up when confronted with a demand that they seek additional education. They leave the historical profession altogether; they may still produce historical scholarship (and large numbers do), but their day jobs are in unrelated fields.
Yet professors remain in denial, reluctant to consider unconventional solutions or let go of the mistaken belief that real scholars never leave academe. Sadly, academics have not only failed to understand the complexities of nonacademic careers related to their own discipline, but they have also often demonstrated an unwillingness to speak to nonacademics who have developed innovative careers that draw on their graduate training. Those failures bode ill for graduate-education reforms.
To remedy that, I would like to make a suggestion. It's so obvious that I am almost embarrassed to suggest it: Invite nonacademic Ph.D.'s into the conversation on reforming graduate education. I know we are eager to participate in the discussion.
Years ago, I found active communities of nonacademic Ph.D.'s simply by using Google. But for universities, finding and maintaining ties with nonacademic Ph.D. alumni is even easier. Alumni centers, which doggedly track B.A.'s, often have contact information for their graduates with M.A.'s and Ph.D.'s. But departments can also begin to compile their own data. Routine exit interviews of graduate students will provide base-line information on where students are headed after graduation; those interviews also create a culture where alumni, especially nonacademic Ph.D.'s, see real benefits in providing information about their career trajectories. Develop and maintain a Web page for alumni about their careers. Finally, contact and work with online communities and professional organizations of nonacademic Ph.D.'s, such as the Versatile Ph.D. or the National Council on Public History.
Taking the first step toward broadening understanding of nonacademic careers really is that straightforward. The only question is whether departments are prepared to finally take it.
Comments
1. drthomson - January 12, 2011 at 09:03 am
Alexandra, your comments are insightful and right on point! I could not agree with you more. However, even though I realize the issue is accentuated at the Ph.D. level, the issue permeates academe throughout, from the bachelor's, master's, to the doctorate. Higher education institutions typically fail to realize the critical value of career development offerings at any level. Even when sparse offerings are provided to students, they could never be considered college courses carrying "academic" credit. Heaven forbid! Yet, students who are able to experience real and relevant career development throughout their college careers, whether through the rare course or extracurricular workshop, tend tobe more fulfilled in a career that matches their strengths and interests. Go figure. (My observations are based on almost 50 years in education, 15 as a college professor.)
-- D. Ross Thomson, Ph.D.
Career consultant and Speaker
Careers by Choice
www.careersseminars.com
2. campbew - January 12, 2011 at 09:40 am
Dr. Lord is "puzzled about why no one seems to have thought to speak to those of us who have left the academy." It's simple--you're too scary. If academics acknowledge that there are alternative careers available to PhD's, some of which may even be more rewarding, their own careers are devalued. So they ignore you. And since tenured faculty are not accountable to anyone but their peers, there is no one to say 'don't do that!'
wec
3. henry_adams - January 12, 2011 at 10:03 am
I appreciate this article, but campbew focuses on the real problem. Many humanities profs who have tenure at research institutions are frightened by possibilities other than the one they've succeeded at. To manage their fear, they demonize or dismiss those possibilities. And, as Professor Pannapacker noted yesterday in a comment about another column, they cut off contact with their own grad students who get jobs at teaching-oriented institutions.
Henry Adams
4. megaphone - January 12, 2011 at 10:18 am
Spot on, Lexi. This pervasive and persistent myth of the "lesser" status of nonacademic careers (because they obviously weren't "smart/good enough" to land an academic job) may have to wait for a well-respected insider (academic scholar) to write a revealing book about just this very thing. Maybe then they'd take it seriously.
-Megan
5. quidditas - January 12, 2011 at 11:31 am
"The heavy dependence on adjuncts, the tightening of budgets"
I wonder if this angle on WHY academics in the humanities won't actively inform their grad students on careers outside academe ought not be explored further. If Departments hiring adjuncts list information about where their former students are, this might help them solicit grad applications from students who hesitate before the poor academic job market, but it might also start giving their captive adjuncts "ideas."
I am 100% in favor of releasing these captives. But, that would certainly make life harder on the tenured academic administrators who have to staff their classes--and, believe me, it is always all about them. The Administration wouldn't exactly presssure them either.
Also, if they ended up attracting too many students who don't have the narrow definition of success that makes the tenured faculty's job an easy one, in which no personal intellectual growth is required of THEM, then that would be bad from their perspective as well.
Ultimately, external pressure needs to be brought to bear on them whereby they can no longer resist change just because it makes their lives a little harder at the margins.
6. quidditas - January 12, 2011 at 12:11 pm
"I would like to make a suggestion. It's so obvious that I am almost embarrassed to suggest it: Invite nonacademic Ph.D.'s into the conversation on reforming graduate education."
Here's one thing you have to understand. Tenured faculty believe that they have reached the pinnacle of success. EVERY single time they approach (or, MUCH worse, are approached BY) some other practitioner from outside the charmed circle, the tenured faculty is 100% CONVINCED that that practioner's REAL motivation is a tenure track job.
This is the explanation for all of the ritual condescension that (we all) experience when we deal with them and if they can just AVOID dealing with that barbarian at the gate, the vast majority of them will take that option every time.
I worked in publishing before enrolling in grad school and once brought a barbarian through the gates of an English Department for a talk on careers in publishing. It helped that he had already worked his way up to the top of the editorial ranks and was effectively a well-paid executive. Still, no actual FACULTY member deigned to attend this event, which was solicited of me by the non-faculty department administrator in charge of managing their graduate admissions process.
The course of his subsequent career would demonstrate clearly that there is NO POSSIBLE WAY he was interested a job in academia--indeed, he is a big donor to his alma mater-- but I've had similar administrative jobs in academic departments myself, and trust me, this is the way faculty think.
I once saw a journalist teaching classes as an adjunct--with stellar teaching evals-- who was hired into a full time non-tenure track position and who susequently quit after one semester, citing faculty condescension. The perils of actually coming into contact with the pathology growing amongst the natives, who he never had to see as an adjunct.
Not attractive.
7. quidditas - January 12, 2011 at 12:25 pm
"And, as Professor Pannapacker noted yesterday in a comment about another column, they cut off contact with their own grad students who get jobs at teaching-oriented institutions."
They're afraid that, in a few years, they'll submit their applications. Actually, I've seen this happen and those hires do smell a little funny, so maybe it's not totally nuts. But, then again, it's not helping their subsequent graduates figure out what they can actually do with their degree, as Pannapacker notes.
You gotta keep 'em separated.
8. momosgarage - January 12, 2011 at 01:00 pm
I have looked at the Beyond Academe website in the past. Yes, it is insightful for people who have NEVER worked in the private sector. However, I have found when reading the various stories of Phd holding historians who do work outside acedemia that many of them at best are only marginaly using "transferable" skills from thier 20+ years of education. In reality, most of them simply landed postions that required "graduate education" to be successful at. Essentially the jobs could have easily gone to someone with a Math or Zoology degree. Second the archivist postitions that are used as example on Beyond Academe are just as difficult to get as pulbic sector acedemic jobs, so I really can't say with confidence that someone with a history degree that can't get a tenure track position has a better chance at becoming an archivist/historian at Wells Fargo etc. Also don't even get me started on the many "editors" or "real estate analysts" stories that were featured. Not only are those job markets shrinking, these jobs can also be done by people who majored in practically anything.
In addition, like quidditas,I have also brought private sector "practitioners" back to my old departments to speak and faculty generaly seem to despise thier presence.
9. cleverclogs - January 12, 2011 at 01:12 pm
Honestly, I think most faculty are just incredibly ignorant of the world outside of academe. It's like they're children. I worked in HR before I got to grad school. I remember talking to one faculty member about career advice at the start of my program. It seemed, at the time, that she couldn't possibly understand basic economics if she thought we would all get jobs as academics. But I assumed she knew something about the specific industry of academe so I deferred to her superior knowledge. Turns out, she didn't actually have any. She was just ignorant, and so were the rest of her colleagues whom I also consulted.
I happen to think that such ignorance is willful and pretty much amounts to fraud, but that's another topic for another day.
But anyway, I imagine that's what's really scary - admitting to sheer ignorance in an industry that stakes its life on knowing all and decanting all into future generations.
10. amlord - January 12, 2011 at 01:46 pm
Actually, I am not quite as cynical as campbew and henryadams. I work closely with academics and I think there are a fair number of academics who are eager to assist their students in finding work, in or outside the academy. They may be in the minority but they are there and I hope that they will step up to address this problem. When they do so, I hope they will reach out to non-academic PhDs for assistance.
In response to momosgarage, I created BA in 2004 because there were absolutely no materials available for PhDs in history who wanted to leave academia. The site is intended simply to provide people, especially those who have never worked outside of academe, with a starting point for their nonacademic job search. I agree the site has a lot of basic advice on it---that was, to be honest, my goal when I created it. While I understand and appreciate your concerns that the site did not address your needs, I hope that you will recognize that the site can assist people simply to understand that they have not committed career suicide by obtaining a PhD in history (this was my belief when I decided to leave academia!).
Also, simply to gently correct some misstatements about the site here. One archivist is featured on the site; one editor is cited on the site; one person who works in real estate is featured. They are just a small sampling of jobs that people who have PhDs in history possess and they are just 3 profiles on the website. I don't recommend that people follow the paths of the profiles but rather that they use them as a starting point to understanding the diversity of careers which exist.
The real estate person was featured not because of the field she works in but rather to make the point that she made a stunning transition, demonstrating to a potential employer how her dissertation which dealt with the concept of public spaces could be parlayed into a position assessing and researching the use of space for a real estate organization. I don't think I would say that this person is a historian in her day to day work but I would say she uses skills she acquired as an historian in her day to day work. I would also say that while her job could probably be filled by someone who is not an historian she was able to use her background to convince employers that she possessed the skills needed for the job. For PhDs who are concerned about putting food on the table and paying rent (my concerns when I left academia!), Wendy's story illustrates that you can find work outside the academy. Period. It is not intended to suggest that historians flock en masse into real estate research.
The jobs cited which are intended for historians (i.e. corporate historian, historian for a federal agency etc.) do generally require a graduate education in history. I've reviewed applications for historian positions with the federal government, worked closely with historical consulting firms and people who work for state governments in history position---generally, the people who hold these jobs possess advanced degrees in history.
Are these jobs widespread and common? Yes and no. I have met an amazing number of public historians since leaving academia (I run BA on my own time; as I was finishing a book recently, updating the site to add more and more profiles has not really been on my radar---plus, I really did do the profiles simply to provide a starting point; as I say on the site "look for your profiles/role models").
Re: historical consulting. The stimulus money has triggered an extremely high number of projects which must undergo Section 106 review. These reviews generally require an historian. But this is information which many academics are unaware of and that is unfortunate in my book. Again, I don't think this will solve the overproduction of historians by any means (there are no easy answers) but it may, for an individual, provide them with an income.
That said, BA is not a perfect solution. Far from it! In fact, I wrote this piece b/c I would really like organizations which have funding and staff to address some of these problems. And I think that they can begin to think about these problems by speaking to the people I have met since leaving academia. The many non-academic PhDs I have met are incredibly savvy and have fantastic ideas about how to begin reforming graduate education so that students are not left high and dry---and unemployed---at the end.
11. mlynn32 - January 12, 2011 at 01:53 pm
Dr. Lord has offered sage advice for Ph.D.s and grad programs. At a time when historians in particular, and the humanities more generally, need to articularly clearly our value to people apt to regard our work as useless, it behooves us to make sure our students are trained to operate both within academic institutions and with a broader constituency. Learning how to write and speak to a general audience, work at non-academic institutions, and foster fruitful relationships between the academic and non-academic world should all have value to both students and graduate institutions. This is perhaps especially the case for those institutions that measure their success in terms of their ability to exert influence on the culture of the day. Now more than ever, the general attitude toward history is forged outside the control of academic historians. Graduate institutions should want their alums in charge of the History Channel, running museums, and producing popular books.
12. momosgarage - January 12, 2011 at 02:43 pm
amlord, I hope this doesn't de-evolve into a "tid for tat" issue, but let me clarify a little. As you stated
"One archivist is featured on the site; one editor"
I am not going to go back and count every bio, but lets be fair to one another, a big chunk of the poeple interviewed may not have the "job title" of "archivist" or "editor", but by reading thier stories you can clearly see they are doing the job function of "archivist" or "editor". I guess it could come down to a matter of opinion and interpretation, but as I read their stories I clearly saw a pattern in their job functions. Titles mean nothing today.
As for a nother statement you made:
"The stimulus money has triggered an extremely high number of projects which must undergo Section 106 review"
I work in this industry (albiet on a later part of the larger projects that require such reviews). The pool of the folks doing these jobs is so small I know 90% of the ones in my state, at a minimum of an acquaintance level. This fields is VERY difficult to get a started in and the folks getting the projects from such funding have been doing it since the 70's and 80's. Not to mention most proposals for this type of work can barely sustain a single full employee for the duration of the project. Which in the grand scheme of things opens up a myriad of other entry problems to people with no work experience in the industry. Even then many times these folks are subs to the big boys, if they aready don't work for them in deparments comprising of no more than 3 people. Just because you heard about stimulus jobs, doesn't mean you understand how the contracts are awarded and how the projects are billed (i.e. bringing in enough jobs to pay somebody's a salary)
13. momosgarage - January 12, 2011 at 05:46 pm
As you stated:
"These reviews generally require an historian. But this is information which many academics are unaware of and that is unfortunate in my book"
Not so fast, yes having an historian on staff is a good idea and sometime is suggested as a "team member". The reality is most of these "Section 106 reviews" are lead by a licensed architect, RPA registred archaeologists (that meets the federal education requirements) and other times lead by licensed Engineers or Planners.
Why?
Because of NEPA and CEQA. Historians generally can't do full EIR's and can't sign drawings, which section 106 is a small part of when the whole project is taken into account. These projects in reality belong to and are run by licensed architects with the historians being mere "ad ons". In most cases an architect that specializes in historic preservation work can do section 106 work without a historian and if needed will sub an archaeologists in a pinch. I don't want to rain on history majors day, but some industries are filled with folks that have advanced degrees from other disciplines that can do the exact same work and meet federal requirements. I would argue that in todays work environment with people in companies wearing many hats (at least in the sector I work in), the historians are not nessassary. If you haven't seen how SOQ's or IDIQ's are submited and reviewed to the Federal government, then I would suggest you not cite things like "section 106 reviews" being some untapped source of work. They are not, especially for someone without thier foot in the door. The bullpin is packed already for this kind of work and won't be empty for quite some time.
14. perspolis - January 12, 2011 at 06:06 pm
Well, this was certainly an interesting piece, though contained too many inaccuracies and assumptions. Do graduate schools need to prepare more graduates for work outside of academe? Absolutely yes. Is the answer a PhD degree? Mostly NO.
A PhD, by definition, is a 'research' degree. To the extent such research preparation can be applicable to fields outside of academe, yes a PhD can be utilized effectively. But that research preparation is what most graduate programs already do. I presume one could make an argument for a different type of doctorate degree; perhaps a more practice-oriented approach (e.g. JD, MD, and yes even EdD). Please hold the objections, there IS a huge difference between a PhD and other doctorates.
On the other hand, many of the careers discussed here truly don't need a doctorate degree of any kind. Just because there has been an over-production of these degrees, many employers may now expect them of all new candidates, however unjustified. And yes the profileration of such degrees from the new crop of institutions seemingly 'popping out' overnight in many places doesn't help the market value of the degree; whether in or out of academe.
So, while the problems raised are indeed real, the solutions suggested fall far short of resolving the difficulties. Why ask for a PhD when an MA or even a BA is perfectly adequate? If truly needed, why not introduce practice-oriented doctorates in these fields?
15. 11161452 - January 12, 2011 at 07:01 pm
from persepolis:
"On the other hand, many of the careers discussed here truly don't need a doctorate degree of any kind. Just because there has been an over-production of these degrees, many employers may now expect them of all new candidates, however unjustified."
*****
I am a former arts professor who is trying to break into university staff jobs. I wish more employers DID "expect" a doctorate, because I have one, and I am quite sure I am viewed with suspicion because I have more degrees than the job requires. I have gotten as far as runner-up in the interview process, but ultimately, the doctorate scares them away. It's pretty demoralizing when those degrees for which I worked so hard are now held against me in a market where I compete with (and lose out to) people with a bachelor's degree.
16. anon1972 - January 12, 2011 at 10:43 pm
In my department, we are fully aware of the economics ofthe situation, and delighted when our PhDs get jobs outside academe that they are happy with. Also delighted to welcome PhD students who have their sights set, ultimately, on a career other than the professoriate. The problem isn't the "lazy/naive/incompetent tenured faculty" who, it seems, are made to serve as the whipping-boy in every Chronicale comments section; it's the Administration. THEY want us to admit only future professors, and and consider "failures" those do not land academic jobs, preferably tenure-track ones. THEY judge us -- as a department, and as a faculty -- on our "placement" of students into those jobs. So don't blame the faculty, please. We just want our students to succeed on their own terms. We don't, unfortunately, make the rules for the University -- or for our own graduate admissions, or how the success of our program is assessed by the higher-ups.
17. davi2665 - January 13, 2011 at 11:27 am
I don't see much advocacy for the graduate students. Even in the sciences (especiallly biomedical)we have allowed the academic faculty run the show, despite the fact that they have irresolvable conflicts of interest in the establishment of the rules of the road for graduate education. Many programs offer graduate students a few survey courses (mainly molecular biology for biomed), strongly discourage them from taking more broadly-based medical school courses, require them to take numerous time-consuming "laboratory rotations" to find a laboratory that will fund their subsequent graduate study, and then get them into the dissertation mill in that laboratory as quickly as possible. This places the financial burden on the researcher who heads the dissertation project.
The graduate student then will spend many years laboring in the laboratory of the mentor, often times running most of the show while the mentor is on the traveling research road show engaged in biopolitics (especially in the "elite" universities). The longer the stay for the graduate student, the better for the mentor whose laboratory continues to grind out research as an astonishingly low cost (as opposed to hiring "research professors" or perpetual postdocs). Why would these academic professors every want to reform graduate education when it plays into their own career building? The fact that many graduate students leave a Ph.D. program with an education 1 cm wide and 100 km deep helps the professor's laboratory achieve the next grant, but does nothing for the graduate student's future. I have seen graduates of some neurosciences programs whose breadth of knowledge is significantly less than an average first year medical student. Many such graduate students do not go outside of academia because they have few or no marketable skills other than to perpetuate the highly skewed system under which they were educated.
Reform of graduate education is one endeavor where academic professors should have some input, but so should students, non-academic Ph.D.s, administrators, and broadly-based scientifically literate members of the community. This would allow REAL reform that would be in the best interest of the future needs of society rather than personal nest-feathering of nobel-striving biopolitical academic researchers.
18. notsurprised - January 13, 2011 at 06:51 pm
I see there's a lot of fear and loathing in the comments thread. Well, as one of the tenured pricks that perpetuate the system at my elite Ph.D. humanities dept., I guess I should say a few words.
I can think of a few different problems with helping grad students get a job outside of the academy. The biggest, **by far**, is that none of them want that. These people have drunk the koolaid and they are obsessed with getting a job. They will take any adjuncting position, for any money, anywhere in the country, no matter how uncertain or exploitative it is. When I counsel them that I think it's a bad idea in the long run, that they'll end up 35 and unmarried, no kids, no savings, and probably no tenure track job, they just don't want to hear it. And that makes me the bad guy in their minds. This is true in at least 5 cases that I can think of over the last 5 years.
The second problem is, it's not in my job description to help people find jobs that aren't in my field -- and i really don't know what i would do if it were. I am paid to train them for an academic job. If they don't take an academic job--for whatever reason--I really don't know what I could do to help them even if I wanted to. I don't have extensive contacts at corporations, I don't have any influence over them even if I did have contacts, and -- and this will get some readers mad at me -- it's true in my experience that some of those who don't get jobs in academics ***in my field*** tend to have personalities that are, let us say, a little different. Add to this, these students have tended to be a little weaker in my classes. So they often aren't really the ones I feel personally inclined to go out of my way to help.
It is *definitely* not true that all of those who leave the academy for regular jobs are failures or weird or anything else. Many are regular people. Hell, I admire many of them and often think of testing the waters myself. But before anyone goes crazy and rants at me, consider whether my first point is true, that it's 99% the students' eagerness to take academy jobs, and not my own malice, that is preventing them from exploring other options.
19. momosgarage - January 13, 2011 at 08:04 pm
notsurprised, I agree with your assessment. However it overlooks the issue of "non traditional" working professionals that can use the Phd outside of academia who are shunned when they inquire about doctorate programs. Of course they couldn't do an R-1 program or even a some good second tier program part-time, but there are plenty of lower end 2nd, 3rd and 4th tier Phd programs that simply will not compromise the "type" of student that enters or offer any flexibility in "how" the program is finished (as stated to some extent by davi2665). So at the end of the day most people getting Phd's are exactly as you describe. So maybe the biggest real problems are with the selection of canidates, pressure from administration to produce more professors rather than practitioners and limited flexibility in deviating from traditional course requirements. Which in the end leads to nothing more than unemployable Phd holders.
20. amlord - January 14, 2011 at 12:41 pm
I am actually a federal historian who works in preservation (the fed ethics officer has not cleared me for providing more information here but you can read my bio on BA where the information has been cleared).
In working for the feds, I have seen what historians do and do not do (and I also know what happens when some projects do not include a historian). The public historians whom I have met have seized small opportunities to build a resume and have then moved on with diverse skills. People who use unusual situations and opportunities to build a resume are generally those who have fewer difficulties finding work when leaving the academy.
I raise consulting/106 simply to show that the world shifts constantly and opportunities arise at different places. Some people will pursue this and not succeed but I would encourage anyone considering leaving academia to look at any and all opportunities, whether small or not.
As I review job applications for federal positions and discover that the brilliant PhD from Yale has no knowledge of preservation and is therefore not a viable candidate for a job, I feel frustrated. This is why I urge places like Yale (and other universities---I am not being elitist) to encourage students to be more faceted. Replace the 12th adjunct position with a small job at a consulting firm (replace with any other type of work) and I (and other employers) may actually be able to hire that brilliant scholar for a full-time job. When creating Beyond Academe, I was impressed by the people who did these incredibly smart small jobs en route to their careers.
In the last few years, there has been a great deal of discussion about graduate education reform. A key mantra has been: just don't go. While I find that idea provocative, the sad truth is: they went (and they are still going). Despite pleas to limit the number of PhDs, this has been a growth industry, with new PhD programs being constantly developed and growing numbers of PhDs being pumped out by universities. I am deeply concerned about the graduates of these programs. BA may, or may not, assist them (it does provide fairly basic advice but in my experience, this has been what many people need). Again, not a perfect solution but I believe that graduate students and PhDs who are in this position need something.
Regarding BA's profiles, while people may believe that working at a think tank or working as a university administrator or elsewhere is about editing and archival work, the people whom I interviewed were fairly clear about what their work involved and did not involve. I defer to them as the experts. For myself, having been a federal historian for 10 years, I am always nonplussed when academics tell me what my job is about.
In my experience, federal historians do such things as brief high-ranking officials and congressional legislators on historical research they have conducted at the behest of these officials. This research is used to inform policy and legislative decisions. In my previous position as a federal historian for an agency, this was what I did (my current job is different---which I think indicates that there is a lot of diversity in this type of work). The federal historians whom I have met have, in general, strong academic credentials (their PhDs are from Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, Wisconsin, UNC etc. and they have usually published praised academic monographs). While teaching 18 year old non-majors presents its own challenges, conducting research for the Office of the Secretary of a federal department also brings its own intellectual challenges. Personally, I feel scholars doing this work should be among our nation's best.
Obviously, there are too few public history jobs to provide an answer to the many PhDs who are being produced and I do not regard these positions as an answer to the overproduction of PhDs in any way shape or form. However, for some individuals, this may be a viable path---but currently too few PhDs are qualified to obtain these types of jobs.
There are no easy solutions to the overproduction of PhDs and inviting a non-academic PhD to do a workshop or speak to students will not solve this problem. Frankly, I've been the non-academic speaker who has used her vacation time to speak at a conference and/or university and I know how difficult and discouraging it can be when faculty do not come to the talk, albeit from a very, very different perspective.
I am thrilled that some departments are, indeed, inviting non-academics to speak and doing workshops to assist graduate students to become more faceted. Unfortunately, this is not the norm.
None of the ideas I (or any of my fellow non-academic PhDs) raise are a panacea---nor are sites like the Versatile PhD or Beyond Academe. But in the absence of anything better, they may serve as a starting point for discussing the problem, which is what PhDs can do when they cannot obtain---or do not want---an academic job. Assisting these PhDs is my goal, both b/c of my own experiences and b/c I frequently receive emails from PhDs who are desperate (if faculty read the emails in Beyond Academe's inbox, I cannot help but think that the creation of new PhD programs would slow and departments would admit fewer students and provide them with a more realistic understanding of what they can and should expect upon graduation---altho' I do understand and acknowledge that many graduate students do not want to hear about alternative careers).
I'd be happy to speak with you, momsogarage, regarding your specific ideas about addressing this problem. Please email me at beyondacademe@yahoo.com so that we can speak directly and with both of us identifying who we are and where we are coming from. Ilook for concrete suggestions to improve BA all the time but I find it most helpful when I know to whom I am speaking and the origin of their concerns.
In fact, I would encourage anyone who has concerns about BA to contact me directly. Altho' I run the site as a volunteer activity, I do try to answer emails and I have benefitted tremendously from the many amazing people who have provided concrete and real suggestions from improving the site.
Lexi Lord
21. warmaiden - January 15, 2011 at 05:20 pm
Library science degree holders have felt this crunch for a long time, and happily, our graduate schools have embraced a "using teh degree outside the library" philosophy (and librarians are, to a large degree, involved in archives and museums). I did find it interesting that you mention archives - in most academic institutions, the university archivist is a librarian, whcih requires (in addition to a knowledge of history), an MLS with a focus on archival training. I wasnt aware that history departments had effective archival training programs as well.
In any case, I don't know all that many humanities advanced degree programs that provide focus on jobs outside of the academy - the students interested in jobs outside of academia generally leverage their undergraduate degrees and a professional masters (if any) to get what they want. Those accepted into PhD programs are there largely because they *want* to work in academia...they just refuse to acknowledge that it's not likely they'll get a coveted spot.
22. townsend_harris - January 16, 2011 at 10:45 am
"the conversation on reforming graduate education"
With apologies to Marc Bousquet if I've munged his thinking, there will be *no* demand for reform from graduate program faculty: doctoral education works exactly the way they want it, and PhD holders are a waste product.