Are the Humanities Dead, or Are Academic Programs Just Too Narrow?

Thanks for offering some actual ideas that might conceivably help those of us still in grad school. We’ve had quite enough doom and gloom (decades of it apparently) without anyone actually trying to do anything to make it better. I hope we’re done with that stage and we’ll now see more posts like this proposing and debating the merits of actual ideas.

Interesting ideas, but the bigger question then becomes: is a Ph.D. necessary training for alternative careers? There’s no doubt that an education in the humanities can prepare students for non-academic careers. But I’m not sure those non-academic careers require the seven-odd years of doctoral studies.

In my (not so humble) opinion (today), DAJ and others commenting on the ‘death of the humanities’ continue to miss the point, egregiously.First, the fact of the matter is that, as luther and jffoster seem to be getting at, doing a humanities PhD doesn’t necessarily provide any special skills that would make one substantially better in the vast majority of nonacademic jobs. I would add to this, by the way, that neither would a PhD in biology or physicis. Six or seven years of academic specialization surely cultivate various skills; but these skills aren’t important for most jobs. Frankly, most jobs don’t require many skills at all. They mainly require dililgent labor and learning through repetition. For most occupations, ‘job skills’ is the biggest myth running. Second, it should be noted that there is no Ivory Tower, and people should stop using the term without the deepest irony and scorn. Again, the difference between someone in a PhD program preparing for the ‘Ivory Tower’ and someone outside of the ‘Ivory Tower’ is that the former is suspending any notion of measurable economic progress while acquiring a specialized knowledge, while the latter is forgoing that suspension (and that knowlege) and putting in labor time for the 6 years during which his academic counterpart is putting in knowledge time. There are no skills being learned amid 6 years of labor time that can’t be learned in one month of labor time, frankly. The difference between what goes on in the ‘Ivory Tower’ and what goes on outside of it is a difference of impressions, not reality. This brings me to the main thing I want to say here on this matter: this is a game of impressions mroe than anything else. A humanities PhD isn’t less hirable because s/he has fewer job skills on account of spending so much time writing about representations of barbers in early modern drama; s/he’s less hirable because of the assumption that the age and doctorate make the canddiate more expensive to hire, especially while any other idiot could do the job just as well. The whole notion of ‘job skills’ is also just a matter of impressions. I’ve never worked with an ‘excellent writier and communicator,’ ‘organized,’ ‘a real self-starter.’ I don’t even know what that means anymore. And yet I’m well aware that my friend, who will finish his PhD in particle physics this year, is already being recruited by McKinsey; but we both know (we’ve talked about it) that it has nothing to do with actual skills or the content of his degree versus my unmarketable humanities degree; it’s a matter of impressions (I know as much; I used to work for McKinsey).If humanities people want to stay alive, we have to do a better job of playing the politics, plain and simple. Substantively we’re doing a pretty damn good job, considering what we have to work with. We just need to get our hands dirty. Robert Watson’s article about humanities departments being financially solvent in UCLAToday is a great example of how to begin to take on false assumptions about the marketability and capability of humanities students, including humanities PhDs. The fact is, we humanities PhDs already know how to market ourselves for other careers, and many of us have already worked in other industires. We’re in the humanities because we want to be, not becasue we’re clueless. And some of us are ready and willing to fight. Hopefully more of us will be in the near future.

Suomynona and Luther – There is a big difference between jobs that require a PhD, but not necessarily the skills developed while earning that degree, and a person who has earned a PhD because of his or her quest for understanding and love of the topic, and now he or she needs to find a job. For the former (PhD as job training), I have recommended that the humanities make better use of applied masters degrees to allow students to explore both deeper humanities content while also learning job skills that will help them find and advance in a non-academic career. In the sciences, some companies were willing to eliminate the PhD requirement for those who had graduated from a rigorous and well designed professional science masters program, especially because the PSM students tended to have more experience in management, regulatory compliance, as well as a greater degree of flexibility than did the more narrowly trained doctoral students. Perhaps better designed masters programs would inspire some employers to dial down the degree requirements a bit, and it would get all of those “job seeker” types into programs more appropriate for them. Of course, it would also help if academics didn’t treat masters students like flunkies and idiots and instead provided masters programs that are intentional in design rather than accidental (a mini-PhD rather than a stand-along program). But none of this will work as long as employers continue to require PhDs for certain positions…just because. I have serious concerns about the level of degree inflation that has taken place over the last ten years as it seems that many jobs once given to those with a bachelor’s degree now require a candidate with a doctoral degree. As more people go to college, and the quality and rigor of a college degree erodes, I am concerned that we will see even greater credential inflation just so that employers can find a way to eliminate hundreds of resumes from the stack. Or maybe the problem is that everyone in academia and a hospital wants to be called doctor. Can you say EdD? What about Doctor Pharmacist, or Doctor Physical Therapist, or my favorite…Dr. Nurse?For those students who are pursuing the doctoral degree for the right reason – because they have unquenchable thirst for the subject – perhaps we shouldn’t discourage them from advanced study, but instead find a way to allow them to incorporate some workplace experiences into their degree program, possibly by thinking more broadly about what constitutes meritorius scholarly work and a defendable thesis. Or, perhaps instead of requiring doctoral candidates to spend seven years studying, as you suggest, representations of barbers in early modern drama, thesis work could be defined in such a way that a student could get broad exposure to an array of topics rather than focusing so narrowly on a single esoteric topic just so that the thesis can be “novel.” The point is that most humanities PhD programs currently have a very narrow focus on training students for academic careers, and that serves very few students well. Sure, some will roll the dice and try for that faculty position, but others will realize mid-way through their degree program that some other career is a more likely outcome for them. By the time the student realizes this, though, he or she may have already invested so much time, energy and money that there is no good way out: either he or she drops out and faces the “disgrace” of life as an ABD, or he or she spends several more years knee-deep in minutia, just to finish what was started. Perhaps we need to provide some different choices for those who wish to study for years, but also want or need to have have some job prospects at the end of the rainbow. Remember that doctoral programs in the humanities were once the luxury of those who had family money and position, and therefore didn’t need to worry about silly things like jobs, or those who were indentured servants to the Church or a royal family, in which case their job fate was sealed. The idea of middle class people pursuing doctoral degrees is quite new, and perhaps that is the reason that we need to revamp programs to ensure that advanced education doesn’t preclude career readiness…while at the same time ensuring that advanced education does not become overly-focused career training. There are many examples of people I know who combined their humanities education with other interests to build fascinating careers (although I’ll admit that most are in the rank of ABD rather than PhD). Off of the top of my head, I can think of two bosses I had in the science policy field who were formally trained in the humanities. They knew a lot of science, too, (and knew when to ask one of the scientists on staff to make a technical decision), but they were both gifted in writing and logic, which meant that the publications that came out of our office were far better than they would have been had just the scientists been doing the writing. Their gift for writing helped bridge the gap between technical experts and everyone else. Or there are my two friends who were trained as performing artists, but one now works as a lobbyist for performing arts non-profits and the other who works in copyright law. They are pursuing careers that will advance the arts, and they still do a little performing on the side as well. And I know many people who have government jobs doing whatever, but who spend their weekends and retirments working as docents at the many museums in DC. A good docent can make a real difference for any newcomer to art, and especially to a child who is experiencing a museum for the first time. I also have two friends who have used their training in the humanities to advance their work in community health and disaster relief work, both in the U.S. and abroad. Yes, yes, I’ll admit that Washington provides more opportunities than most places for these sorts of opportunities. These are just a few anecdotal examples, but I’ll bet their are others out there with PhDs in humanities who are doing work they like – or at least can tolerate (it is, afterall, called work) – while also collecting a weekly paycheck. And while they may not be using their doctoral degree skills directly, I’m sure that most can tell you how their advanced education and training is useful to them in one way or another. As for the McKinsey job, I think the message here is that humanities students might benefit from taking a few more math classes along the way! Maybe it isn’t politics or PR that matters so much as the ability to do statistics and economic projections. Perhaps colleges were not actually helping students in the long run when they developed all of those math for poets courses.

Blowback (8) says he “would not call the post war [WWII] era ‘recent’”. I would. So would most people who’ve studied history, anthropology, or historical geology. We in fact require inclusion of some such courses in a general education curriculum in the hope that they will help young citizens attain a more mature perspective on life and culture change and of how and when the world became the way it is. It is our 18 year olds who think that their youths were what is meant by “ancient history”. And we don’t have to “assume” the GI Bill allowed many middle and working class people to pursue graduate (for that matter, baccalaureat) education — we know it did. Suggest I do that you reread dajones (7)’ 8th paragraph from the end, especially the part starting “Remember that doctoral programs in the humanities were once the luxury of those who….”. I don’t read this as an ideological statement but rather as a descriptive one.