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[fiona]

"Thomas H. Benton"'s latest column is a very clear refutation of the myth that everyone in the humanities has been hearing for years: that there will be jobs opening, with lots of opportunities.

It's not true, and it's never been true.

This article should be shared with our grad students, and with the job hunters on the fora here. It's very honest, and it gives a realistic picture for newbies who may be blaming themselves if they don't get jobs.

The Fiona

http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2007/09/2007090401c/careers.html

[qrypt]

I figured this one out a few years ago - rather too late to reconsider graduate school, and after all I'm one of the lucky ones.  But: on the strength of the insight, I have done substantially less than my share of supervising PhD students in my dept. - it seems wholly irresponsible to encourage people into thinking that they can have the life I have. 

And after all, why would I want to add to the competition for my job? 

[tenured_feminist]

Seems to me that the picture is a bit rosier than it was in the social sciences. But what that means is that broadly defined searches at state R1s are fielding more like 100 applications rather than the 150-200 that were common in the mid-late 1990s.

Then there's the herd mentality whereby programs and departments all over the country chase the same 6-10 students from top programs with sexy dissertation topics and famous advisors who swear that they walk on water.

This means that a student from schools like the ones I've worked at has to be really hungry, aggressive, and flexible to get a job. I agree -- Benton's column should be required reading for all who aspire to doctoral level graduate school, and prospective students should ask hard questions about placement rates before heading off to one of those bright, fancy Ph.D. mills that admits 30-40 students a year and places 6-7 in the same year. Nice to see those pics of successful grads on the department website, but if a program's washing out half and more than half of those who remain aren't getting jobs, it's probably not a good choice no matter how smart you are.

[daniel_von_flanagan]

These predictions about the job market did not take into account (a) the increasing age at which professors are retiring, (b) the drastic post-dotcom blowout that hacked away at state coffers and so changed the pattern of university growth, and (c) the increase in students that such predictions led to (often indirectly, ie faculty and programs ignoring bad job markets because of imagined future).  Well, that's the nature of predictions.

That said, in many fields (including mine) the job market is very substantially better than it was in 1990 (the PhD/job ratio in my field is a fraction what it was, though still greater than 1), and all the faculty that the predictions assumed would retire at 65 are now 75 and really truly going to vacate their positions very soon now.  My department is much weaker than the top-tier department from which I earned my doctorate, yet our recent students are landing tt positions which my classmates and I could only dream about.  10 years ago I was advising all our undergraduates - including the ones who were passionate about the field - to consider a change to something more marketable.  Nowadays I encourage the very best students to go to grad school - hesitantly, but without guilt. - DvF

[larryc]

Thanks Fiona. I printed out two copies for a meeting tomorrow with two bright students who want to talk about grad school.

[jonesey]

This, I feel, says it all:

"What kind of an idiot spends 10 years training in a field for which there is no demand? Or writing a book that no one will read? Why would we want to hire a person with no common sense?"

So true.

That said, for any of you under the age of 42, the Army will be happy to take you and pay off up to $65K in your student loans. 

Just sayin'

[onion]

This, I feel, says it all:

"What kind of an idiot spends 10 years training in a field for which there is no demand? Or writing a book that no one will read? Why would we want to hire a person with no common sense?"

So true.

That said, for any of you under the age of 42, the Army will be happy to take you and pay off up to $65K in your student loans. 

Just sayin'

Given the climate at my current job, this doesn't sound like a bad option.  But what would I do with my "trailing spouse" if I were deployed?

[jonesey]

This, I feel, says it all:

"What kind of an idiot spends 10 years training in a field for which there is no demand? Or writing a book that no one will read? Why would we want to hire a person with no common sense?"

So true.

That said, for any of you under the age of 42, the Army will be happy to take you and pay off up to $65K in your student loans. 

Just sayin'

Given the climate at my current job, this doesn't sound like a bad option.  But what would I do with my "trailing spouse" if I were deployed?

Base housing.  : )

Depending on where you're stationed, she could, fairly easily, get a job adjuncting or at a local business.  Not so easy if you get sent to, oh, Alaska or (beautiful) Ft. Polk, LA.  Not to difficult if you go to Ft. Carson, CO (near Colorado Springs). 

[skeptic]

Thanks Fiona. I printed out two copies for a meeting tomorrow with two bright students who want to talk about grad school.

Really?  Is this the message we want to send to prospective grad students?  I'm all for sharing Benton's argument (and other information about the realities of the market) with such students, but I'd argue that his essay, in indiluted form, distorts the situation.

Benton, who PhDed at one of the nation's most elite universities, writes that "Most of the people I knew in graduate school have disappeared, even from Google."  My experiences have been different.  I received my PhD (in American literature, Benton's field as well) from possibly one of the least prestigious universities that grants doctoral degrees (unless the degree is in an agriculture-related science field).  A good three-quarters of all of my grad-school cohorts, I'm happy to say, are now in tenure-track positions.  I guess that doesn't count a few who didn't finish the program, but other than them I can't think of a single person who struck out altogether on the market.  (I just looked at a website from the grad program that tracks where people ended up, and counted at least 17 now-tenure-track people among those I overlapped with in the program.)

Many of us have accepted positions at non-prestigious teaching-oriented colleges and universities, and one or two I think ended up at a community college.  In my case, I received two job offers when I went on the market, both at places with little prestige, high (4-4) teaching loads, in what most people would consider geographically undesirable locations.  I went to work for an institution much like my own undergraduate university, an open-admissions college.  But guess what?  Along with my share of problem students (which I bet are universally encountered), I have the opportunity to influence the lives of many more intelligent and hardworking ones, including numerous very bright people who didn't choose to matriculate at an elite college for various reasons.

My point, I guess, is that I'm glad I didn't read an essay like Benton's before deciding whether to pursue grad school.  Granted, you need to be realistic with students--it seems like I'm constantly having "the talk" about academic market realities with undergraduates, most of whom have already heard it, and many of whom are insistent on taking their chances anyway.  (If so, I try at least to steer them in the direction of rhet/comp, where there really are some jobs--at least, we and other schools seem to have difficulty hiring in that field.)

Benton's a hard-core cynic.  What he says needs to be listened to, but I certainly wouldn't put it forward as the only perspective on reality.

[jonesey]

If I'd known what the job-market situation was like, I would have gone to law school instead of getting my MFA.  I thought that, at the very least, I could walk into a community college and get a TT job with no problem. 

Oops.  : )

Still, I've got a FT job, albiet at a school with no tenure system (yearly contract) and pretty low pay (under $40k/year starting) but I'm still one of only a small few of the people I graduated with who have a FT teaching position. 

Yes, I know; MFA, still, I didn't hear anything about how difficult it was to teach until I was already in grad school, when a professor actually said that he hoped none of us was in school with the hopes of teaching afterwards because a) the job market is exceptionally bleak and b) an MFA is just about the worst degree to get if one wants to land a TT job.

It would have been nice to know this before I spent my $20,000.

[sibyl]

Really?  Is this the message we want to send to prospective grad students?  I'm all for sharing Benton's argument (and other information about the realities of the market) with such students, but I'd argue that his essay, in indiluted form, distorts the situation.

Sure.  But it's also a distortion to give students the opposite message in undiluted form.  And it's still more common to find new or soon-to-be Ph.D.s on these boards saying, Why didn't anyone tell me about the cruelties of the market?  So I suspect that Benton's message is less prevalent than its opposite.

My point, I guess, is that I'm glad I didn't read an essay like Benton's before deciding whether to pursue grad school.  Granted, you need to be realistic with students--it seems like I'm constantly having "the talk" about academic market realities with undergraduates, most of whom have already heard it, and many of whom are insistent on taking their chances anyway.  (If so, I try at least to steer them in the direction of rhet/comp, where there really are some jobs--at least, we and other schools seem to have difficulty hiring in that field.)

Well, but your example seems to support Benton's thesis rather than gainsay it.  Ten to fifteen years ago, nobody was starting rhet/comp programs because everyone assumed the lit market would loosen up with all the retirements.  Instead, the lit people (and also the history people) are the vanguard of the underemployed; they are the ones who are working unhappily as advisors and librarians (and taking jobs away from people who prepared for those careers, by the way; there's a substantial ripple effect) or unhappily compiling adjunct jobs, waiting for their weakening chances at a TT job. 

Rhet/comp is also an unfashionable subdiscipline.  Fashions change, of course, but in academia they change less predictably.

And if you tell a student to go into rhet/comp today, who knows whether there will still be a shortage ten years from now? 

If a student wanted advice about becoming a professional actor or athlete, I would not hesitate to tell them that they are facing long odds; that most people pursuing those jobs, no matter how talented, live marginal existences and never get the lucky break that propels them to success.  And I say the exact same thing to people pursuing Ph.D.s in the humanities.  I say, Don't go into this field because you think it's an easy ticket to security and fame.  Go into the field because it permeates your entire being and you can't imagine doing anything else.

Benton's a hard-core cynic.  What he says needs to be listened to, but I certainly wouldn't put it forward as the only perspective on reality.

Benton is anything but a hard-core cynic.  You are right that his is not the only licit perspective, but it is an underrepresented one.

[hmaria1609]

My undergrad roomie and I came to the conclusion that hearing about hearing how many grads get jobs after finishing college (and/or grad school in my case) is demoralizing if you don't have one when graduation day comes.

[case_insensitive]

It would have been nice to know this before I spent my $20,000.

Don't adults who have managed to complete a bachelor's degree have some responsibility for not researching the job prospects of their chosen graduate school route prior to going to said graduate school?

case (who's not in one of those low demand, high supply fields, but wonders...)

[kaysixteen]

Yes, the 22yo has some level of personal career selection responsibility, but one of the ways s/he fulfills this is to speak to professors, career services professionals, etc., and trust that they are not lying to him and know what they are talking about.

Daniel VF argues that those long-foreseen faculty retirements are actually, through sheer aging of the professoriate, really about to occur, and of course, this will be more and more the case.  Sadly, however, the institutional changes that have led to increased adjunctification of the professoriate will likely continue apace, and why shouldn't they, if there still are 100 applicants for each position (as if this is a real improvement?)?

Benton alluded to the recent SLAC alumni (and their parents) who are increasingly feeling like they've been sold a bill of goods by Crazy Eddie-- why should anyone in his right mind not feel cheated if he has just spent 200k to get a job 500 miles from home making coffee and photocopying, a job he could just as easily have done out of hs?  What, IOW, is academia going to do when/if the majority of middle-class American families really do wise up to the current realities, and no longer feel that such expenditures, let alone additional time and money expenditures for academic grad schools, are a solid investment, and start the rebellion?

[case_insensitive]

We all seem to speak in such broad terms. For example, "What, IOW, is academia going to do when/if the majority of middle-class American families really do wise up to the current realities, and no longer feel that such expenditures, let alone additional time and money expenditures for academic grad schools, are a solid investment, and start the rebellion?"

It's not academia as a whole that has this problem and is causing this problem. Some fields provide an education that leads almost all students to gainful employment (most areas of business, most areas of engineering). Really! Amazing, isn't it?

Parents who think Joe Junior can get a history degree or English degree (or whatever degree,fill in the blank anyway you want) and then find a great job, are deluding themselves as are the professors who keep encouraging vast numbers of students to study X or Y, which provides very little job prospect.