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[the_myth]

This was my experience in grad school!  *Many* of my classmates did not know how to perform a basic literature review or use proper citations for term papers.  We, their peers and competitors, often had to tutor them on the side or sit in class while the instructor took a session to teach remedial skills.  Many of these people went on to get lucrative TT and adjunct jobs where some of us who had entered with basic grad-level skills (and acquired an equivalent mastery of the material on the way) were left with their scraps.

It really made me wonder about how well any of us was vetted before entry into the program(s).  Some of them did little more than suck up to the profs, complete the profs' pet projects for them, and then move on with their blessing.  In a way, I guess that's how grad school is supposed to work [at least in the apprenticeship model].

But despite their inabilities to write basic lit reviews, these people clearly had something else.

If the ones who needed help at the beginning ended up doing good work and getting jobs, and the ones who didn't need  help (or maybe didn't think they needed help?) didn't get good jobs... well,  maybe your perception of your abilities relative to theirs underestimated them.

Eh.  Their scholarship was often mediocre, but they had all the right contacts.  For instance, a friend of mine would often write some horrid paper but then would ask a few others for feedback; she would then essentially compile all of the advice [including essential literature obvious from any library search on the topic] and write a publishable paper.  I started to realize that very little of the labor was her own...  I mean, she wrote it, for sure.  And the idea was usually mostly hers [after she picked the brains of everyone around her].  But would editors or reviewers have provided the often extensive feedback she needed for her revisions?  I'm just not sure...

In my experience [and that of several other peers], the main component to success in my field was to kiss the right bums.  And I suspect that might be true for others as well.

[quasihumanist]

Great question. The obvious answer is overproduction--grad programs turning out too many PhDs for too few positions. But why does this happen in history and not (to my knowledge) physics?

There are a few differences - (1) new PhDs try to get postdocs rather than being thrown into the TT-market grinder right away, so they take a few years before not getting a stereotypical TT job; (2) the number of people is smaller because there are fewer physics profs and students than English profs and students; (3) people who leave the field often go into industry, finance, software, or biotech.  These may seem more glamorous or just lucrative than going into teaching, writing, and editing jobs that humanities PhDs often take.  (Humanities PhDs don't starve.  Leaving the field is not equivalent to dying, even though academics treat it that way.)  But the physics PhDs leaving the field still reflect an oversupply.

In math, it's also true that a lot of people leave the field semi-voluntarily.  When they see that they won't get a job at an R1 in a big city, they decide to go into finance or software or the NSA.

This is by no means universally true, but many people with PhDs from top schools in maths prefer going into industry over going to a poor SLAC or a regional state university.  Conversely, many lower ranked schools and CCs frequently hire candidates from less prestigious programs because they are more likely to have the experience and pedagogical training needed to teach the students they have.  This means the lower-ranked doctoral programs frequently have eventual tenure-track placement rates as good as (or better than) the top programs.

[licaone]

Because the humanities are cooler.  Duh.

Are they cooler, or are they easier?

[grasshopper]

Eh.  Their scholarship was often mediocre, but they had all the right contacts.  For instance, a friend of mine would often write some horrid paper but then would ask a few others for feedback; she would then essentially compile all of the advice [including essential literature obvious from any library search on the topic] and write a publishable paper.  I started to realize that very little of the labor was her own...  I mean, she wrote it, for sure.  And the idea was usually mostly hers [after she picked the brains of everyone around her].  But would editors or reviewers have provided the often extensive feedback she needed for her revisions?  I'm just not sure...

In my experience [and that of several other peers], the main component to success in my field was to kiss the right bums.  And I suspect that might be true for others as well.

You make it sounds like this is somehow deceptive or manipulative.

In my experience, it's how scholarship gets done. You get an idea. You fly it past people. You do some preliminary research. You ask for some feedback from others in the field. You incorporate that feedback. You write up a draft. You fly that past some more people. You revise based on their comments. Maybe you take your work to a conference, and see how that flies. You revise some more. Then you pass something in for publication.

As a student, of course some of the people they approach for feedback are going to be professors. This doesn't make them brown nosers. It makes them smart. And as a side bonus, it helps get their name out to people who can help them. But it's not necessarily bred of laziness or a lack of academic integrity or ability.

If you don't do these kinds of things, I think you're an odd duck in this game. Scholarship doesn't happen in isolation. (Not most good scholarship, anyway).

[charlesr]

Here are several possibilities.  It's not meant to be an exhaustive, definitive, or necessarily accurate list.

Humanities grads have fewer nonacademic alternatives.

It's less expensive to run a large humanities PhD program than one in, say, the natural sciences.  What's the cost of equipping a lab? (I'm in neither area).

In the sciences, do grad students receive closer supervision?  From what I've picked up on the fora it seems like science grad students start in the lab almost immediately.  Could the poorer-performing ones be weeded out more rapidly than in the humanities?  Relatedly, is it possible to judge a student's potential earlier and more accurately in the sciences?

The humanities programs draw from a larger pool of undergraduate majors

[scheherazade]

Because the humanities are cooler.  Duh.

Are they cooler, or are they easier?

Cooler.

Read a 9th century manuscript in Old Irish and try again to tell me it's easy.

[jonesey]

Because the humanities are cooler.  Duh.

Are they cooler, or are they easier?

Cooler.

Read a 9th century manuscript in Old Irish and try again to tell me it's easy.

Easier.  I wouldn't know Old Irish if it hit me in the face, and I'm teaching FT.  Not everyone majored in 9th Century Literature (look at all the History folks who specialized in the 20th Century, for example). 

Still, what was easy for me would have been very difficult for a good friend of mine, who has an MBA.  We compared notes one semester and he was horrified at the idea of how much reading and writing I had to do.  I, in turn, was horrified at his coursework in Finance, so, it all depends on the person.

[dismalist]

Because the humanities are cooler.  Duh.

Are they cooler, or are they easier?

Cooler.

Read a 9th century manuscript in Old Irish and try again to tell me it's easy.

Easier.  I wouldn't know Old Irish if it hit me in the face, and I'm teaching FT.  Not everyone majored in 9th Century Literature (look at all the History folks who specialized in the 20th Century, for example). 

Still, what was easy for me would have been very difficult for a good friend of mine, who has an MBA.  We compared notes one semester and he was horrified at the idea of how much reading and writing I had to do.  I, in turn, was horrified at his coursework in Finance, so, it all depends on the person.

Anybody ever get an outside offer from that "Old Irish" consulting firm?

[_touchedbyanoodle_]

Does anyone have any insight into how funding typically works for graduate student stipends and teaching assistantships? In the department where I got my MA there was a great deal of tension surrounding the discrepancy between the amount of money "spent" on a graduate student with a full TA teaching only one class a semester versus a full-time instructor teaching 4 classes a semester.

Clearly, these two expenses--TAs vs. adjuncts--were funded by different sources, but I never developed an understanding of these sources. Anyone care to educate us on the politics of humanities economics?

I am inclined to believe the need for lower-level instruction fuels the oversupply, but I need a better understanding of funding to buy into the idea.

[seniorscholar]

In response to Live Noodle's question: at my public R-1, the grad student funding budget comes from a single budget line given to the graduate school for funding fellowships, research assistantships, and teaching assistantships. The departments make their case for what they need, and (in English, at least) we get about half as much as we ask for, virtually all of it in TA lines.

The English Department gets a budget for Visiting (full-time non TT with full benefits and decent salary) Assistant Professors directly from the Provost, based, apparently, on how much money the Provost has in that line, and bearing some (fluctuating) relationship to the number we had last year, even though the number of entering undergraduates and English enrollments and English majors has gone up significantly every year since 1988.

For full-time faculty lines, the A&S Dean gets a budget for (TT) faculty salaries, subtracts the people known to be leaving, looks at the amount, and calls each department chair in turn to plead for the number of lines, fields, and ranks needed (with arguments based on enrollments, retirements, vast holes, etc.) Most chairs get 1/3 the number they've asked for.

Whether there is any "relationship" between these numbers based on anything at all is not clear to me, though I suspect not, because:

As registration for the upcoming semester takes place (for Fall, that's beginning with "priority registration" in mid-March and continuing up through the first week of classes), the composition director gets a phone call from the enrollment management person (low-level Provost's Office staff) every time all the sections of first-year writing are full authorizing the funds to hire an adjunct to open another section. Initially, sections have been opened for about 80% of the previous fall's enrollment, so that means that about 50 new sections are added on this "as needed" basis from mid-July to early September. In addition, the director of undergraduate studies gets similar phone calls for the other gen-ed sections, though we try hard to staff most of them with senior TAs since we want them to have teaching in lit classes -- but there are always more sections than there are TAs who are through coursework.

I leave you to figure out what the "planners" have in their minds.

[scheherazade]

Because the humanities are cooler.  Duh.

Are they cooler, or are they easier?

Cooler.

Read a 9th century manuscript in Old Irish and try again to tell me it's easy.

Easier.  I wouldn't know Old Irish if it hit me in the face, and I'm teaching FT.  Not everyone majored in 9th Century Literature (look at all the History folks who specialized in the 20th Century, for example). 

Still, what was easy for me would have been very difficult for a good friend of mine, who has an MBA.  We compared notes one semester and he was horrified at the idea of how much reading and writing I had to do.  I, in turn, was horrified at his coursework in Finance, so, it all depends on the person.

Heh.  SO took a humanities course early in med school, when he was going to earn a dual MD/MA (Div school).  That one humanities course (if I recall correctly, it was something like religion and law) kicked his ass more than any course he took throughout med school.  He was shocked and gained a new found respect for my field.  Especially when I explained some things to him.

On the flip side, SO was confused as to why I chose history.  His exact words: "But you're smart enough to be a doctor!  Why didn't you go to med school?"  As if the only thing standing in everyone's way was the difficulty.  Yes, dear SO, I realize I could have been a physician.  I realize I am fairly competent in science and math, and would be more so had I actually taken a body of courses in either field.  I am a glutton for punishment.

It seriously annoys me when science, math, business, etc. people tell me how "easy" my field is.  Please.  Try it.  It would kick your ass around the Bodleian Library, and then it would smile and laugh.

[return_to_sender]

Throughout my graduate school years my roomies were Math or Engg types.  They had nothing but absolute contempt for folks on the other side of the campus (humanities and social sciences) excepting when they were looking for dates. Most of the Math and Engg types never completed their Ph.D.s even their Masters sometimes because they received lucrative offers from computer/software developers. The same cannot be said for my friends in humanities and social sciences, who did find something at the end, but there was much soul searching and scratching the head before they "found" themselves.  The opportunity structures are better at the graduate level for Math/Engg/Physics relative to any other discipline.

[malcha]

Because the humanities are cooler.  Duh.

Are they cooler, or are they easier?

Cooler.

Read a 9th century manuscript in Old Irish and try again to tell me it's easy.

Easier.  I wouldn't know Old Irish if it hit me in the face, and I'm teaching FT.  Not everyone majored in 9th Century Literature (look at all the History folks who specialized in the 20th Century, for example). 

Still, what was easy for me would have been very difficult for a good friend of mine, who has an MBA.  We compared notes one semester and he was horrified at the idea of how much reading and writing I had to do.  I, in turn, was horrified at his coursework in Finance, so, it all depends on the person.

Heh.  SO took a humanities course early in med school, when he was going to earn a dual MD/MA (Div school).  That one humanities course (if I recall correctly, it was something like religion and law) kicked his ass more than any course he took throughout med school.  He was shocked and gained a new found respect for my field.  Especially when I explained some things to him.

On the flip side, SO was confused as to why I chose history.  His exact words: "But you're smart enough to be a doctor!  Why didn't you go to med school?"  As if the only thing standing in everyone's way was the difficulty.  Yes, dear SO, I realize I could have been a physician.  I realize I am fairly competent in science and math, and would be more so had I actually taken a body of courses in either field.  I am a glutton for punishment.

It seriously annoys me when science, math, business, etc. people tell me how "easy" my field is.  Please.  Try it.  It would kick your ass around the Bodleian Library, and then it would smile and laugh.

Yes, medievalists are beautiful creatures of power and grace, with bulging yet harmonious intellectual muscles, as well as being master stylists who would never write a grotesque and inelegant sentence like this one.

But -- in defense of the folks who do 19th and 20th century lit or history in their native language -- they may not have to read 9th century OI manuscripts, but the sheer quantity of primary sources and secondary literature they have to deal with is pretty daunting.  I have a friend who wrote a dissertation in Victorian political history, and I could never have ploughed through the research she did.

Anyway, excellence is always impressive, in any field; I'm not sure that how "hard" it is is a relevant consideration. 

Scheherazade, you've been doing a lot of fine posting lately!

[scheherazade]

Why, thank you, Malcha!

I used the examples I did because that's my area.  But absolutely, humanities scholars from all areas face a lot of unique and difficult challenges that can't be imagined by STEM folk.

[the_myth]

You make it sounds like this is somehow deceptive or manipulative.

In my experience, it's how scholarship gets done. You get an idea. You fly it past people. You do some preliminary research. You ask for some feedback from others in the field. You incorporate that feedback. You write up a draft. You fly that past some more people. You revise based on their comments. Maybe you take your work to a conference, and see how that flies. You revise some more. Then you pass something in for publication.

As a student, of course some of the people they approach for feedback are going to be professors. This doesn't make them brown nosers. It makes them smart. And as a side bonus, it helps get their name out to people who can help them. But it's not necessarily bred of laziness or a lack of academic integrity or ability.

If you don't do these kinds of things, I think you're an odd duck in this game. Scholarship doesn't happen in isolation. (Not most good scholarship, anyway).

You know what, when you state it this way, it sounds perfectly reasonable.  It is how things do/should work.

I think what ticked me off was the complete absence of collegiality among the very people I was often involved with helping.

They were often notoriously absent when others went to them for feedback.  Or, and this is the worst, they gave really, really bad advice, often riddled with their own cluelessness.

Upon reflection, I think the best word to describe what I think I encountered was sabotage.  If I give bad advice, your scholarship won't be as good as mine, which in the end gives me the advantage.

Grad school can be rather cut-throat.