"I'm Getting a Ph.D. in the Humanities: Deal With It"

A rousing essay multimedia manifesto by my brilliant pal Julie Koehler over at Detroit is Gotham begins like so:

I’ve been feeling the pressure lately from all sides about my current career path. First, let’s set aside the people I come in contact with in my real life, whose eyes glaze over when I say I’m getting a PhD in German or who fail to make eye contact as they grumble “don’t know what your gonna do with that” under their breath. I got my Bachelor’s in Creative Writing, people, I’m not afraid of a little eye-rolling. No, I mean, you’ve got the bat-shit crazy people on the far right who would have you believe that higher education is some sort of marxist conspiracy. Glenn Beck for instance. (Just watch the first minute and then click away, before he makes your head spin.) And then you have the people on the left, who simply write articles entitled things like “Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don’t Go.” Today after reading the following quote about grad students in the humanities in the article “Master’s in English: Will Mow Lawns”, I got a little upset: “”They are like the hundreds of thousands of inner-city kids who believe they are going to be playing in the NBA,” says Mr. Perlmutter” of the University of Iowa.

This basically led me to write this post, which might fall under my “grumbles” category. My problem is this. I take no issue with suggesting that fewer students should go into PhDs in the Humanities. There aren’t many tenure track positions and the well-respected, well-paid, life-of-leisure English professor stereotype that students have in mind doesn’t exist. I also don’t have a problem with re-analyzing the role of the Humanities in Academia. There is a crisis of sorts and I believe there should be an ongoing conversation. The problem I have is that grad students are somehow depicted as completely uninformed dupes. I have not met this innocent grad student, who is miraculously unaware of job shortages, in any field, let alone his/her own, and goes through graduate school believing someone will hand him/her a prestigious, well-paid tenure track position upon graduation. I would like to propose a hypothesis: perhaps grad students are aware of all of this, the no jobs, the slave labor of TA-ships, the lack of money, respect and time, but still want to get their PhD, regardless. To prove my theory I will be relying on a very small data pool: me.

Julie, incidentally, won a big award this year for her essay on "Fairy Tales and Understanding the Holocaust: How Hitler, Survivors and Writers Used Fairy Tales." It's worth your attention.

Comments

[Jane Hammons]

Amen. Living in Berkeley, I know a lot of people with PhDs who live perfectly happy, thoughtful, productive lives without the academic tenure track position--or any academic position. It doesn't keep them from thinking about what they like to think about or writing necessary, critical, thoughtful essays, articles, etc. It's not always about the job!

[Thomas at My Porch]

I dare say the knowledge and skills picked up getting a Ph.D in any field, humanities or otherwise, prepare one for more life opportunties than someone hoping to make it in the NBA.