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Joined: Feb 2010
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In this case she might agree about unpaid servitude. But I think we can all recognize that people's goals change over time. I know many people who are not using their degrees in the way they initially set out to. That doesn't mean they are wasted. I did learn things during my PhD program but estimate that I got maybe two years worth of benefit, not the six that I spent. Goals and values do change over time. I cared more about money at 30 than 20. But my point is that comparing the number of desirable academic positions that open up annually with the number of PhDs awarded annually, and considering that many people earning PhDs do aspire to such positions, the numbers just don't add up. If my children talk about going to grad school once they are in college, I will have them read essays such as http://www.slate.com/articles/life/..._ph_d_will_make_you_into_a_horrible.htmlThesis Hatement Getting a literature Ph.D. will turn you into an emotional trainwreck, not a professor. By Rebecca Schuman Slate Posted Friday, April 5, 2013, at 7:10 AM so they can't say they have not been warned.
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In this case she might agree about unpaid servitude. But I think we can all recognize that people's goals change over time. I know many people who are not using their degrees in the way they initially set out to. That doesn't mean they are wasted. I did learn things during my PhD program but estimate that I got maybe two years worth of benefit, not the six that I spent. Goals and values do change over time. I cared more about money at 30 than 20. But my point is that comparing the number of desirable academic positions that open up annually with the number of PhDs awarded annually, and considering that many people earning PhDs do aspire to such positions, the numbers just don't add up. If my children talk about going to grad school once they are in college, I will have them read essays such as http://www.slate.com/articles/life/..._ph_d_will_make_you_into_a_horrible.htmlThesis Hatement Getting a literature Ph.D. will turn you into an emotional trainwreck, not a professor. By Rebecca Schuman Slate Posted Friday, April 5, 2013, at 7:10 AM so they can't say they have not been warned. I'm glad dd12's language arts teacher wasted her time getting her PhD. She doesn't appear to be an emotional trainwreck. Oh, and a response to the article: Grad school is not the problem, you are.
Last edited by deacongirl; 05/19/13 04:39 AM.
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Financially I suppose a PhD leaves you without debt compared to a masters which you pay for. But then look at the opportunity cost if you take more than three years to do it.
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Joined: Feb 2010
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Financially I suppose a PhD leaves you without debt compared to a masters which you pay for. But then look at the opportunity cost if you take more than three years to do it. There is more funding for research assistantships in the sciences than the humanities, and a substantial fraction of humanities graduate students are taking on substantial debt: http://chronicle.com/article/Graduate-School-in-the/44846Chronicle of Higher Education January 30, 2009 Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don't Go By Thomas H. Benton Meanwhile, more and more students are flattered to find themselves admitted to graduate programs; many are taking on considerable debt to do so. According to the Humanities Indicators Project of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, about 23 percent of humanities students end up owing more than $30,000, and more than 14 percent owe more than $50,000. I think the whole article is worth reading for prospective graduate students and people who care about them.
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Law school is still a worse idea than grad school in the humanities.
I mean, if you get a Ph.D. and then go teach high school at Council Rock in PA, you're making six figures.
I just looked at it.
I'm honestly surprised that the highest teacher salary in Council Rock is only about $105,000. I was really expecting more than that.
I'm pretty sure that you need a Ph.D. to max out the pay scale there.
Last edited by JonLaw; 05/19/13 10:08 AM.
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There is more funding for research assistantships in the sciences than the humanities, and a substantial fraction of humanities graduate students are taking on substantial debt: http://chronicle.com/article/Graduate-School-in-the/44846Chronicle of Higher Education January 30, 2009 Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don't Go By Thomas H. Benton Wow. That is really scary. I spent part of this morning reading through pieces on this subject and while what I read didn't surprise me, it was still depressing. And it wasn't just the dismal job prospects: it was also the apparent pervasiveness of postmodernist garbage in English departments: I investigate instead how he conceives the relationship between language and meaning altogether. For the inhabitants of Kafka's fictional universes use language in a way that forces into question the conceit of linguistic expression itself.
...
Through the development of these chapters I show how several of the most radical ideas of early analytic language philosophy emerge in Kafka's fictional worlds, and thereby demonstrate themselves with an urgency and immediacy unavailable to the philosophical medium. and As literary theorists observe, time and thus history plays a central role in making certain identities desirable, and others undesirable. Queer studies, fat studies, and early modern studies all have reasons to "queer" history because a modern form of reductive history makes the study of these subjects of inconsequence. The queer, the fat, and the early modern are made into the "before" of our much-desired "after." When I wrote my last message in this thread I was thinking of people with graduate degrees in fields like the sciences or engineering (or even history or other fields where getting the degree means that you have to rely on data). I don't even know what this stuff means. And I agree completely that pushing students into Ph.D. programs that reduce their ability to get a decent job is a pretty seriously bad idea.
Last edited by Val; 05/19/13 07:52 PM. Reason: Hit submit after I'd only started to type
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Joined: Apr 2011
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Where is the middle ground between going to university because education is enjoyable, inherently valuable and expands one's ability to think critically v. higher education is a senseless waste of time and (large amounts of) money if you aren't going to use that education "productively"?
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Where is the middle ground between going to university because education is enjoyable, inherently valuable and expands one's ability to think critically v. higher education is a senseless waste of time and (large amounts of) money if you aren't going to use that education "productively"? That's entirely individual, isn't it? Bostonian has made clear that he views education solely through the lens of cost and direct financial benefit. That's one way to look at it. Your perspective may vary.
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For starters I think that the 'ability' to think critically is innate. I also, having been raised in a country where true freedom of speech (then) had yet to have been hijacked, have undiluted scorn most US humanities programs - the people I know that attended them were literally having to write essays pillorying WASP males if they wanted an A. Where was the 'critical thinking' there?
Another friend of mine's son studying civil engineering was forced to study 'women's studies' - what critical engineering knowledge got missed so that could happen? The system in the US is rotten with this kind of enforced dogma.
I cannot wait to see those 'Academics' in the dole myself. Maybe if tuition dollars were not being siphoned off by these parasites college would not be so expensive.
Become what you are
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Where is the middle ground between going to university because education is enjoyable, inherently valuable and expands one's ability to think critically v. higher education is a senseless waste of time and (large amounts of) money if you aren't going to use that education "productively"? Much higher education in the U.S. is a waste of time and money at the aggregate level, but at the *individual* level, the BA credential still has considerable value, because employers use it as a filter. It's an educational arms race that one is almost compelled to participate in.
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