April 27, 2004

• Yet more over here.
• Wondering if such academic dilemnas are unique to the USA. A whole new dimension to the term 'over-educated', anyway.
• Thanks for linking to the interview, Wolof -- I'm one of her regular readers who posted a sad comment in the farewell thread, and I still miss her (in fact, I haven't been able to bring myself to delete the link from my blogroll -- I just moved it down to the "On hiatus" group). It was nice to get an update. I hope she does well and starts writing online again.
• i like the word "adjunct"
• What I learned at UCSC: getting and keeping tenure in the US is a bitch, to put it nicely. Research and publishing requirements mean that teaching is secondary, not to mention the required "community service" aspect of the job. If you don't serve on at least one committee, you won't keep tenure. If you don't publish annually or as close to it as possible, you won't keep tenure. And you won't even get tenure if you haven't been published. I'm the product of a series of bitter junior/adjunct professors.
• I find it fascinating that I have been more financially successful by being a high school teacher than had I pursued a PhD. My girlfriend's Pulitzer winning father took early retirement to pursue an academic life and has been working for peanuts ever since. He is now thinking of going down to high school teaching for 3x the pay.
• The only solution I can see to the problem is to just stop using adjuncts to do what should be done by full-time professors. Adjuncts to fill in gaps left by professors on leave, or who leave suddenly, fine. Non-academic adjuncts to teach unusual courses they are uniquely suited to (like professional novelists in creative writing courses) - terrific. But using adjuncts for years on end because you are too cheap to hire them full time and pay their benefits? That's the kind of bottom line first attitude that is unbecoming in an educational institute. I understand why many of the universities facing crunches feel like they have to resort to this, but it can't go on. It's not good for the teachers, and it's not good for the students. I was also thinking maybe we should stop training so many PhDs - of course, as a PhD student, that makes me part of the problem. But there still is a balance to be achieved - reducing enrollment to reflect the job market. The IA is right - the idea that a PhD is a degree that can lead to many careers is, at least in the humanities, a cruel joke perpetuated by career offices. Maybe if it were only three years long as in Britain - you might do a PhD and then do another kind of degree. But after 6-8 years most people are getting to the point in their lives where they need stability. The things I tell myself is that as long as I'm not going into debt, I don't have to find a well-paying job when I get out. For the lucky ones who are fully funded, you are even a little ahead - after all, you get to live and eat for several years without having to have a day job. No one promised me anything. I think that, considering my circumstances before I began my degree, I am better off for having done it, even if I never find a job in a university. And I know that I can always teach secondary school (not a step down - a step in a different direction - more education rather than research oriented, which is interesting in and of itself) or follow my true dream to write over-blown historical romance novels. But there are still so many lies they tell you when recruiting to graduate school, like how you will be able to get grants to do your research (tell that to my friend, a model student who puts me to shame, now having to use his dissertation writing fellowship to do the research, leaving him with no money afterwards) or if you work hard you will find a job. It has nothing to do with how hard you work. How sexy and fashionable your research is, how much you are a self-promoter, these things help. But mostly it seems to be just the hand of providence. And I just wish departments (aka the tenured faculty) would a) be upfront with students before they begin, so they know what they are getting into and b) pull their heads out of the sand, and realise that the world has changed - and most of them got where they are through pure luck anyways. I like how IA brings up the myth of meritocracy, that the good academics will make it. I've even heard this from academics in my fiance's family - they are just so deluded. Sorry - this thing with my friend has me really riled. It's not just that he's in my field and I will very likely be in that position in a year or two - I can handle that. But that he really is a model student: bright, talented, and doing everything on the schedule set as ideal by the department (unlike the rest of us schmucks), and still his degree is being screwed because the graduate school has not clued into the fact that the outside funding for research overseas (necessary to his work) does not exist! Or consists of half a dozen very competitive grants. This is a rich private institution - and they are more interested in filling our mail boxes with heavy bond expensive junk mail and promoting their "brand image" (their words) than in supporting us to do the actual research that is 1/2 the justification for its existence.
• The things I tell myself is that as long as I'm not going into debt, I don't have to find a well-paying job when I get out. For the lucky ones who are fully funded, you are even a little ahead jb is exactly right. I wasn't particularly worried about my future as long as I had NSF and grad school funding; when the grad school reneged on their promise to continue funding, I should have gotten out, but I foolishly listened to friends and family who said "But you've come so far! It will be a waste if you don't get the PhD!" So I borrrowed, never did get the degree, and spent years paying it off. Don't be like me! Debt is for suckers!
• Too late!
• You really make me think it was a wise desicion of mine not to continue with the Phd. Still I feel I'm missing something. :(
• desicion looks like I need to do high school again first...
• More thoughts at Far Outliers. [Might have to scroll down; permalinks bloggered.]