Just Say No

I'm late to this on account of The Greatest Franchise in the History of Sports, but Thomas Benton's Chronicle piece on why no one should go to grad school in the humanities is not to be missed. The occasion of prospective graduate students visiting my institution this week has me wanting to pass out flyers that read,

[Prospective PhD's have] been praised their whole lives, and no one has ever told them that they may not become what they want to be, that higher education is a business that does not necessarily have their best interests at heart. Sometimes they accuse me of being threatened by their obvious talent. I assume they go on to find someone who will tell them what they want to hear: "Yes, my child, you are the one we've been waiting for all our lives." It can be painful, but it is better that undergraduates considering graduate school in the humanities should know the truth now, instead of when they are 30 and unemployed, or worse, working as adjuncts at less than the minimum wage under the misguided belief that more teaching experience and more glowing recommendations will somehow open the door to a real position.

Uh huh. Preach it.

Other highlights:

[M]ost prospective graduate students have given little thought to what will happen to them after they complete their doctorates. They assume that everyone finds a decent position somewhere, even if it's "only" at a community college (expressed with a shudder). [...] Their motives are usually some combination of the following:

* They are excited by some subject and believe they have a deep, sustainable interest in it. (But ask follow-up questions and you find that it is only deep in relation to their undergraduate peers — not in relation to the kind of serious dedication you need in graduate programs.)

* They received high grades and a lot of praise from their professors, and they are not finding similar encouragement outside of an academic environment. They want to return to a context in which they feel validated.

* They are emerging from 16 years of institutional living: a clear, step-by-step process of advancement toward a goal, with measured outcomes, constant reinforcement and support, and clearly defined hierarchies. The world outside school seems so unstructured, ambiguous, difficult to navigate, and frightening.

* With the prospect of an unappealing, entry-level job on the horizon, life in college becomes increasingly idealized. They think graduate school will continue that romantic experience and enable them to stay in college forever as teacher-scholars.

* They can't find a position anywhere that uses the skills on which they most prided themselves in college. They are forced to learn about new things that don't interest them nearly as much. No one is impressed by their knowledge of Jane Austen. There are no mentors to guide and protect them, and they turn to former teachers for help.

* They think that graduate school is a good place to hide from the recession. They'll spend a few years studying literature, preferably on a fellowship, and then, if academe doesn't seem appealing or open to them, they will simply look for a job when the market has improved. And, you know, all those baby boomers have to retire someday, and when that happens, there will be jobs available in academe.

Umm. Yeah. Sound familiar? Sure as shit does to me. The piece describes me then and it describes me now - 30, dreadfully underpaid, about to be unemployed. Then comes the really damning part:

Unfortunately, during the three years that I searched for positions outside of academe, I found that humanities Ph.D.'s, without relevant experience or technical skills, generally compete at a moderate disadvantage against undergraduates, and at a serious disadvantage against people with professional degrees. [...] What almost no prospective graduate students can understand is the extent to which doctoral education in the humanities socializes idealistic, naïve, and psychologically vulnerable people into a profession with a very clear set of values. It teaches them that life outside of academe means failure, which explains the large numbers of graduates who labor for decades as adjuncts, just so they can stay on the periphery of academe.

Benton goes on to list a few conditions under which it might be a decent decision to pursue a PhD in the humanities (you are independently wealthy, you have a partner who can provide all income and health insurance,you are connected to academic superstars, etc). At this point, my position is that not even those conditions are good enough. If you are spending this month considering entering grad school in the humanities, I implore you, DO NOT GO. Not even if you have a partner with a stable income (as I did when I began) and especially not if you are a woman in a hetero relationship who worries about equity of earning potential/labor within the partnership (this is what I know; not trying to be exclusionary).

Don't go if you care about being part of a professional community that has systematically worked to improve conditions for its workforce while continually refining its ideals and goals.
Don't go if you have a tendency to become emotionally invested in sync with intellectually invested, if you find it hard to divest yourself of things you have spent a lot of time on.
Don't go if you are thinking of your graduate studies as an extension of your personality, as something that is an inevitable outgrowth of who you are and what you care about.
Don't go because you think having your passion be your work is the kind of equivalence facilitated by graduate work.

I promise there is something else you can do, and do well. You owe it to yourself to try to find out what that is.