The Set Up
In Fall 2013, I was asked to join a panel titled “Applying to Graduate School” at Wellesley College, the liberal arts institution where I teach. Given the current job market for PhDs in the Humanities and Social Sciences and the climate of higher education more generally, I grappled with how to relay practical “brass tacks” information about applying to graduate school while informing the students in attendance about the challenges that accompany it.
In an effort to come to a more clear understanding of my own ideas on the matter, I reached out to colleagues who had recently completed or were about to complete their PhDs and MAs in the Humanities and Social Sciences.
The questions I posed to them via a survey-styled Google Form were clear-cut: knowing what they know now – about the job market, higher education, the state of their field(s) and respective disciplines – would they still pursue a graduate degree all these years later and would they advise undergraduate students to do the same?
Their responses were, in turns, illuminating and conflicted. Everyone said they’d do it all over again, yet a close reading of their responses revealed that for some, they would go about it differently. One person said they wouldn’t go in 2013.
Knowing what you know now – about the job market, higher education, your field/discipline etc – do you think you would still have pursued a graduate degree?
Even those who counted themselves as “lucky” in securing a tenure-track job discussed complex feelings about the state of academe in general and interdisciplinarity in particular. Others mentioned the challenges of securing fulltime employment. And to my surprise, most people didn’t follow my line of questioning anticipating that MOOCs and online education will eventually upstage or perhaps decenter the primacy of enfleshed and still mostly human professor-instructor-lecturers in higher education.
Somewhat random but still kind of serious question about the future: do you think professors, lecturers, and instructors in the Social Sciences and Humanities will eventually be replaced by online courses and automation?
There is a trove of online sites and social media musings about the state of higher education, the feasibility of PhDs in the Social Sciences and Humanities, and myriad advice-minded discussions that riff off of the “just don’t go” directive. Other discussion threads coming out of blogs, news, and trade sites is that if one goes to graduate school, one ought to be prepared to look for alternatives to tenure-track jobs. This article, for instance, appeared in the New York Times on November 1, 2013 and highlights the trending focus on “alt-ac” career trajectories. Yet although a select few people who responded to the form echoed advice like this, their responses brought to the fore other themes that have been less widely discussed.
So while the impetus of the exercise was to gain insight about how to advise undergraduate students interested in pursuing graduate school, after reading the responses and comparing them to conversations I have had with recent PhD graduates, it seemed important to draw attention to four other themes that emerged, insights that provide a complementary rejoinder to mainstream media and blogging treatment of these topics. These topics include: 1) the feasibility of interdisciplinary degree programs, 2) the protracted timeline of the job market for those seeking tenure-track positions and with it, the de facto requirement to secure multiple 1-3 year postdocs and VAP positions, 3) the business of education and how student loan debt and the corporatization of the academy shapes and constrains individual choices and 4) ambiguity as to whether a PhD “translates” into alternative academic careers.
What the Respondents Said
1. Interdisciplinarity is Not a Two-Way Street
Interdisciplinarity, it seems, is not a two-way street. By this I mean scholars trained in “traditional” disciplines may be able to secure jobs in both traditional and interdisciplinary fields (e.g. Women’s and Gender Studies), but the same may not be true for those graduating from interdisciplinary degree programs or perhaps certain interdisciplinary programs like WGST. Moreover, because interdisciplinary training may not methodologically translate to traditional disciplines and jobs, this may leave few options for interdisciplinarily trained scholars in an already constrained market.
When asked whether they would still pursue a graduate degree today, one person offered this unwavering insight:
I love the people I have met, the places I have gone, and the work that I have done. That said, I would never do an interdisciplinary PhD again.
And when asked about what advice they may have for prospective graduate students, another respondent expressly advised against doing an interdisciplinary degree. Given the growth of interdisciplinary Humanities and Social Science PhD programs and my own field of training, Women’s and Gender Studies, future research should explore whether interdisciplinary degree programs open up employment prospects for graduates or whether the institutionalization of interdisciplinary programs (rather than its scholarly practice) fuels institutional and/or resource constraints.
2. Protracted Graduate School-to Postdoc to-Permanent Appointment Timeline
For some seeking academic appointments on the tenure-track, the pathway to employment may increasingly be paved with serial 1-3 year postdoc and VAP stints, short-term positions that may be necessary to secure but in no way guarantee permanent academic placements upon their completion. If any quantitative researcher is out there and interested in this, I think it would be worthwhile to quantify the obvious and not-so obvious costs of this implicit “new normal” requirement that demands hypermobility and geographic flexibility to pursue different jobs in disparate locales. How these requirements differentially impact job seekers across racial, class, gender, and ethnic lines is also crucial to consider. What seems of additional salience is how the prolonged timeline may impact peoples’ abilities to make choices about other life decisions. One respondent summed up the situation this way:
I feel fortunate to have had postdocs and VAPs …but they have delayed my ability to create a sense of place. Had I known that it would be 10 years from starting graduate school to being able to put down roots, I would have at least thought through the choice differently.
The prolonged pathway from graduation-to-postdoctoral/VAP placements-to a permanent academic job seems challenging for any person seeking fulltime and/or a tenure-track appointment yet it may be particularly challenging for individuals who have children and/or other familial care responsibilities. This too is an area where more research is needed.
3. Jobs, Debt, and Money Matters
Do you think it makes sense for students to apply to graduate school even if they may face an academic job market in which there are few tenure-track or fulltime jobs?
Most people who responded agreed that students shouldn’t take out loans to pay for graduate school, especially doctoral programs. This came through clearly in one respondents’ unambiguous advice to prospective students
Please I beg you, if you go to graduate school, try your hardest to collectively work with friends, family, and colleagues to keep your debt down.
Another respondent highlighted that not only is there a lack of tenure-track jobs to go around, but a lack of available fulltime jobs more generally.
And finally, a respondent punted the question back to those who have invested in graduate education, asking:
How do we best collectively fight back against the corporatization of academia? How do we organize for sustainable wages and benefits so that our work and professionalism is truly valued?
Yet aside from advising prospective graduate students to not take out loans and calling on academics to engage in a broader discussion about the revaluation of academic labor, there seem to be other money matter issues facing those interested in fulltime employment, academic or otherwise; namely, that sticking out 5+ years of graduate training, a 1+ year job market search, and a 2+ year postdoc/VAP tour often de facto demands other kinds of non-institutional financial supports – whether from partner(s), family members, or friends.
The importance of family and in this case, parental financial support was integral to one person’s ability to attend graduate school. When asked whether they would do it all over again, here’s what they said:
I would still have done this because I have parents who have promised to help me out. Otherwise, I couldn’t, and wouldn’t, have done this.
While this person notes that graduate school would not have been financially possible without their parent’s financial assistance, financial support from partners or families may be commensurately important for fulltime job seekers, whether those on the tenure or alt-ac track. It is perhaps obvious that the availability of such financial support is not available to all, privileges individuals with financial means, does not consider racial and gender wage/earning disparities, and arguably relies upon financially secure partners (and/or families) to augment one’s transition from graduate school to permanent employment.
So while others have observed that pursuing a PhD in the Humanities and Social Sciences is an economically privileged endeavor, it may also be the case is that transitioning from graduate school to a tenure-track or permanent alt-ac job may similarly rely upon external financial systems of support that may be unavailable to many.
4. Alt-Ac as Option?
Do you think graduate studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences can provide a solid pathway to nonacademic jobs and careers?
When asked whether a PhD in the Humanities and Social Sciences provides a solid pathway to nonacademic careers, survey respondents were split. Here is one in-depth response from someone whose ideas and experiences seem to temper the more hopeful tenor pitched in alt-ac discussions:
Based on my work experience, I do not. I have worked in large multinational companies and in non-profit organizations (and sat on hiring committees in both). They do not value PhD graduate degrees, unless they contain a very specific skill set. They question your “ivory tower” training. They worry that you will come in with a sense of entitlement over others. They worry they will have to pay you more. If they do decide to pay you more at first, they will eventually “compress” your salary (not give you as high of raises) to be in line with others at your level. They worry that they will train you and then you will just leave. They worry that you just hid out in graduate school from the real world. Job candidates resume’s with a PhD rarely make the final cut and are highly scrutinized. I have seen a PhD actually hurt most candidates.
My own two cents on this question is that it depends: it depends on one’s interests, skills gleaned before, after and within the scope of the graduate degree program, and the contacts and connections one has, as other respondents pointed out. I think this is an open-ended question that needs more discussion and research as attention to alt-ac careers gains traction.
Some Insights Beyond Whether or Not to Go To Graduate School
Reading through the responses reminded me of what some sociologists have described as the backstage elements of data collection and field work. These are the behind-the-scenes moments, conversations and encounters that play a role in shaping how researchers come to know and understand the topic(s) under investigation. By that logic, the individuals who responded to my questions provided insightful “backstage” details to the “frontstage” assessments focused on the state of graduate education, the job market, and the future of higher education. Articles in the Chronicle of Higher Education and from commentators like William Pannapacker provide important insight into all of these issues. Yet one takeaway I gleaned from this exercise is that there needs to be more backstage data to make broader sense of these developments, not only to gauge whether some of the themes I’ve mapped out here in fact reflect broader trends, but simply to understand and make sense of what graduate school and the tenure-track and alt-ac job market looks and feels like to those who have come through it on the heels of the Great Recession.
The Data We Want?
For all the focus on big data and its disruptive potential these days, it is interesting that there is so little data on some of the issues discussed here. There are exceptions of course. A recent article in the Chronicle describes the efforts of one dedicated professor who has spent twenty plus years tracking Sociology PhD graduates from the CUNY Graduate Center. Yet as the article highlights, data on the post-PhD trajectories of graduate students is rare and rarer still is the collection of job placement data, whether focused on academic or nonacademic jobs.
The implicit message of the article is that graduate programs should collect more data on its graduates. Yet as the piece also suggests, some programs may be reluctant to do so since it “would underscore the stark reality that doctoral students often do not get the kind of jobs they want for the money and the time they have spent in their graduate programs” (Chronicle September 23, 2013).
I am unsure whether Humanities and Social Science graduate programs will dedicate more time, energy, and resources to collecting data about its graduates. It is also unclear to me whether doing so would reveal anything new to folks who are already well-versed in the challenges facing them post-graduation, whether with the academic job search or securing fulltime employment in an alt-ac field. Yet after putting this form together and reading through the responses, it seems that more of this kind first-hand knowledge is needed to account for the expeditious changes taking shape within higher education and also to help those who have come through it to make sense of their experiences. As one colleague relayed to me in a follow-up email after filling out the form, “your questionnaire provoked a very interesting series of existential thoughts on my part.” Another person wrote to me and expressed “feeling like a failure.” Given the emotional, psychic, and financial toll so much of this can take, it seems there ought to be more spaces for people to reflect on and make sense of their experiences.
In a moment where crowdsourcing, crowdfunding, and networked connectivity offer new tools and ways to share ideas, resources, and knowledge, perhaps we are or rather we have the data we’ve been looking for and that it may be beneficial to figure out creative ways to share information and to come up with collaborative ways to ask the questions and get some tentative answers to topics most pressing to anyone trying to make a go at this academic or alt-academic life.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank all of the people who took the time to fill out the form and who candidly shared their experiences and insights with me. They have inspired this post and raised many important questions that warrant future discussion.