Don't go to grad school!

At least, don’t go to grad school in the human­i­ties. That’s the mes­sage I’ve been hear­ing from a num­ber of sources, includ­ing this recent arti­cle from The Chronicle of Higher Education:

It’s hard to tell young peo­ple that uni­ver­si­ties rec­og­nize that their ide­al­ism and energy — and lack of infor­ma­tion — are an exploitable resource. For uni­ver­si­ties, the impact of grad­u­ate pro­grams on the lives of those stu­dents is an accept­able exter­nal­ity, like dump­ing tox­ins into a river. If you can­not find a tenure-​​track posi­tion, your uni­ver­sity will no longer court you; it will pre­tend you do not exist and will act as if your unem­ploy­a­bil­ity is entirely your fault. It will make you feel ashamed, and you will prob­a­bly just dis­ap­pear, con­vinced it’s right rather than that the game was rigged from the beginning.

via Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don’t Go — Advice — The Chronicle of Higher Education.

But here I am, any­way, in a PhD pro­gram in his­tory. What makes me think this is a good idea despite all the evi­dence to the con­trary? Or am I sim­ply delu­sional? (Probably.)

Recent law grads (me included) might sug­gest that going to law school isn’t such a good idea either, although that seems more to be a func­tion of the cur­rent eco­nomic sit­u­a­tion that a long-​​term trend, even if the legal pro­fes­sion is going through a “cor­rec­tion.” Long term, there will always be a demand for lawyers, in some form or another. (Debt is another issue that needs to be addressed.)

But a human­i­ties grad­u­ate pro­gram is dif­fer­ent. It’s pro­fes­sional train­ing for one pur­pose: to do research in the human­i­ties and, to a lesser extent, to teach in the human­i­ties. What’s more, fewer and fewer pro­fes­sional posi­tions exist, and those that do are increas­ingly adjunct posi­tions with lim­ited job secu­rity (i.e., no tenure — but then, who else in today’s work­force ben­e­fits from any­thing like tenure?).

The human­i­ties sys­tem (at least in large pub­lic uni­ver­si­ties, which pro­vide the bulk of posi­tions) is set up, many say, to exploit cheap grad stu­dent labor in order to teach over-​​enrolled under­grad­u­ates in an increas­ingly under-​​funded edu­ca­tional sys­tem. The role of the tra­di­tional human­i­ties pro­fes­sor is dying out.

True or not, social sci­ence or not, job prospects as a his­tory pro­fes­sor are cer­tainly dif­fi­cult. So why am I in grad school?

First, I chose to focus on sci­ence, not gen­eral his­tory. Rightfully or not, a focus on sci­ence tends to equal greater job and fund­ing opportunities.

Second, I am not giv­ing up law to focus on his­tory. I fully intend to prac­tice as a lawyer at least part time. (Diversification is impor­tant as much for indi­vid­u­als as for cor­po­ra­tions, I believe.) So even if I can’t find a posi­tion as a tenure-​​track pro­fes­sor of his­tory, I still have my law degree to draw on. I also spent 10 years in IT, and have that to draw on too.

Third, the con­tacts I am mak­ing through the pro­gram are valu­able in any field. I am, for exam­ple, vol­un­teer­ing for com­mit­tee appoint­ments with senior fac­ulty and administrators.

Fourth, I needed fam­ily med­ical insur­ance (if I lived in Canada or Europe, this wouldn’t be an issue) and the abil­ity to spend more time at home than a first-​​year asso­ciate is allowed. Grad school, unlike law school, is funded and paid for.

So am I crazy? I don’t think so. But I also don’t expect to have an tenure-​​track posi­tion wait­ing for me at the end, nor is my self-​​worth depen­dent on that.