Studying for a PhD: Classic or Dud?

I did a Masters (MSc). This introduced me to how difficult research would be (it really did, it really hits home what kind of hours you have to do and how to manage your time though for you its different. In science PhD you have to be doing experiments but also go to the bloody library as well and then thre's all the posts I have to do for ILM/E heh) but overall it was well worth it.

There's a risk of course that you will not get funding (though you can always try the year after can't you as long as you have a good mark) and, in terms of a degree, my mark might have gone down hence it could've disqualified me from doing a PhD in most places (it went well for me) but if this is what you want then go for it and good luck.

If you finish an MA, I don't think it would screw up your CV at all to not continue on to a doctorate. It's my impression that many programs work similarly to mine: take coursework during your MA, and just work on your dissertation during your Ph.D. time. So there's a natural split there. If you don't go on, you don't go on. Not everyone does - so?

My answer is US-centric, I should note. And state school-centric - I don't know about the UK but in general in US state schools now, funding is generally available since the schools need wage slaves to help teach their classes.

(would having an ma but not a phd really arse up yr cv?)

I have heard academics discussing in all seriousness how a PhD is not really a PhD unless the applicant has gone through at least one "long dark night of the soul". Seems to me that's a form of torture. A couple of friends of mine have spent years on their doctorates and given up with the justification "I'd rather stay sane, really".

Two PhD students in English are talking.

1st student: what are you up to at the moment? 2nd student: I'm writing up my PhD. 1st student: Hm, neither am I.

Firstly, PhD funding in the humanities is extremely hard to come by. The AHRB give out a lot more funding for MAs than PhDs, so don't assume if you get funding for one you'll get funding for the other. The key to getting the PhD funding is I suspect a very well-thought through proposal, so it may be worth taking some time out between the two courses to work on this, since if you're writing a PhD proposal half way through your MA you will naturally enough not probably not know clearly what it is you wish to research.

Secondly, a PhD in the humanities is only really of value if you wish to pursue a career in academia. If this is your reason for applying, please bear in mind that very few people who complete PhDs end up working in Universities. The bookshops around here are staffed almost entirely by folk with doctorates in the humanities. Due to the state of the job market at the moment, you should also expect to spend up to two or three years following your PhD working part-time, being paid by the hour, before you will be considered for even a temporary contract as a lecturer. (Although this varies somewhat from discipline to discipline, as a rule, you shouldn't expect less than two extra years of running up debts before you get a full-time position.)

My recommendation would be that there is no hurry to start a PhD. If I were going through the process again, I would have taken time out between my MA and my PhD to make better contacts within the academy, to save up some money, and to think through my line of research more clearly. Unlike the situation in the States, in general PhD candidates in Britain in the humanities get little involvement in the deparment, little supervision, a low status and very little reassurance that their work is worthwhile pursuing, since the humanities departments often view postgraduates primarily as a source of income and of low-paid labour, rather than of intellectual capital. So you need to have a lot of self-confidence before you start and a very strong sense that this is what you want to do.

Having said all that, I did get funding eventually. I found the final completion of my research project very rewarding, and the opportunity to study for three years is not to be sniffed at. If you get funding for the MA, I see no reason not to do it. Taking time out between the MA and the PhD shouldn't be too much of a problem academically: and the most successful and happy PhD candidates I have known have been those who were able to continue working part-time at jobs they held before they started their research, because it gave them a base in reality...

Good Luck!

That, and most law professors are unbearable prats.

I strongly believe that it's very difficult for anyone to predict how they'll cope with what happens during a long, often mysterious process in which support (academic and pastoral) is unpredictable at best. (In any other sphere of life, the quality of my supervision would be considered lax to negligent. And I though I'd chosen a supervisor very carefully). The bit Tim said about 'dark nights of the soul' is obv.dramatic license, but the toughest test is more psychological than intellectual. I was an organised, hard-working, carrot-oriented undergraduate and masters student. I became a confused, often slothful, directionless PhD student for a long period in the middle (it doesn't help that ALL CARROTS disappear. As did most of the sticks in my case. Apart from occasional feedback, you often get no real 'reward' for the work you put in/pull off at the early stages, which lots of people find acutely demotivating.)

Without wanting to be melodramatic, I feel kind of damaged by the whole thing (on top of the poverty and career stress), and have at least three friends who feel that way also (two sociologists and a chemist). These are bright, sensible people, not sensitive ivory tower flowers (there aren't any ivory towers any more). And that's my final point; although Alex was very honest about the job situation for academics, it's also worth pointing out the degree of entrepreneurial individualism associated with it. Because of the effect that the RAE (Research Assessment Exercise) has had on the funding of HE, the pressure to publish and attract funding (and to network and compete for openings) can be enormous (although this varies between intitutions). If you find it difficult to (re)construct yourself in line with these constraints it's very stressful. At the same time, you'll also be working within a basically corporate/bureaucratic system; the contradictions aren't fun.

On the plus side, ideas are endlessly exciting and teaching can be enormously fruitful and fulfilling. If I'd known how it would be (and how badly I'd handle it) I'd've RUN FOR THE HILLS. But I am a particularly bad case.

On a practical note: you could consider a more vocationally-oriented Masters, thereby getting a year to indulge your intellect and the propsect of opening up new job prospects at the end of it.

Ellie's experience is more common that I would have believed, had I not worked in the area.

The thing about stacking shelves / taking menial work is a good one, too: a lot of PhD students take on teaching because the hourly rate seems decent and they're teaching the subject they're good at and it's in the dept and so on. Then they realise that the rate per hour is per hour teaching and the preparation / marking is swallowing far more of their time than it's worth.

I took a reasonably vo9cational masters with enough room for thinking built in. It was a good move, and although I entertained thoughts of doing a PhD, I know I'm not suited to that mode of study (& possibly not up to it).

Of course the best plan is to get your Bachelor's degree at Oxford or Cambridge. Then the way to get a Master's degree is to wait a couple of years and send them a tenner (may have gone up) and they give you an MA!

In particular, thankyou Alex and Ellie. It's incredibly useful to me to have your insights into pursuing a career in academia.

I'm off to weigh up my options, bite off my fingernails, and wait for that letter from the AHRB.

I have rampant criticisms of how the phd works, and I'm still planning on staying in academia, if it proves possible. So I'm clearly not totally alienated. It's not exactly a ringing endorsement, I know, but a guarded 'yes, but think about it hard' is the best I can do. Good luck Dan, queen, if you decide it's worth it.

Given the presence of that sort of personality, studying for a PhD is heaven on earth.

best/worst "advise" i ever had was being told that after you've done a phd you realise that it wasn't so hard, and you can do another one (even in an unrelated area) much more quickly. i think this is mostly true, although i never managed to find it helpful at the time. i suspect that a great deal of doing a phd (at least in maths, maybe not so much in other areas) is self-belief.

'I think, generally, that doing a PhD in English is a valueless
occupation. If you can write you should write a book; a thesis is bad
preparation for that. Three years' concentration on problems that
don't exist but need to be created is worthless training to be a
university teacher. A PhD is a preparation only for academic life, a
taught MA would be much better. I don't think anybody ever consults a
thesis in English once it has been written; what use is that?'

As someone doing a PhD in astrophysics, where we all confidently pat each other on the back safe in the knowledge that we're doing difficult, worthwhile things (!), I find this quite baffling. It's a view I've heard it expressed, but is it really that widely held? Do those of you doing an arts PhD agree?

i Hope it will be classic, but some of you have some terribly bubble-bursting negative things to say in DUD direction :(

hey, at least funding isn't an issue. i've been reassured that a couple years into it i'll have nearly a normal salary's worth of stipend, which sweetens the deal.

also, i'll be working on very real problems with concrete design. it doesnt get more concrete than that!

This 'If you can write you should write a book' is rubbish. I am writing a book, except, I get direction, training, and constructive criticism along the way from my supervisors.

OTM.

The availability of opportunities to get teaching experience is an issue. My current plan after the PhD is to go into teaching at a liberal arts institution at the U.S., rather than continue with research per se, so I need all the teaching experience I can get. With labs, who will employ any idiot first year PhD student who can operate an oscilloscope, I get the impression this is a process that is more easily bootstrapped in the sciences.

Depressing thing that happened yesterday: a friend of mine is doing a PhD in Medieval English. We were both undergraduates at our present institution, and have very similar CVs. We both applied for the same top-up scholarship, which aims to prepare you for teaching, and commits you to three hours tutorial teaching per week. He found out yesterday that he hasn't even got an interview, despite having given half a dozen one/two-on-one tutorials, which is about as intense a preparation for teaching as you can get. They told him he needed to build up his "teaching portfolio". I've done two terms of lab supervision and some A level tutoring, and my interview is next week. I don't envy students in the arts :(

I'm jealous! In astrophysics, there are two types of people: observers and theorists. I'm a theorist (I'm so theoretical I'm in the theoretical physics department, and not the perfectly good astrophysics department next door!). Because observers are working in a large, multinational team where huge amounts of money are at stake, observer PhD students finish in three years or never. This has the downside that their success is, to a certain extent, out of their hands, but they do get to work with real people rather than chalk dust and Linux. Theorists tend to drift over the three years (often by quite a lot!) and their collaborations are rarer and smaller.

i'm doing an arts phd. it's really just a way of making me do covert research for a book. no-one reads theses, so what's the point? a humanities phd is basically a lengthy job application. fuck that noise!

ah, but you were away! try taking even a couple of days completely off while you're in london. also, i always find that i come back to work really fresh and clear-headed, and then 10 minutes later i'm completely disillusioned. the key is getting past that, i guess! i also find that working somewhere with no distractions (internet etc) works well, as when i'm forced to work i do enjoy it in the end.

[sorry if this is obvious/unhelpful, am rather drunk.]

OTM. I guess this is a truism for anything, but I do think we poor PhD students suffer particularly badly with distractions. There are essentially no deadlines other than a rather nebulous one in three years, so you end up feeling like you're trying to swim across an ocean rather than a series of swimming pools. Consctructive small tasks like shopping, administrivia, etc. become attractive, and microbreaks become enormously attractive.

ilx.[wh3rd|p3r].net are both in my /etc/hosts at work, to prevent precisely this.

Sounds like you are in the 'home straight' so like its been said don't force it. There are probably strategies you could use but again, it may not work. I guess you have to remember its perfectly normal to get those annoying mental blocks but that's all they are: an annoyance. Somthing to brush aside. You know what you cared about all this time is 'there'.

All the best.

So for me: classic.

PhD: A Play in One Act

Dramatis Personae and Actors
Man, played by you
Dog, played by you

Act one, scene one
Man Here, doggy doggy! Here, little doggy!
Dog approaches, wagging tail excitedly
Dog Is it dinnertime? Is it? Is it?
Man It is, indeed, my little friend. How would you like a nice bowl of meat?
Dog Oh, boy would I ever! Meeeeat meat meat meat meat. I love meat!
Man Well, here you go, because you're such a good dog
Man puts down bowl. It is full of dog food.
Dog What the? B-b-but this is dog food! This is the most horrid tasting gruel ever invented by humans to punish dogkind!
Man (feigning surprise) Oh, is it? I'm sorry, I hadn't noticed. But look, you've already eaten most of it, you might as well finish it now.
Dog (furious now, though resentfully eating) You said there'd be meat!
Man Well, tomorrow you'll have meat, ok? Eat your dog food.

Scene repeats for FOUR FUCKING YEARS.

:(

Couple of quotes from My Life as a Quant, the biography of a physicist who left academia to work in banking:

"If you didn't mind wasting the best years of your youth, graduate student life at Columbia was paradise." p29.

Quotes this letter to the NYT following the suicide of two grad students: "Perhaps even more now than then, graduate education is an extended adolescence during which highly intelligent young people see their world shrink to fit the dimensions of their advisor's laboratory … With their identities bound to the outcome of their thesis project, graduate students are socialized to view other options (teaching, industry, even changing to another type of world altogether ) with contempt. Wanting a decent wage and meaningful work that occupies, say, 50 hours per week are considered signs of selling out." p29

"Despite the amount of time it took to finish my thesis [seven years], I have no real regrets; in a way, I am proud of the struggle. What I learned in those years — perseverance as much as mathematics — has stood me in good stead on Wall Street as well as in academia. When trying to discover something new in any field, one has to spend many years thinking, making false starts, wandering down blind alleys and stumbling into ditches, only to emerge again and keep going. For this, a PhD is good, if painful, training." p51

I nearly quit a couple of months ago. In the end, I changed supervisor and project, and I'm really happy with the decision and how things are going now. It's really not all bad.

http://www.brianmay.com/brian/brianssb/brianssb.html

buh buh he took a long guitar break. ;-)

Colour figures. Well, I suppose he can afford it.

http://www.brianmay.com/brian/brianssb/brianssbaug07a.html

Hey, glad to hear things have turned around, Caek!

Thanks! I still need to read the Philip Roth book you recommended me. I haven't forgotten!

Oh cool; I suppose you have other things keeping you busy :)

I was listening to Brian May talk about his work and he was obviously so enthused by it and genuinely pleased that he'd got it done it was lovely to hear. It really reminded me of me when I started my phd (which was sadly shelved about 7 years ago).

The main thing I remember about doing mine was that whenever I started talking to people about it I would completely forget normal conversational rules and they would be sitting there trying to stay awake as I went on and on and on and on...

I wish I had finished it now :(. Anyway good luck ILXOR phd-ers!

:(. = unnecessary full stop, not 'I have a zit'.

xxpost: I do, yes. I'm still managing to read for pleasure, but not as much as when my PhD was going badly. Just ordered The Ghost Writer. Give me a year and I'll get back to you.

You'll always regret it if you don't.

This is a variant of the old "it's better to regret something you have done than to regret something you haven't done", ja?

I remember one of my pals saying that someone had asked him about advice on doing a PhD., and his advice was not to bother - the X number of years you spend writing it could be more productively spent doing something else. Having never done a PhD., I can't really say.

I was struck by something, though. Doctoral theses are meant to be a preparation for the academic life, and I suppose they are in the sense that you are discovering the magic of research and all that. But surely the academic life is primarily focussed around the production of journal articles, which are fairly short, and not incredibly long things like doctoral theses?

As the finishing date of Spy School approaches, I find myself pondering what to do next, and the question of studying for a PhD is definitely on my radar... but really, I am a bit old for the kind of drop in income that would be involved in quitting work to study full-time, with only the vaguest possibility of an exciting new academic career to follow it.

but really, I am a bit old for the kind of drop in income that would be involved in quitting work to study full-time, with only the vaguest possibility of an exciting new academic career to follow it.

Exactly my thoughts about it, eight years ago as well as now. (And I was probably older eight years ago than you are now. Maybe.) I have to admit, I haven't completely stopped considering the possibility. I'm planning on relocating next Spring, and I've been thinking to myself, well, if I can't find a job, maybe I'll just go get another MA. (Of course, MA doesn't = PhD by a long shot, and gettng an MA on top of my MLS would actually have a little practical value.)

But sometimes I sit there read the reviews for philosophy books in Choice and I just start to drool, imagining what it would be like to be paid to think and write about philosophy. (To some extent I have the same reaction about certain areas of the social sciences.)

That's kind of what I think too, daydreaming about someone paying me to read books and articles and write things telling people what is going on in the world. Deadly stuff.

I was struck by something, though. Doctoral theses are meant to be a preparation for the academic life, and I suppose they are in the sense that you are discovering the magic of research and all that. But surely the academic life is primarily focussed around the production of journal articles, which are fairly short, and not incredibly long things like doctoral theses?

(i'm talking about my own "field" + eng lit but): most journal articles are adapted from chapters, or talks. and a lot of theses are quite bitty anyway. i'm not sure when academic life did become so monotonously based round production (and this is the right word -- no-one "writes") of articles that only other academics read. still we persevere...

hay guys should i do a one-year MA program in english at an overrated, overpriced private university or a two-year masters in library science at the (much) cheaper state school? keeping in mind that a) i have already been accepted to the 1-year MA but b) there is absolutely zero chance of continuing on to do a phd because post-katrina all the english phd programs disappeared. i'm not overwhelmingly interested in either topic but i don't really want to throw my life away by just sticking with a BA in english.

library science, absolutely. "overpriced" means I'm guessing you'll have to pay for some of it? that is debt with very little/no return.. those programs are there to make $$$ for the university mostly. grad school in the humanities is awful and if you're not even interested why make yourself miserable?
library science is pretty cool, a bunch of my friends have masters in that - it'd be neat to focus on the IT stuff, information architecture and metadata

A Hipper Crowd of Shushers

If you do an MLS, please please immediately start strategizing about how you are going to use it, what specialties interest you most, etc. Don't just go to school, start doing research on the field. I guess this is pretty obvious, but I didn't do a very good job of it. (When I finished my MA I was thinking I would magically get a job in a college library and then go on to get a PhD--and I didn't have a clue what doing a PhD was really all about either. I was also very depressed over a personal situation involving someone I went to school with, which made it difficult to focus.)

i would advise not trying to do a phd while you have a full-time job, and while your similarly employed significant other is also doing postgraduate work. it sounds obvious, i guess.

You usually get paid about $19,000/year to study for an English Ph.D. in the United States at any decent state or private school. For an MA you have to pay out of pocket ... schools like PhD students because they're basically free teachers for all the 100 and 200 level courses.

The job market once your out doesn't seem too great ... my history professor said that 70% of the people he got his PhD with still hadn't gotten jobs even 3 years after the program ended, and this was at a top 15 school.

I'm still thinking about applying for an English Ph.D.... or law school. :< :<: <: <:<::::::::::::::::<<<<<<

GO TO LAW SCHOOL

seriously, if you're up to working for a living, do the sensible thing.

all the phd students i know are batshit insane. except for one girl who actually has a good job and a life outside of her studies.

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/81/e4/43f47220eca001e3c5f87010.L.jpg

yeah, this is clearly the more appealing option

If it is only a small minority of PhD students who go on to viable careers in academia, then what distinguishes them from the others? Luck? Better grades? Sucking up to the right people?

Sucking up to the right people?

I could make a semi-educated guess that a lot of it is similar to what helps people make it in other ultra-competitive fields -- brazen self-confidence, acceptance of a certain amount of compromise, prioritizing career-advancing moves over the pursuit of one's passions, yes, probably some kissing up too. I certainly know people who got into top English programs but DIDN'T go all the way to a career because they didn't have enough confidence in their ability and/or couldn't let go of their bitterness at the quashing of their idealistic picture of academia.

I have NO idea what you're talking ab...oh.

My cleverer half's PhD is dragging on forever and it is a minefield of how much interest to take without appearing nagging, silently (usually) wondering if there's any way to motivate him to get the damn thing finished (every year his fees get ever more extortionate) without offending him or looking like I haven't noticed that there's a hell of a lot else that needs dealing with besides, etc...

Yeah, I don't have a specific question, just some advice would be handy, otherwise my sympathy to all struggling postgrads, I couldn't even hack my first degree. Take care, ILX doctorate crew!

I think a lot of what distinguishes the people who get jobs from the ones who don't in fields like English where the market's flooded is contingency + luck, honestly.

all the phd students i know are batshit insane.

:(

xpost: your other half would ideally be in an environment where he has other PhD students to bitch with (maybe this thread?!), and a healthy social/family life outside of academia. Finding this balance is something that's easy to screw up. I get the impression that arts PhDs miss out on the former and science PhDs can miss out the latter (although they definitely have it easier).

If you can think of a way to help here without it seeming nagging or intrusive then I'm sure it will eventually be appreciated. I know it's the kind of thing I look for. Maybe just get out their way and don't ask about their work when they're obviously stressed about something technical or some depressing aspect of academia that a non-academic "couldn't possibly understand".

And be thankful you're not doing a PhD too! Now that is tough on relationships.

xpost: your other half would ideally be in an environment where he he or she has other PhD students to bitch with

Fixed ; )

Thanks, caek. I guess he's doing OK then; he has a social life and while he has a day job it's in an academic research role so he's still around PhD students to eat lunch and rant with. Then again, with a job and an evening life I don't know when work gets done (I don't live with him, so I don't see much) and it's not really my place to nag.

Overlap between job and thesis = good as boss understanding/keen on it getting done + also it can be unobtrusively worked on in work time, bad in that why would anyone want to think about that stuff 9-5 and then come home and sweat over nearly the same stuff, I guess? (Apologies to those of you who have to think about it every waking hour and not even get paid for half of it!)

I don't know when work gets done (I don't live with him, so I don't see much)

...PS I totally realise this makes life a lot easier for me than for a lot of people in this situation, I just hate watching him go through the periodic inevitable crises every time another round of funding is demanded or he's reminded how long it's been since he went to show his supervisors anything, all the while feeling like I should maybe have helped him do something about it.

Yeah, not as much as it sucks to be the student, I know. Sorry, PhDers.

I dunno, I think living with us is pretty hard! I think a certain amount of emotional rollercoasterness is inevitable; it sounds like you're being supportive.

i think my main problem is this not entirely irrational fear that someone else could be doing the exact same research as me and i'd not know about it. how would one know? i have read learned articles by lettered professors where (reasonably enough) they haven't read relevant but unpublished theses on their topic, just because, well, how the hell would they unless it happened to land on their desk? frightening!

That isn't really a risk in my field, but a friend of mine quit his UK arts PhD 2.5 years in after finding out someone had covered the same subject the previous year. Bogus.

see i never did a phd so i may be comin at this from the wrong perspective entirely but what i always feel abt long-term projects of mine which i have talked a lot abt in public is NO WAY is some random HOWEVER CLEVER goin to come up with what i'm thinkin, or how i write about it --- haha i don't know if this is arrogance or resignation

yr pal dr sparky

it's less the 'what i feel' and the 'how i write' than the 'what i research', the field itself -- discovering new facts. fortunately that in itself is a slightly unpopular view of what a phd should be about, or so i hope.

i guess if you know where it's archived and who else is turnin up each day and lookin at the same pages as you? (oldish archives are pretty physical and space-bound after all, and not merely doubled-up everywhere much?)

there is of course a big giant huge issue in re: the commodification of the doctorate, and what to do with all the extra "information" bein generated, since the bulk of it is titanically useless

i got my er doctorate by popular -- not to say mocking -- public acclaim, as opposed to actual real academic legwork, but the larf there's on my buds that spent days in libraries haha

there are some archives where i know it's just me, so that's dandy, yeah.

bulk of doctorates are probably useless* and badly written and indeed unread. most of them (in the humanities) do not generate much new information -- "radical new perspectives", yes, by the ton.

*or so say i. higher education industry plc uk may disagree -- i guess these doctorates serve a purpose there, since they are sort of job applications.

i think the growth of the academy has skewed serious writing about movies in a bad way, but mainly because of the specific um modalities film studies went through in its birth, cos before then you didn't get much heavy historical work going on. also because it has split the publishing marketplace in two.

yes in a funny way rockwrite and "pop studies" dodged a bullet there, by being too chaotic and autodidact and plain old mentalist-bangsian-"subjective", so now it lands up in departments which are much more old-skool history-biased and/or belle-lettrist or technical (american studies, musicology), which it turns out is a good thing after all!

*burnishes "i hate dick hebdige" badge until letters are worn off*

Not a PhD, but I saw a book about the wreck of the Batavia in a shop the other day, and picked it up to see how it would compare to Mike Dash's "Batavia's Graveyard". The foreward by the author said "I was working on a book about he Batavia for years and then that fucker Mike Dash went and wrote a really good book about it before I was finished, my life is over".

i'm sure it's an old comedy-club opening line to say "that fucker stole my jokes".

when your subject really is an easily definable event or thing (eg the wreck of the batavia, i would guess!) it must be even more nerve-wracking.

biographies as well, i imagine -- though i guess they aren't an academic thing, i remember hearing a horror story about these two recent [redacted, this is probably very secret] biographies, both done for his centenary [CLUE: it was 2003]. one of the authors had got people he had interviewed to agree to speaking to him exclusively and not to the other chap!!1! mortifying, though it being a book rather than a phd i guess he had a contract and got paid either way.

I guess that's true, about biographies, but there seem to be so goddamn many of them devoted to a single person anyway (I have to plow through a bunch for some famous literary figures I'm working on). maybe it's unfair, but I assume if you're a biographer you can get away with a certain amount of duplication. and yeah, the fear that someone's already done what I'm doing is my #1 academic fear.

somewhat tangential:

http://www.penguin.com.au/lookinside/spotlight.cfm?SBN=9780141026800

probably the best way to avoid duplication is to be pretty public about what you're doing - surely most parts of academia are small worlds, and people don't generally want to tread on the toes of a phd student?

people don't generally want to tread on the toes of a phd student?

I don't want to sound too horribly bitter, but I've seen no evidence of this.

it can be difficult to be public about your work when it's unfinished and you're still a student--you very likely don't have the resources (especially if you're in the humanities) to travel to conferences and present your work while it's in progress. publishing chapters of dissertations is an option, I guess, but no guarantee that you won't get scooped on some other angle. I do think most academics develop skills in coaxing their projects in a slightly different direction after having run across an article that neatly preempts their as yet unpublished argument. it happens to everyone sooner or later.

How is everyone doing? I just submitted my second year report. Based on three months work, it is infinitely better than first year report (on old, shitty project), which was based on 15 months.

Also, I am moving offices. Classic or dud?

Also, new students to teach next week, which is fun. Who will be a struggle this year?

They recently moved my office from a 20x15 room with a huge window (shared with 6 other people, but there were never more than 2 there at a time) to a 5x5 no-windows closet shared with one other person. The joke's on them though, I don't now and never have used my office for anything other than office hours once a week. HA

More fool them! I am moving from a beautiful bay-windowed five-person converted living room in a town house to this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/oxford/pictures/sky_view_gallery/pop_up_26.jpg

This is what happens when you change from theory to experiment.

Actually, you can see the chimney of my old building behind that tower.

Anyone care to do a US/UK comparison of humanities PhD work?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,301956,00.html

Oh snap.

wait, fox news?

other fox new science headlines

# Chicago Researchers Look for 'Gay Gene'
# Gravitational Waves Wash Over Des Moines
# Gigantic Plant-Eating Dinosaur Unearthed in Patagonia
# Study: Chimps as Irrationally Possessive as Humans
# Moose Use Human Shields to Defend Against Bears

# Pentagon Report: Let's Put Solar Power Collectors in Orbit
# Quasars Found to Spit Out Rubies, Sapphires

I know! And it's a journalism-free article that seems to have spun of a bit of blog chatter a couple of months back. But still.

Choices:

Ten+ years of itinerant misery in academia followed by a shot at a permanent research position

3-5 years of same followed by a shot at a teaching position in, e.g. a liberal arts college

Banking

I am still considering this in a social science

so journalism-free!
"here are some things we found on the internet
then we asked this guy something (well maybe he is a friend of mine)
then ok check out what i wrote at the end - 'So go ahead, make a wish upon the first star you see tonight — and wish luck upon whoever wants to study it.' awes, rite?"
xposts

Quasars Found to Spit Out Rubies, Sapphires

Quasurs That Didn't Help Elderly Beggars in the Woods Found to Spit Out Toads, Lizards

haha :)

it's weird, my feelings abt academia these days - very mixed
i may be one of those people who goes back for a phd at 60 tho

and then writes some nobel prize winning book of poetry or whatever

That wouldn't be a bad gig.

it's my 5-yr plan in 30 yrs

i hope one of you will write me a grad school recommendation in a couple years

this is as good a reason as any for me to Accomplish Things in the next couple of years

writing me a rec??

or the lack of jobs in astronomy?

I did the Ph.D. thing in the humanities and have an academic job in the humanities, so I guess so far I've been one of the winners, but still: I'm not sure I can call this classic. Doing academic work, whether in grad school or on the job, isn't a barrel of laffs like posting on ILX or even talking stuff over with friends about your work. Instead, it's real work for which there's not a guarantee of success, and where the competition stays fierce. My first year of grad school was the worst of my life. So I have a hard time advising others to do the same thing. No matter how much you love your subject, it demands more of you than you're likely to want to give. But you have to keep giving if you want to stay in. I've seen lots of friends lose their self-confidence and spend years spinning their wheels without making progress. And I wouldn't wish that on anyone. So I dunno, I guess for me classic but it's a pretty hard thing for me to speak on generally.

hehe yeah but i have many good reasons to do things too
but i am not an astronomerer
haha i kind of want to get semi-famous for something bizarre yet helpful/good and/or rocknroll and then write grad school recs for people

xpost

just let me know when u need writing samples

I need writing samples! It should start with my name, address, and email, and then detail all my accomplishments at work for the last four years.

hay guys i'm destroying hitchcock studies and rebuilding them again :D

xpost to Euler: I don't feel like I was hoodwinked into graduate study, but the down sides you've experienced are far from clear when you apply/begin. And in the UK, once you're a year or 18 months in, you may as well stick it out, which is where I find myself. I am enjoying it, but realistically I'm going to struggle to eke out a few post docs, never mind a permanent position (liberal arts teaching gig notwithstanding, which I'm still very keen on).

Here are the relevant blog posts quoted in that Fox News piece:
http://scienceblogs.com/interactions/2007/05/the_astronomy_community_to_rob.php
http://scienceblogs.com/interactions/2007/07/a_farewell_to_academia_1.php

And here's a Chronicle thing:
The Real Science Crisis: Bleak Prospects for Young Researchers
http://chronicle.com/free/v54/i04/04a00102.htm

It makes one want to go into the woods and hang oneself.

Doing academic work, whether in grad school or on the job, isn't a barrel of laffs like posting on ILX or even talking stuff over with friends about your work. Instead, it's real work for which there's not a guarantee of success, and where the competition stays fierce.

^^^^OK this is funny.

I've got a week to revise a final-ish draft to give to my supervisor. Aiming to submit in a month. Footnote formatting may take twice that.

I hope it goes well G00blar. My final draft back then was stressful, because I already had a job and had to finish writing while teaching full time. Now that I have a "permanent" job it's way more stressful. Hooray!

lol btw I wasn't trying to suggest it's easy to post well on ILX, but rather that not much is at stake whether you post well or not.

i want to go back and do a MA/PhD but my Degree was a basic Business Studies from a crappy regional college, and I can't decide on where i want go next in terms of study.

I want to teach, ideally at third level, and there may be easy avenues towards funding for further education from my current job.

So, I know I want a MA, I can probably get work to pay for it, and I know what i want to do with it.

So, how do i find out what to study, ILX?

Contact potential supervisors who work in the general area you're interested in, and ask if they have any suggestions.

i wish i had a general area to start with!

Do some reading around of published papers in your field and see what grabs your attention.

good advice, when i finally settle on a field.

who's got a really cool, well paying and rewarding job that they can recommend for me?

xpost

Nah, published papers in one's area are typically for specialists and are hence boring. Think about what kind of thing you like to think about when you're not working: e.g. music or history or politics or mathematics. It might be doable to link your interests back up with that, even as you become a specialist. That's certainly what I did, and even though I write for specialists now, I have a broader "program" rooted in my original interests and that's what keeps me going.

i will think about this at half time this evening!

Just make sure you're genuinly enthused by your topic (/recoveringacademic)

at the moment it's a toss up between fake internet personalities and aspies :/

i need to get off this board, i think.

I'm revising chapters 4, 5, and 6 to give my supervisor my second-to-final draft of everything by bedtime tonight (she already has 1, 2, 3). It's really shit: a combination of tedious little tasks (footnote formatting, citing sources just to show that you're aware of others' work, etc.) and big tasks that actually require thinking (reworking sections of chapters, revising to make each chapter sort of fit into the whole, somehow cutting a thousand words or two here and there).

Regardless, I need to have an absolute monster of a work day to get at least most of it done. I think I'm going to report here as I go along, in a bid to hold myself responsible, and make myself work and work and work. Ignore as needed.

just copy and paste the lot, we'll do the rest.

Cheers.

Ach, a roadblock already. A faintly remembered article about Roth's use of legalistic language in Deception that would really help me unpack this quote, and I can't remember where it's from or find it anywhere. This has the potential to waste a lot of my time.

Good luck goobs - my gf is basically trying to do the same thing, same processes, albeit not in one day!

Fuck it. I will come back to it later. I cannot get bogged down today!

(thanks Mark!)

Are English Ph.D. programs still really obsessed with postmodern criticism?

I remember when applying for programs they told me to switch around my language/history based ideas and consider things like "post-queer theory" and other shit like that, and these were pretty decent schools. I ended up withdrawing my applications.

Added the second sentence:

To this, Philip answers, arguing much like Zuckerman does in his letter to Roth in The Facts, “‘I cannot and do not live in the world of discretion, not as a writer, anyway. I would prefer to, I assure you—it would make life easier. But discretion is, unfortunately, not for novelists’” (184). The extremity of this statement, the absolute refusal to even entertain the possibility of being discreet, points up the centrality of these issues to the novel.

xpost: depends on what you're working on. There are certainly subjects which you would have to wear blinders to ignore postmodern crit in your investigation. I don't do much of it, but I certainly have to justify this decision--whenever you do academic work, you can't just ignore an influential strain of criticism just 'cause you don't like it, especially something as big and far-reaching as, um, postmodernism.

I would fail any phd I examined which mentioned 'postmodern criticism'!

Moved a longish footnote into the main body text (will not paste it here, your welcome).

Now: grilled cheese.

I read Ghost Writer, by the way G00blar. It was rad. Thanks for the recommendation. My advice when writing about fiction: think, 'what would Louis Jagger do?', and then do the opposite.

wow that's exactly the kind of enabling, intellectually open approach one needs in a superviser. imagine using that phrase! i bet no published author would use it!

oh no hang on:

http://books.google.com/books?client=safari&rls=en&q=%22postmodern+criticism%22&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&um=1&sa=N&tab=wp

xposts

No published author could possibly be wrong?

of course they could, but "I would fail any phd I examined" using the phrase is kind of an instant fail for you as a super'.

how many times does someone have to change their thesis title before it's clear they are in trouble?

That one guy otm.

Also, straw-man hunter, burt stanton was asking about postmodern criticism, not the phrase 'postmodern criticism'.

xpost DG that's a trick question.

??? As a supervisor I encourage postgraduates to challenge the cliches and commonplaces which they might be tempted to use just because they happen to pass for meaningful currency in current academic jargon. As an examiner I am obviously not in a position to fail anything on the basis of the use of just one phrase. As a contributor to an internet message board I am usually joking.

is it gooblar? someone i am not happy with has changed theirs about 3 times but i'm told that some change is acceptable :S

I think I was trying to imply that the mere fact of doing a PhD means you're in trouble.

true :(

and byebyepride:

Dude, I get it. And I agree that the use of jargon, especially something as vague and essentially useless as "postmodern criticism," should be discouraged. But the guy was asking whether he'd have to be immersed in theory to do an English PhD, a pretty common fear for people entering into grad work, and I basically answered "it depends".

Anyway, I should be working, not debating this!

G00blar - fair enough; I should have made clear I was only clarifying my position to fend off the full force of Enrique's snark. My original comment wasn't particularly helpful, admittedly!

today i am concluding my conclusion. of my masters thesis. lol. so close to over. never stretch yr masters over 4 yrs - just do the whole thing in 3 or fewer and commit completely b/c you will gather enough research and multiple methodologies that you might as well be doing a phd! (also my particular school's program is notoriously rigorous. which is why i chose it in the beginning. ahaha.) no regrets tho as i've done a bunch of other things and learned a lot during this time and have realized that i'm happier with many interests/projects in my life than with one main one. ok back to processing words.

also: yaay gloobar you are almost there!

Thanks!

Added a pretty lousy paragraph about Claire Bloom's memoir and her account of PR's including her name in Deception. (She made him take it out.)

Chapter now up to 15000 words. Christ!

my eyes hurt

Noted that I've used the word 'Jekyllian'; nodded smugly to myself in self-satisfaction.

you maniacs

never stretch yr masters over 4 yrs - just do the whole thing in 3 or fewer

Yaow! Four years! I recommend you do it in the UK in three eight week terms.

It was probably just the programs I applied to - they wanted "new perspectives" on the literature I was interested in, particularly post-feminist post-structuralist, etc. etc. I could've searched out new programs, but by then I was pretty disillusioned. I guess I was most curious about the linguistic and structural legacy of ancient literary traditions on medieval and Renaissance, literature, which is something that's been really neglected, especially since a lot of people don't read a lot of the dead and archaic languages anymore.

I think it was the program head at Notre Dame that wanted me to look into doing like ... feminist or queer critique of the above ideas, and all the other schooll program heads shooed me away to other schools. I have 0 interest in critical theory.

Did you do a masters G00blar? My housemate was doing a PhD on this bro: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Rolle. Crackers.

xposts! Yeah, mine took one (1) year. My PhD is only taking 4+!

Glad to hear you read and liked TGW, caek. It's definitely one of my favorites, I love rereading it. The new one (Exit Ghost) contains lots of reference to the plot of TGW (Amy Bellette's back!); I'm looking forward to seeing what he does with it (I've read half of it--putting off finishing it until after I get through this last phd push).

And yeah, counter-Jaggerism seems like wise advice.

I did my masters at KCL; it is my opinion that a masters is a wonderful thing to do. I liked doing a masters 100000x more than doing a PhD (and until about two years ago, I liked doing a PhD!).

Def. sounds like that wasn't the program for you, burt. If you want to do a PhD and avoid theory, I think the uk is a better place for you than the u.s.

masters is different in canada/us
i will not say anything mean here abt your system tho

;)

no but really have no real academic snobbery issues these days but have talked to many people who do in both arts and sciences

Do you smoke lots of cigarettes while doing a masters in us/canada y/n?

(coffee's ready, btw)

I am reading Peter Ackroyd's book about Newton now, but more Roth is next but one on my fiction list.

I really liked this Clive James bit about Camile Paglia:

She flies as high as you can go, in fact, without getting into the airless space of literary theory and cultural studies. Not that she has ever regarded those activities as elevated. She has always regarded them, with good reason, as examples of humanism's perverse gift for attacking itself, and for providing the academic world with a haven for tenured mediocrity. This book is the latest shot in her campaign to save culture from theory.

How do cultural theorists feel about being held in not very high regard by the rest of academia? Is there a siege mentality? The pathologies remind me of string theory (although I understand neither field very well).

xposts

rrrobyn: you are rightcorrect. Not only is a UK masters not worth a US one, but I have the one they offer now in the sciences as the fourth year of your undergraduate degree. Rather than getting a BA I got an "MPhys", which makes me:person with real masters::community support officer:Serpico.

And they still give MAs away for a £10 administration fee at Oxbridge once you complete your undergrad degree. Way to go.

"rightcorrect"?

How do cultural theorists feel about being held in not very high regard by the rest of academia?

I'm not sure they're aware, especially in the states. In fact I'd imagine that most 'cultural theorists' see academics who avoid theory as 'tenured mediocrity'.

Your advice for writing about fiction is sound. I think I might employ it myself. Can't you just stick to being a physicist, you boring, victimising cunt? I know it sounds snobbish and crass, but you've got on my wick once too often, actually going out of your way to dig one in when if you actually stopped to think about it for a fucking second, you'd realise that I am just a twenty year-old student, whose writing-style is nowhere near complete refinement, and whose actual essays you have never even seen. I must be doing something right, given that most of my tutors think me capable of a first. The way you above everyone else on ILX leap to judge me, based on your (unrelated) experiences with students at a different university, continues to amaze me. As long as you address me in this snide and small-minded manner, I will keep refuting your baseless attacks.

Edit more.

OK, I didn't need that 'me' after 'amaze', but that's because my post was a rant, rather than a measured piece of critical analysis. Trust me, I edit the stuff I get marked for.

The 24/7 never beggin' for a raincheck

burt stanton has I think picked up on something like a sea change in English studies -- because a whole tier of faculty had to pretend to be 'theoretical' they now like to flaunt their 'learning' by insisting that connecting to the latest trend is the be-all-and-end-all of academic rigour. BUT this is really a perpetual problem of literary studies (and possibly elsewhere, I don't know) i.e. that to be allowed to do something 'new' in the discipline you have to pay your dues first, or be taken under the wing of a trail-blazer who has done so. 'Theory' is seductive to graduate students and young academics (I speak from my own experience) because it often promises to provide ready-made answers that replace the hard process of learning by experience (this goes across the board: Leavis-style 'great tradition' does the same, since it cuts down the number of authors you ought to read; New Criticism cuts out contextual research which good criticism requires).

NB: I don't have a problem with reflective self-critical thinking about the practice of literary studies, and much of what gets called 'theory' is just that, but there is also some real nonsense that gets bandied about under the name of 'theory' and that tends to blot out the critical thinking. Literary studies / cultural theory seems to be especially prone to trends and fads, because marginal advantage on getting ahead in that sub-section of the discipline depends on being hip to the 'very latest' thing.

or in other words: why I will take Curtius (scholar) over Badiou (blowhard) any day.

or "why people are still listening to radiohead...."

I don't have a problem with reflective self-critical thinking about the practice of literary studies, and much of what gets called 'theory' is just that, but there is also some real nonsense that gets bandied about under the name of 'theory' and that tends to blot out the critical thinking.

^^^^^^^^^^^
yes.

OK, I've gone through Ch. 5. Things left to do for it:

-insert a note about the length of Roth's 'late' career; how in 1988, it did feel late in the day, but considering the amount of incredibly well-received books he's written since then, the terms have necessarily shifted.
-do a footnote that cites the many pieces that look at the autobiographical tetralogy as investigating Roth's interest in the interaction between fact and fiction.
-stupid legalistic language thing in Deception quote (I still can't find that mythical article)--connect to legal concerns in Operation Shylock.
-WRITE A CONCLUSION, STUPID. THE THING JUST ENDS.

^^^
I don't wanna do this last one.

conclusions (im my experience of writing this type of thing)

"What? WHAT? I JUST SAID IT ALL, WEREN'T YOU EVEN LISTENING?"

haha I hate them so much. In order to not just repeat everything, you actually have to think--i.e. re-do all the fucking hard work you thought you had just fucking finished.

This is one of the good/easy things about technical science writing. In the conclusion you literally summarize the previous sections in about three paragraphs. If you're saying something new in the conclusion you're not doing it right.

If you're saying something new in the conclusion you're not doing it right

ha word for word what one of my law lecturers said at least once a week for two years.

My PhD (in philosophy no less)is driving me utterly batty, so I'm gonna say dud and possibly drop out. Or take some time off.

Neste caso eu digo: adeus, saudade.

conclusion is this thing that seems like it'll be easy but is so hard
i am right now going on about things in different words plus a few random theories/areas of 'future research' blah

for about two days a few weeks ago i seriously thought about taking up recreational thesis-related smoking! but came back to my senses. i have, however, eaten a lot of chocolate. in anticipation of the sweet sweet freedom that will be mine mid-december.

have also listened to a lot of stars of the lid - good for concentration, calming

recreational work-related smoking is simultaneously the best and worst thing in the world

perfect for forcing yourself to take breaks every hour or so, awful two weeks after youre done with your thesis/final and youre still smoking

I'm so glad the thesis was optional in my master's program. I did actually end up dragging it out for an extra two semesters and switching my whole area of research twice. Learned a whole hell of a lot and developed several new areas of interest but ugh ugh ugh to do all that writing, proposals, etc. and end up flushing it away because I just couldn't find the time to finish properly

ha I don't smoke but when I was working on my BA thesis was the first time I ever seriously considered doing it. I guess that could happen again w. my dissertation, but no one takes up smoking after 25 do they?

every week that I was working on my ba thesis I would roll up to the cornerstore and buy, like, 5 pounds of chocolate and a 24 pack of diet coke. the guy behind the counter seemed a little afraid of me.

last semester i was eating 15 meals a week at jack in the box. i must have gained 10 pounds.

Maybe the reason why I'm taking so long to finish is that I've told myself (and pretty much everyone I know) that I'm quitting smoking after my PhD? My thesis is an enabler.

i just wrote: "voyeurism gets old"

it is time for coffee time

TIME FOR COFFEE TIME

clearly one of those ilx things i will start saying in real life.

Out loud, in the office! "Voyeurism gets old! Time for coffee time!"

thatll put you on the fast track for career success!!!

haha this is the PhD thread don't say mean things like that.

srsly! ;_;

http://static1.videosift.com/thumbs/b/us/Business_Time.jpg
It's time for
For Coffee Time!

otm!

i probably say things like that in the office! because i have been out of offices for too long! i don't care

i am on no academic career track yaaay

now i am writing an aside about comedy effects of music in online videos of gastrointestinal system

i mean tell me this isn't hilarious
http://www.gastrolab.info/tv156.htm
btw it is probably pretty gross if you haven't been looking at this kind of thing for 4 yrs
it is a finnish site! i think it is pretty great even though for thesis purposes it is not a primary site of analysis :/

STILL AT IT

(it's not going that well, but I'm still at it.)

Goobs, update plz! (it might help you focus, who knows)

What is your word count?

10.

Oh you weren't talking to me

har

the main thing driving me right now really is sweet freedom. and some kind of intellectual clarity, i guess.

i just explained my thesis to my brother on the phone and he said "cool!" so i'm feeling okay. haha while i was talking to him i typed out what i said into intro page.
i am at 26,310 words (100 pages) which i am fine with and which has included a lot of cutting. my conclusion seems to be foucault-ridden and semi-emotional. i am fine with that too.

rrrobyn what is yr thesis on? if youve explained before or are not in the mood to do so now dont worry i understand.

I'm around 80,000. Will prolly be about 85 once I hammer out a conclusion.

Have moved on from chapter 5 (does not mean I finished what needed to be done--just needed to move on) to chapter 6. Am now working my way through it, reading it for content, revising bits here and there, fixing things (I have left little annoying notes to myself to fix things later. It's later.). This chapter still needs an intro and a conclusion, so I'm trying to keep the overarching thread in my head so I can write those TONIGHT.

Just finished a can of coke.xpost

whoo!
that is a lot of words.
go go go

super going

GO DO GO DO GO GO SCIENCE GOOD GO RIGHT YAY!

What she said. :-D

I should maybe have only drunk half of that coke; I'm a little jumpity and my computer's battery is running out.*

*May not actually be related.

and now i wonder?

i drank green tea. got abstract done. editing other stuff now, almost there. was about to split ch 1 into intro and something else but eff it, i'm going to let supervisor advise me on that and do it later this week b/c that's the point this is at.

aw yeah
so tired

my thesis is about guts! mediated guts!

xpost yay! Puttered (petered?) out last night, went to bed at 3. Up at 8, and am now trying to write intro/conclusion for ch. 6 and do whatever else I can and send 4, 5, and 6 into supervisor by noon. I'm definitely too old for this.

i just repeat those 2 words 14,000 times each
xpost

it is the only way
i guess
(4 am here. gotta work tomorrow.)

whoa time zones.

Your search - "mediated guts" - did not match any documents.

There's still work to be done in yr field! Fill the vaccuum!

i am a freakin pioneer!

my supervisor who is pretty obviously the best ever already got back to me (!) with very positive comments (!) and a few things to address in the next couple of days while she takes a closer look at the whole thing

so tired!

Nice! Positive comments yay! Get some sleep!

at work!
coffee!

TIME FOR COFFEE TIME!

guys im going to start writing my undergrad thesis todayyyy

Good luck wit' you.

the time for coffee time worked! then green tea. i am just waiting for the crash to come. i anticipate 4:30. it is unusually quiet in the office today. and i am in a sunbeam!

max you know you can come to this thread at any time. i know and respect that phd is more work than masters and masters more work than undergrad thesis but damn straight they are all work! for i am not an academic snob.

yay max I'm glad you decided to do it! good luck, man!

hometime soon. new office has no windows : (

ya im glad i decided to do it too! im just dreading the moment 6 weeks from now when i have it half-written and i decide that i want to go in a different direction and scrap the whole thing.

I am relaxing this evening! Not working! OK, so I didn't get done all my revisions, but I had to send in the drafts to my supervisor in their current state so we can meet Friday. Sending stuff in=a little time off as reward.

http://static1.videosift.com/thumbs/b/us/Business_Time.jpg
Coffee Time is over, Baby!

fading, with jolts of energy
time off doing absolutely nothing is a rare but good reward i look forward to

there is nothing better than watching 6 straight hours of TV after cramming your head full of learning

Amser coffi

I hope to contribute to this thread in a few years. Meanwhile I am excited about getting 800 verbal, 780 math on the GREs today (and probably strong essay grades as well). If only those scores counted for everything I'd be set.

Chris, kudos for doing so well, especially at your slightly advanced age.

I know whereof I speak: I took GREs later in life and did pretty well, but had worst headache ever afterward.

Thanks. Now I have to actually, you know, apply to schools. Sigh.

Met with my supervisor today for two hours to talk about my second-to-last draft:

Bad news: she's got a ton of suggestions, my pages are covered in handwriting in the margins; I actually have to write a conclusion and try to tie everything together.

Good news: she thinks the bulk of it (everything except the intro and conclusion) is good enough that, whether I follow her suggestions or not, she really doesn't have to look at it again before I submit it. I can just submit it when I feel ready.

I think I've reached that point when she can suggest ways to make it better, but it's sort of up to me. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna pass the PhD, so it's a matter of how good I want the thing to be in a sort of pride in my work way (answer: I don't care at this point).

My supervisor has suggested that I add the word 'Freudianly' to a sentence. Should I do so y/n

No. No no no. Noooo.

You can come up with a less awkward way of stating that concept, surely.

That is a completely silly and adorable suggestion for an adverb

xpost Yeah, you'd think. I'm basically just changing whatever she's written on my pages--I'm way past the point of really caring on a word choice level, but this one gave me pause.

As she wants it:

Although, for Zuckerman, this is evidence of how committed Coleman is to his radical project of transformation, D4vid Br4uner points out that it is "precisely because Coleman is carrying the identity of a 'nigger' with him--that is to say, the consciousness of belonging to an ethno-racial group historically perceived as subhuman by many white Americans," that he lets the invidious term Freudianly slip out.

(I had the exact same sentence, just without the made-up word)

Wait, that's completely NOT a Freudian slip?

What?

Oh, wait, never mind. I get the gist now.

...that he reveals the invidious term in his Freudian slip.

Something like that.

I do talk about Roth and Freud a lot in an earlier chapter, and I'm keen to make lots of connections in this (my last) chapter, so I think I'm gonna leave the mooted 'word' in, just put it into parenthesis to indicate that I know I'm being cheeky.

I mean it is good to make it an explicitly "Freudian" slip (if it isn't from the larger context).

just got back comments on most recent thesis draft - was up at like 5 this morning to finish that draft and supervisor got back to me tonight. whoa i know. saw her at a journal launch yesterday and she hugged me and was all you are awesome etc - i think partly b/c i got the thesis into a solid place and partly b/c the draft before this one included my acknowledgements section, which y'know, was kind of sentimental etc - aw
but anyway: at last, very few changes to make!
i hand it in on monday to thesis office for early/mid-december defense! crazy

totally gonna go buy shoes tomorrow morning
totally watching week's worth of dl-ed tv right now
so tired

So happy to hear! Major hurdles down!

also yesterday evening's launch was populated by the usual suspects of phd students and profs - ended up being there for longer than intended (hey wine and food and intellectual engagement, call me a sucker) and i felt myself feeling the phd draw - oh but you could do it robyn oh but you'd be good at it etc nooooo

xpost
thanks ned :)

Do not sign on to more grad school when you are tired and emotional!

Congrats on very nearly finishing too! Enjoy TV!

I've started to realize that if my coworkers and I actually bothered to document our work properly we would all be capable of getting phds based on the level of research we're doing in this field and this has led me to also realize that I don't ever want to do a dissertation, because fuck writing 150+ pages on this shit when you have the option to just solve a problem

i'm having a v minor freakout about the finality issue, that is, what i print out is what they're going to get and what they're basing pass-fail and defense questions on and i could put so much more in, change paragraphs, etc etc!

gotta breathe it out

Possible questions which you're thinking about addressing in your thesis are presumably questions to which you know the answer. Doesn't matter now whether you answer them in the thesis or in the viva. Get very slightly drunk and make the final edit decision then. At this stage it doesn't matter. And further congrats!

yeah i guess it's not even questions but making sure i've got all the 'evidence' - like oh there are a handful of sources in my references that i don't have in the text and just put there much earlier as something to come back to and include but i know i should just delete them b/c they aren't really needed. and yet...
it's totally like robyn fer the luvva god and yr sanity back away from the research pile, put down the foucault
and yet

i am at the point where half a glass of wine wld prob help perspective/letting go

I heard a story about a masochistic defender and his sadistic advisor the other day, but I don't know if it'd be funny if you don't know the parties involved.

i just scrapped 10 pp i had written for my thesis because it didnt go anywhere :-/

buttt i just wrote 2 pages that i am a lot happier with :-\

i am at the point where half a glass of wine wld prob help perspective/letting go

Wise!

it is working

i've done that a lot max - it's rough but necessary
feeling kind of like that re: sources i've read and included but have been nixed in final draft :/ it's like guy guys i've read all this STUFF! but it doesn't nec further my arguments

luckily i'm slowly accepting right now that i'm at the fuck-it point :)

also my desk lamp just burned out
lol

feeling kind of like that re: sources i've read and included but have been nixed in final draft :/ it's like guy guys i've read all this STUFF! but it doesn't nec further my arguments

ya those 10 pages were basically just a major digression so that i could show off that i knew something that in the end wasnt really applicable

Rrrobyn it is a sign.

i think i'm just going to listen to can and read through and see what happens
xpost

i know, eh?

After 4 years I have my viva tomorrow afternoon. Until then I'm in a constant state of buried fear.

good luck, krakow!

and go rrrobyn go!

I read Sarah's 3rd chapter last night, 78 pages of it. Man she writes beautifully, even if a fair bit of it was over my head.

printing
i feel v v weird

btw for others who are 'just' doing a masters or undergrad thesis remember that when someone mentions 78 pages re: ONE chapter that you should not freak out. instead you should take some deep breaths and repeat something like "my supervisor specifically said 100 pages or fewer, and that is what i did, cutting, being prudent, yes, it is fine it is okay i will not give in to the over-achiever inside me that wants to take over in the final hour"
eek

not gonna be able to really relax until after defense though - sigh
going to a hockey game tonight though! :D

p.s. laser printers rule. if you haven't bought one of the cheaper HPs or whatever (ones that are under $200), you really should - so worth it in speed and quality

Have they finally gotten so cheap? I haven't looked in a few years. I assume the toner is still outrageous.

Even though I've never written something so prolonged, at this (undergrad) end of the spectrum, it feels like maybe after 78 pages I'd feel like I had really shown something interesting, instead of half-gesturing at something half-obvious, which is how my undergrad papers have generally felt. But I'm probably wrong about that.

I don't believe in nothin no more. I'm going ot law school

rrrobyn otm. I got this bad boy, http://www.samsung.com/uk/products/printsolutions/multifunctionproducts/scx_4200xeu.asp

It was like £100 and has a built-in scanner and can act as a photocopier even when your computer is off/not connected.

Maybe I'll finally get a new printer, I haven't had one at home in years....

Thanks G00blar.

Tomorrow is judgment day, when the worth of the last 4 years of my life is revealed to me. Gulp.

you can do it! i mean, after all, you wrote it! yr last 4 years are of worth no matter what, however
that's how i see it

i still feel weird but good dinner and the spectacle of hockey game were totally helpful in their own weirdness counteracting thesis-ending weirdness. you should see the bathrooms at the bell centre! it's like oh i will follow these bathroom signs to where they lead me and oh now i am a huge hallway and oh wait this hallway is lined with toilets. efficient! habs lost but hey :/ it was kind of exactly the scene i needed

the toilets are stalls with doors on them, don't worry, we are still civilized in cannadaaiana

Chris, that was more or less how I felt about all my undergrad work -- how could I be expected to do or show or prove anything new?? That was for doctors and researches and life-long scholars, I was just a KID. I felt like everything had been done already, so much so that I would never even be able to be 100% AWARE of everything that had already been done and so my work could never exceed repetition within existing framework. I think I found that doubt so sapping that I gave up before I started.

^^^^^^^^

this is basically my #1 anxiety issue with every research project ive ever done incl. the one im working on right now.

One of the many things I like about my Favorite History Prof is that, while he gives challenging amounts of reading assignments (or, challenging for undergrads -- 100pp/wk for 300-level classes, 250pp/wk or more for 400-level), he doesn't allow you to use outside sources for your paper. This makes it clear that you don't HAVE to know everything -- you just have what you have, and you're supposed to make the most of it. Also, since he's a medievalist, it even makes sense -- the field is all about working with limited information.

Classic and I can't say anything is too much work if I still have time to waste on ILx.

I really feel like I'm just starting to learn stuff now.

(That makes no sense on the page but it did in my head. It's late.)

I keep thinking you're getting a DFA but I think you've corrected me on this before.

you can do it! i mean, after all, you wrote it! yr last 4 years are of worth no matter what, however
that's how i see it

I agree really, I'm just feeling suitably hyperbolic as the final countdown proceeds.

The verdict is in....

I nailed it!

Only the most minor of corrections needed (about an hours worth of work or less), so from now on krakow is to be known as Doctor krakow.

I'm so unbelievably pleased and relieved and proud. Four years of work finally finished...

Hurrah! So you're buying all the drinks, then.

I hate you so much right now Congrats! Tell me it was all worth it!

W00t! W00000t!

secretly i really want to get an MD/PhD, but i haven't any research experience, and don't know how to get it.

WHAT TO DO

(the PhD would NOT be in the biomedical sciences, however)

congratzzzz! as a final year undergraduate philosophy student I know how it feels to be hopeless in the face of doing anything new. Although for the first time I feel like I'm writing something that seems relevant and new, and as a result I'm dedicating more time to it than I should, neglecting my other project. I'll surely cock that up, lower my overall classification, and fail to get postgraduate funding. oh irony, where would I be without you.

the idea of doing a PhD is just incredibly daunting to me, especially since my work ethic and self-motivation are pretty appalling. That if I got an undergrad first I could go straight into it is craaaaaaazy talk. I don't know anything! I can't suddenly be an expert! I doubt that doing a masters will do a lot to change that either, though.

Thanks. I hope that the wave of euphoria is going to last for a while.

The celebratory and congratulatory drinks are most definitely on everyone else though.

As to the question of whether or not it was worth it... that's tough, but I would have to say yes. The feeling of pride at having worked so hard at something for so long and succeeded in the end, and of having produced work in my chosen field that has been accepted as a genuinely significant contribution to knowledge by my peers is enough to make all the struggle and doubt and difficulties along the way worthwhile.

But... am I ever glad that it's over.

congratulations, well done!

MUST WRITE CONCLUSION TODAY KEEP GOING DONT STOP DONT STOP

I just spent a page arguing one thing, and then another arguing the exact opposite. I love straw men.

huge respect, krakow, and mighty congratulations.

I'm thinking of having the final sentence of my conclusion be: "But I'd better wrap this up before Roth publishes another book."

"I hope this is enough for you, Roth! I hope you will love me now! Don't make me shoot the next president, Roth! Because you know I will! I WILLLLLLLLLL!"

The first line of my thesis is:

"Abandon all hope ye who enter here"

and the last line:

"This is not an exit"

I'm particularly pleased with these.

My actual last line (!):

It is surely telling that Roth, a longtime student of Freud, conceives of his œuvre as a series of dreams, for, like Freud’s dreams, Roth’s books, and his career as a whole, invite endless interpretation, but resist any ultimate, definite, explanation.

Krakow you da man (or possibly woman)!

To give it some (non-)context, my PhD is in pure mathematics, going by the hugely illuminating title of "Rings and Modules with Krull Dimension".

"This is not an exit"

Hahah. Nice.

http://www.lacoctelera.com/myfiles/quefuede/Krull.jpg

http://www.nature.com/news/2007/071211/full/news.2007.366.html
http://www.strudel.org.uk/blog/astro/000743.shtml

lol UK academia

:(
i do love transcripts that keep all the ums and erms in though haha

i am defending lol masters thesis tomorrow morning!!

How'd it go?

MASTER

OF ARTS
(media studies)

http://www.ramatirtha.org/images/rama.jpg

Mazel tov!

congratulations!

yaay

i get to submit as is! i.e., no changes or additions, just a few typos
yaaaaaaaaaay!!
defense itself was disconcertingly fun/easy though the questions were challenging - i knew the answers
also, laptops + big screens + compelling images = big points

xpost - thanks guys! :D

Hooray for Rrrobyn! :-D :-D

Nice work Robbo xx

Yaaaaay

OK not PhD related but this thread has turned into more than that anyway. I just finished the first semester of my grad program and so far I have two out of my three grades - both As!!! I'm so happy. One of those two was in a class that means a lot to me and I was pretty nervous about my grade. Again . . . YAY!

Helfand notably declined an offer of tenure from Columbia in the early 1980s, due to his belief that the tenure system erodes the motivation of senior scholars to be productive. He advocates a system in which each senior professor's job performance is reviewed every six years by a five-member ad hoc faculty committee, which would then recommend whether the professor should be retained or dismissed. In such a system, each professor would serve on one such ad hoc committee per year, except for the year in which he himself is being reviewed. Although his proposed system is unorthodox, Columbia agreed to implement it in Prof. Helfand's case.

What a bro.

Although his proposed system is unorthodox, Columbia agreed to implement it in Prof. Helfand's case.

Haha we're not going to adopt your system, but if it'll make you happier, we'll maybe fire you every six years.

He seems awesome: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2553227601909753346

Great haircut!

I am on job tours while in the US this month. I must iron my shirts.

D'you have interviews?

No, still 12 months out from applications. Just "quick chats"

(not a euphemism)

yay academia!:

http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/politicsphilosophyandsociety/story/0,,2230971,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=10

i wish i could read that but apparently since finishing school i can only read comic books and short magazine articles about nothing

i'm feeling somewhat lost i'll admit it

good luck on the 'quick chats' caek!

i wish i could read that but apparently since finishing school i can only read comic books and short magazine articles about nothing

this happens to me in the middle of the semester

you know what's the classic-est thing about phd, my aspie brethren?

that's right, grant applications.

87pp of notes, fuck you.

i am smack dab in the middle of dissertation ennui....a bio of william james is just sitting there staring at me.

Seriously, fuck funding culture. It's particularly bad here in Canada where nobody even makes a cup of coffee without looking for "arts and culture" funding.

i've done shitloads of 'tings' w.out applying because it's fucking bare hassle, and with articles i don't want to tweak what i'm doing to fit their priorities. this is for the real money we should be making, to help me move out of my parents and finish this motherfucker.

That's cool. Just sayin'.

i know what you mean, and i hate that w. job applications it says "must be able to attract research $$$", stuff like that; otoh if someone's getting money, it ought to be me.

Dear bit of my PhD where every six - nine months I have to go mad writing a paper: fuck you.

Dear me three months ago when I decided to start taking notes in order to make above bit less painful: you are a sexy guy.

I would love to hear about your note-taking system.

Some of what I did today:

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f325/caek/ms.gif

Please do not tell me about typos/passive voice/illiteracy.

Boxy galaxies that look like vaginas. I wish dan was here.

My note taking system is not really a system. I write totally freeform in spiral A4 notebooks. I tape in lots of tables, figures, emails, etc. I guess the only sweet juice-bottle hacks I have are I also use it as a rolling todo list. Whenever I think of something that needs doing I put an empty square in the margin and try and look through those as often as is necessary, crossing out the square out as I finish them. If there get to be too many (or I finish a notebook) then I copy them all on to one page and cross out the square. Also, all my teaching notes goes in the same PhD logbook, but in red pen rather than blue. I manually number the pages as I go.

I'm finding as I'm writing this paper that quite often I'll have pasted some totally awesome graph that makes exactly the point I'm reaching for. Or sometimes I've written a really clear explanation of some subtle point I no longer understand. Reading these back makes me understand the point again, and sometimes the explanation is so good I can copy it into the paper. Time/mind = saved.

It seems obvious, but I really only started doing it this year. No wonder I made no fucking progress whatsoever for the first two years of my PhD.

I've started thinking that I must do a PhD. Even if it does nothing for me, if I don't do it I will regret it forever, and as we all know, it is better to regret something you have done, than to regret something you haven't done.

I'm not sure that applies to anything that can take a decade.

It so won't take me a decade. No way, definitely not.

Are you in the UK? If so, probably not, no. Apparently ten years is the median time for humanities doctorates in the US though. Yaow.

That sounds like a nice system. I have a deep distrust of anything not on a computer, though (although I also have a deep distrust of anything on a computer, so what can you do.

For me, computer notes are too fiddly, which leads to sub-conscious resistance to note-taking, which is bad. My handwriting isn't great, and occasionally I'll come up with a bit of maths I want to typeset nicely, and I'll save the PDF for that when I stick it in.

Also, those formulas are sexy, but I think I'm glad I only have the barest understanding of what they might mean. Or, perhaps, that I have the confidence that if I really wanted to spend the time, I could learn how to read them well enough, but I have other things I'd like to do, and it's ok. Every time I can accept not wanting to know something, it feels like a small victory.

On that subject, this is a good (short) book about there being too much interesting stuff and how to be OK with the fact that you can't know it all -- and how it's OK to buy awesome books and never read them:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51pRUPC-vdL._SS500_.jpg

The Vicar is affronted by the suggestion that he is in the ... the ... UK.

Vicar, what are you going to study? The key to Middle East peace? The geology of the Rock of Cashel? The iconography of Ostalgie? Or the history of pop fanzines?

yea i think if one is interested in doing a phd "just for the hell of it", he/she should probably just do an master's instead (yes assuming one is in the US). i haven't heard that 10-year median figure for humanties phds, but i remember being told the average philosophy phd takes about 6 years. just one of the many reasons i'm not doing a phd.

You're recommending another book for me to read when my problem is wanting to read so many books?

Well, I am clearly already ok about buying awesome books and not reading them. I am trying, once again, to learn how to sell less-than-awesome or less-than-necessary-for-me-to-own books. But does it have any advice for what do with all those books when moving to another country to do a one-year MA program that hopefully will lead to a PhD program?

When I moved to Australia to do a PhD I put all by books in boxes in my mum's house and took photos as I was doing it so I knew where to find which one in case I needed my mum to post one over. I quit after six months, so I'm glad I didn't bother shipping them over. But I was kinda surprised that I didn't need a single one in those six months. Getting rid of shit is awesome.

xp, the average astrophysics PhD takes six years in the US (although I can't find the APS survey from last year that gives this stat). I'm surprised philosophy takes less.

I have totally been putting the in the database. But I can't decide whether I'll bring them or what. I mean, the ones that are iffy to keep. The problem is all those poetry books, so hard to find, some of which will become valuable. Well, there are many problems. I like my books a lot. I define myself by them. This may be a problem.

Dud is more staybl

hit eiyhty rihh

`(

The Chronicle of Higher Ed published a story a year or so ago on PhD times. Studying full-time, the average humanities PhD in the US is 4.2 years. Mine took exactly 3, and this was pretty common amongst my peers.

I took 6 years getting my PhD. However, I switched my emphasis entirely after two years in, so it was actually more like four.

My wife is submitting TOMORROW. All-night formatting party tonight wooo!

did you two start at the same time?

Yeah, essentially. (Complicated w MPhil bizness, but yeah, she got upgraded and started working on this dissertation project when I started mine.)

starting a PhD at the same time as ex pretty much destroyed our relationship. you both have my compliments!

Thanks!

On three hours sleep; my wife's on NONE. We're going to turn this thing in TUH-DAY.

Yay, congratulations/good luck (if you need it)! What an exciting day!

General question: what do you think of the idea of doing a PhD instead of a Master's because there is more funding for it, and more schools offering programs? Smart decision for finances and opportunities, or stupid waste of like 5 years?

Maria, what is your field and what are your goals? Do you want to become an academic? If so, a PhD is pretty much required. If you don't, well, then a PhD might be sort of a waste.

A smart decision for finances is having a job, not going to grad school!

I had this weird dream that "something" would happen at 7:23am this morning - and then I woke up at exactly this time, and then a few minutes later I started having all these ideas about what I'd write a PhD on...er, basically, some sort of epistemological study, involving monks, formal and informal information sources (ie lost dog signs & litter), depriving people of newspapers and TV/online news. Okay, it makes no sense now, it was brilliant at the time.

I reduced my hours at work a year ago, because I was going to do a PhD (I think I was just fed-up/wigging out). I think I will do one now, as I'd love to be an academic.

Good luck if you are doing one!

UGH SOO CLOSE. After working for pretty much 30 hours straight (no joke!), at 1pm today she realized it wasn't gonna get done in time to get bound and submitted today ;_; After nap she'll now spend this evening finishing off conclusion and, er, coming up with a title. One day late's not a problem, right?

Maria: make sure you really really really want to do a PhD (or want a job that needs one) before deciding to do one. Remember this truism: Masters are fun, PhD's are definitely not. They're too long, and you're on your own for too much of it for anything other than ironclad motivations to work.

uh and sometimes you can't do a phd until you have a masters?

you called the thesis office and let them know it's coming right? i am just super paranoid abt things like this. good luck to her!! and you are aawesome for helping omg that is good of you
xpost

Nah, she resisted the calling. In her logic she doesn't want to make her case until she's in the office with the thing done and bound and in her hands. We are imagining all sorts of comical scenarios that could happen (this is what happens to people who don't bind their thesis on time!).

i have still not eradicated phd thoughts from my head
xpost
haha - i'm sure it'll be fine; i just worry

One day late's not a problem, right?

where I handed in my master's thesis, they made a really big deal about not accepting them if they were even a minute late, but on the day it was pretty apparent that they would take them on the next day.

Yeah, I can't imagine what a university would have to gain by not accepting a PhD a day late. Consistency?

I just filled in a form explaining why I was going to be a year late. I'd be surprised if one day made a big difference in the UK.

Tell her to put thank person at the exams office for accepting it late in her acknowledgments.

haha no! that wld then be acknowledging that you were officially late rather than simply 'experienced an unavoidable set back that nullified the due date/time'

I got a six-month plus extension for my masters...I think they are just glad to get 'em. It's good for the stats.

Thanks for the reality checks. I'm a little worried about master's debt because I plan on working in archaeology & history related nonprofits with relatively low salaries, but avoiding the debt is probably not enough motivation to actually write a PhD dissertation.

YAAAAAAAAAY!!! We She did it! The office accepted it! (obvs!) I'm pretty sure our good luck charm was seeing THE PINEFOX on the street while we were killing time when the binders were binding the thesis.

:D

Excellent!

Maria, one smart move is to enter a PhD program (with funding) and stop after you get your master's. A lot of people drop out along the way and there's no penalty.

I'm not sure that would be such a great way to endear yourself to your supervisor & associated research group?

I've thought of that, and can understand doing it if you plan to get a PhD and change your mind, but to go into the program intentionally deceiving people and actually planning to drop out sounds a bit sleazy....

Lot's of people get confused over the difference between smart and sleazy.

Oh like you can't be both!

My friend doing an English PhD (hermits, Langland, some shit like that) is thinking of quitting 2 months and 8 months in (3 year PhD). Last I heard he was due to submit in September. Heavy times. I tried to give him a pep talk about the value of a PhD if you're not staying in academia, but I'm not sure I believed most of what I was saying when it comes to an English PhD.

What IS the value of an English PhD outside academia?

I don't mean to be rude, I'm honestly curious what you told him. Here's to hoping he pulls through though, he must feel pretty overwhelmed at the moment.

Yeah, I think overwhelmed is where he's at. He's at that stage where he's done most of the research, but it's not really clicking into a thesis and his supervisor is being rather oblique and fickle in his recommendations.

I was trying to explain how useful I've found my PhD (which I haven't got yet) in the film industry. People remember you better, it's proof that you're a serious person capable of finishing extremely difficult projects, etc. My PhD is in astrophysics, which I suppose other people are (unfairly) more impressed by than, say, English, but I do think that's generally true. Not sure how convincing it was, but I think I managed to appeal to his macho, "just nut up and take it like a man" side.

Although there is probably some merit in this quote, which I pasted upthread:

'I think, generally, that doing a PhD in English is a valueless
occupation. If you can write you should write a book; a thesis is bad
preparation for that. Three years' concentration on problems that
don't exist but need to be created is worthless training to be a
university teacher. A PhD is a preparation only for academic life, a
taught MA would be much better. I don't think anybody ever consults a
thesis in English once it has been written; what use is that?'

gee, that's encouraging! If he's not planning on going into academia anyway, though, I guess the value is in the writing and accomplishment itself for him.

And I can't help thinking that's the case for the humanities in general. The more specific your research becomes, the fewer people who will care about it, and the less relevance it has for most of the world. This is, perhaps, evident at an earlier stage in archaeology. It isn't taught in schools like English and most people don't go to museums that much, so it's sometimes hard to figure out what the value is of any research for people who aren't archaeologists. This bothers me. On the other hand, I think there's less of that element of "problems that don't exist but need to be created," because there's always more than enough problems that already exist.

http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2008/07/dont_go_to_grad_school_in_the.php

My standard advice for students trying to choose a graduate school in physics is "If they're not offering to pay you, don't go." You're not going to be paid well anywhere, but grad school is not so rewarding that you should do it for free, let alone pay for the privilege. You're going to be there for a good while, generating data and publications for them-- if they're not going to pay you a living wage for that, find something else to do.

The extension to fields in which it takes a long time to graduate, the job prospects suck, and you get paid less than $9,500 a year is left as an exercise for the reader.

So...I dropped out of my PhD program and I don't miss it.
A lot of mental problems I was having (paranoia, feelings of inadequacy, agoraphobia) are gone as well, without the need for time-consuming professional therapy, so that's a bonus.

Bah, I am not doing a PhD programme, what do I drop out of?

Maria - the value of archaeology is an interesting question, but I think as a discipline research in it does filter through to things that (some) people actually are interested in. I'm thinking of ancient history books aimed at the advanced general reader and stuff like that, but I reckon even those ancient Rome crime novels probably exploit the work of archaeologists.

'I think, generally, that doing a PhD in English is a valueless
occupation. If you can write you should write a book; a thesis is bad
preparation for that.

is this true though? A great many non-fiction books seem to start life as PhD theses, and the great advantage of doing it this way is you get someone else to pay you some money while you research your book. This might be even more true away from English and in areas where a PhD thesis might translate into a book you could imagine people wanting to read.

I finished my PhD about five years ago. Not an easy period at all. My father died, as did my roommate's father (and his stepmother, too). I reckon on top of all the other issues one has to take into account when it comes to doing a PhD, life just interferes in ways you need to be able to handle. I watched as my peers had kids, saw too much death, illness, a few marriages, many breakups, etc. The things you might be asked to confront, including watching your self esteem get battered, are just all caught in making research, writing and teaching your life for a few years.

(As a somewhat scary tangent: I've always argued that for some people doing a PhD is entering into a process of desocialization. I know a few sociopathic wingnuts at my university who ably demonstrate this.)

A good supervisor should be able to spell it out for you, namely in terms of what kind of investment you'll be asked to make (financial, emotional), but better to talk to people you know (better if they're in the programme you're thinking about entering). Life in a humanities or social science programme is going to be different than what's usually on offer in a science stream. Money and job prospects are a bit more precarious. Always do a poke around for untapped funding opportunities. Grad students are willing to self-exploit, but try to offset that where possible.

Also good to get a sense of what kind of opportunities are available at the end of it all. The golden age of boomers retiring and a glut of employment opportunities (the dream of job choice at a dream university) is a fiction, one we've been fed for the better part of twenty years. Universities are increasingly relying upon contract employees and attrition to shore up their dwindling revenues, so job prospects are increasingly contingent.

I was relatively lucky. No jobs in my field (communications/media studies) were showing up in North America and Europe when I was entering the market. Thankfully, I found a job here in New Zealand. Pay is generally pretty shocking, but my colleagues are great, I'm in a great city, Wellington (shudder to think where I could have ended up if I'd been fishing around waiting for a gig in NA), and the quality of life here is reasonable, even on a paltry salary. Every three years I get six months off for research leave, a decent overseas conference budget, etc. Pluses vs. minuses, really, but I'm glad I made the choice I did oh so many years ago.

xp, I think his point is that the people who do PhDs in English are perfectly capable of writing books right away rather than spending an enormous amount of time and money going via a doctorate/thesis. And it does cost money. In the UK (to which that quote refers) almost no one gets paid enough money to live on to do a PhD in English.

fair enough.

if a lottery win came in, i'd spend the rest of my life accumulating masters/phd's. this is maybe the only eventuality in which i could see myself doing one.

When I asked my history professor if he could give me a recommendation for a Ph.D. program (in English, but I already had 2 English prof. recommendations), he begged me not to do it. He graduated from one of the top 10 history programs, and he said 2/3rds of his class still didn't have permanent employment 3 years out. Oh the humanities.

i'm glad i'm getting a ph.d., for the moment, though i need to rekindle my enthusiasm for the field (depleted after taking one too many mediocre courses), and it's true that if you have any serious anxieties coming into a graduate program, they're likely to be amplified. you have to deal with that.

I was a cocky bastard when I started my Ph.D., and within a year my self-confidence was completely shattered. The work was so much harder than what I'd been used to, and though I was up to it, it came at the cost of everything else in my life. After what looking back must have been a breakdown (I didn't have time to think about it), I became a different person, a lot more humble. Then things went ok afterward. I guess I look at it now as hazing, to make sure students are ready for the humiliation of putting forward your own, best, research to be ripped apart by the people who read your work and listen to your talks.

I have a lot of friends who didn't recover after being shattered. They're not in academia anymore, and they're happier now, but they've lost an edge after what they went through. I don't think this life is for everyone, not even for everyone really smart; there are just too many other good things to do.

Anyone here ever applied for a Cambridge JRF? This is just a ridiculous crapshoot, right?

Is there anyone up in this bitch with experience of professional academia (postdoc and up)?

I am a faculty member at a research university, caek.

What field, if you don't mind me asking?

Philosophy, though closely allied with mathematics.

All I've ever heard about Cambridge JRFs are that, yes, they are ridiculous crapshoots. Aren't most (all?) of them not even divided by discipline? So you're competing against basically everyone at once?

I heard there was a 1/200 chance of getting one with average qualification. Caek, I'd imagine, is a little more qualified than most. Nice to see him trying to get closer to his favourite types of student!

Yes, looks to me like 75% of them are "any subject", 20% are "science" or "arts" and then 5% say a specific subject (none of which are astrophysics this year, as it happens). The research proposal is usually 500-1000 words for the non-specialist! But they do insist you get your PhD at a UK institution, so it's probably a 500-1 shot rather than a 5000-1 shot. I'm guessing they go mostly on your references.

xp btw

haha lj, these aren't teaching positions!

I'm sure your lives will intersect somehow! If this happens, get back to me about the town centre in mid-term. :D

There's a decent chance my gf will become a Cambridge academic in a year's time, but it's too early to say for certain.

I am completely baffled by these U.S. private colleges with religious missions. I want to teach at a liberal arts college, so that's not the problem. But it seems like some I'd be welcome at, some I might get the job but would be continually weirded out, and some where they wouldn't even read my application.

I'm agnostic, certainly not practicing, haven't been baptised or Christened, went to a Church of England primary school. Would probably self-identify as ethnically CofE, just because I'm English and my grandparents are all Christians (or dead).

I'm looking in particular at (no http so this doesn't show up in their referrers logs, please copy-and-paste)

www.wheaton.edu/HR/employment/openings_fac.php?id=95

www.augie.edu/admin/human_res/prospective/facultypositions.html#physics

I know the question of whether I'd be comfortable somewhere like this is only something I can answer, but I really don't know what somewhere like this is like! Anyone with any insights here? What can I expect? Are lines like "a commitment to the mission of a church-related (ELCA) liberal arts college whose scholarly tradition stresses academic freedom" and "faculty members affirm a Statement of Faith and adhere to lifestyle expectations" coded ways of telling me to go away, or are they designed to leave room for people like me? How do I tell if a college I'm looking at is something like USD or USF, which are Jesuit colleges I'm told I'd be fine at, or something more like Wheaton?

You will not be hired at Wheaton. They fired a practicing, evangelical Catholic a few years back (who I knew in graduate school; cf. here for his story). They will certainly not hire someone who doesn't practice; my guess is that the app requires a letter from a pastor testifying to your being an active member of an acceptable religious community.

I'm not familiar with the Augustana College you linked to (I know other schools by that name, but not the one in SD), but it's affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church, which ordains women as pastors, so it will not be as restrictive a hiring process as Wheaton.

oops url for that story is http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/01/12/faith

Whoa, thanks Euler. I've wondered the same thing, and was just saw a couple more of these places/positions on the MLA joblist.

Yeah, I figured Wheaton and I were not each other's cups of tea, but that story is o_O.

Am I right in thinking that I'd be OK/have a shot at USF and USD (both of which have open physics positions this year)?

I have decades of cultural immersion in the UK to tell whether a UK university is right for me. You just pick this stuff up by being around. But academia in the US is like another world. That's a big part of the attraction, but it's also making it something of a crapshoot.

Are you on the same schedule as me, caek? Most job apps due between end of Oct and middle of Nov?

I know a very open atheist on the faculty at USF, so I would anticipate no problems there.

I know someone on the faculty at USD, but she is openly religious. I don't know whether that reflects anything deeper in the culture of the university. I doubt it.

G00blar: yes. Cambridge JRFs right now, US fellowships and teaching positions are due during Oct-Dec. Some postdocs on specific projects as late as January. In astronomy we have the annual winter meeting of the AAS in January, which is kind of a meat market for postdocs. Nothing much gets decided before this. I understand there's something similar in your field http://www.bostonphoenix.com/alt1/archive/styles/97/03/06/degrees.html

Things are a little different for me because in the collaborative sciences (i.e. not pure maths) the top teaching colleges expect quite a lot of research experience and established collaborations (i.e. a postdoc or two) before you apply for TT positions.

Are you looking at the US or UK in particular, or anywhere that will have you?

xp, thanks Euler. v. useful!

haha,

"We dangle our three magic letters before the eyes of these predestined victims, and they swarm to us like moths to an electric light. They come at a time of life when failure can no longer be repaired easily and when the wounds it leaves are permanent . . . "

-- William James
"The Ph.D. Octopus," 1903

Yeah, I think I'm going to stop reading that article (I made it to Part 3) before I slit my throat.

I'm applying US, UK, Canada, maybe even Aus; wherever they'll have me. Hoping to stay right here in London. I applied for something like 30-35 jobs in the past calendar year (many of them, it must be said, before I finished), and got exactly 0 interviews. I'm hoping that having passed my viva and having one more publication are enough to make a difference this year.

Do you have a job at the moment?

Nosiree.

You?

There's a bit more slack in the science job market, so, in a weird way, any sort of break between PhD and first job is death to your prospects. I suspect the state-of-the-art move faster in science, so this is somewhat fair, but it's got to the point where 3 months out on a CV is seriously problematic. "Why would this person take a break? They must suck. Good, that's one fewer CV in the pile."

I'm trying to time mine so I finish in August/September and have perhaps a week or two off. Some people finish at Christmas and are found work on specific instruments or projects as boondoggles.

xp, changed supervisors 18 months in so I'm doing a four year PhD. Will hopefully finish in 12 months. Not fully funded any more though.

"in 12 months" = "12 months from now", not "I will do a PhD in a year"

I'm actually doing a PhD in 2.5 years, which is impressive in one way, but is difficult for US institutions to get their heads around and is going to take some 'splainin at AAS.

xpost that's definitely impressive

Christ. Yeah, I don't know how it looks, but I was hoping for/counting on a tutoring job this year that fell through, so I haven't gotten myself any teaching--which is ok, in that i've got quite enough teaching for shit pay on my cv, but I do worry a bit about how it looks to be w/o a job.

If anyone asks, tho, I'm working on my book.

: )

I wouldn't worry about it. One thing I keep hearing about teaching at institutions where it's taken seriously alongside research is that, while it's more important to have teaching experience, it should be balanced with program of original research. They consider teaching on the CV as to be kind of an existence proof; it's much more important to have some teaching than it is to have a lot. Diminishing returns kicks in after a couple of courses, especially if it takes over to the extent that it affects your research program. This is all advice I've got from science faculty at liberal arts institutions in the U.S. though, so ymmv. But it seems to me that your book is more useful than more teaching.

hey, even at research universities like mine, we take teaching seriously!

What you probably mean is institutions where teaching, broadly construed, is taken to be much more important than non-educational research. Tenure requirements at liberal arts colleges generally allow educational research to qualify as research.

If you land at a liberal arts college, you will spend a great deal of time talking with students (advising, running clubs, being in your office), in addition to time you spend in the classroom. This is what they will look for in the hiring process: they will try to determine how able you are going to be at this. That will partly depend on interviews, but will also depend on your own educational history.

At least this is how I see it. I work at a research university, though I was an undergrad at a liberal arts institution, and have friends on the faculty at liberal arts institutions (including in physics).

Yes, exactly. By "taken seriously" I meant "considered formally in tenure assessment and given priority over research productivity in the subject you teach". Of course research universities take teaching seriously! : )

Thanks for the tips. I think I'm going to have to go to lengths to demonstrate a real understanding of the liberal arts, which I'm guessing will be their concern. I get the impression they do like to hire people who were at liberal arts colleges themselves. This is compounded by the fact that I come from a country where any university that doesn't offer graduate degrees is not considered a real university. The idea of a university without PhD candidates being among the best places to take your undergrad degree and producing as many eventual PhDs as the Ivy League/Oxbridge is simply unheard of over here.

But this is probably moot this time around. Realistically, I think a top liberal arts college is outside my reach now. A couple of postdocs and collaborators other than those I've worked with during my PhD are needed.

"I get the impression they do like to hire people who were at liberal arts colleges themselves."

Yes, but it's defeasible. You just have to prove that you're serious about their educational mission. I have no tips on how to do this. I've only applied at one of these places, and got a conference interview (about 60 minutes), but no fly-back.

You would definitely want to avoid coming across as a stuffy researcher with no people skills. Despite the caricatures of scholars/profs, a lot of your daily work is people work. Hey, if you post to ILX then you're probably not very stuffy, so you probably just need to act naturally.

Yes, I don't think it even needs defending. They have a specific type of person in mind, and the people who understand that best are those who've benefited from it themselves.

I realized a career concentrating on research was not for me before I even started my PhD, but I wasn't really sure what to do with this information until I heard about liberal arts colleges some time in 2004. Since then I've been lucky enough to have a lot of opportunities to talk with a Pomona graduate who was here doing a PhD herself. Since then I've corresponded with half a dozen liberal arts faculty. I eventually visited Harvey Mudd last January and met some of the faculty and students, which was really useful. It reminded me a little of an Oxbridge college in atmosphere, which is what I'm a product of, although obviously the goals and methods are very different. (This connection may be of interest to people interviewing me, and I need to think about it more.) I will try to call in again at Harvey Mudd and visit another college when I'm over for AAS in Long Beach in January (possible road trip this time). Maybe USF or USD.

Good, your second paragraph is the kind of thing you want to be able to explain to these places, although you'd probably want to find another way to say "I realized a career concentrating on research was not for me" at any place that expects research for tenure.

Yes, I am dealing with some serious cognitive dissonance as I try to come up with credible cases for both jobs.

both jobs = both *types* of jobs?

I am still of two minds about what kind of academic life I ultimately want. I am on the tenure track at a research institution, but I loved my undergrad liberal arts college. Both have great things going for them, but I wonder if my mixed feelings undersold me a bit when applying for liberal arts jobs.

Types, yes. I'm applying for:

• a dozen JRFs at Oxbridge colleges
• maybe 6 research fellowships which I won't get, but I need to test my market value
• 10 specific postdoctoral projects working on someone else's grant (which is probably what I'll end up doing for the next 2-3 years)
• maybe 6 teaching positions. Three of these are at top liberal art schools (H&WS, USF, USD). Again really just testing the market here if I'm honest.

Just got a very helpfully reply from Augustana saying I should apply:

"The hurdle to get over in this respect is that one must not be offended by the religious beliefs of others, and one must not be uncomfortable around discussions of religious beliefs."

This sounds sensible. I do teach in my current position; in the US there are exceedingly few positions in philosophy that don't involve teaching. I don't teach today, so I can peek in on ILX! I teach five semester-long courses a year.

xp that sounds right. Maybe spend time on The Church!

http://insidehighered.com/views/2008/10/31/smith

After too many years at this job (I am in my mid-40s), I have grown to question higher education in ways that cannot be rectified by a new syllabus, or a sabbatical, or, heaven forbid, a conference roundtable. No, my troubles with this treasured profession are both broad and deep, and they begin with a fervent belief that most of today’s college students, especially those that come to college straight from high school, are unnecessarily coddled. Professors and administrators seek to “nurture” and “engage” and they are doing so at the expense of teaching. The result: a discernable and precipitous decline in the quality of college students. More of them come to campus with dreadful study habits. Too few of them read for pleasure. Too many drink and smoke excessively. They are terribly ill-prepared for four years of hard work, and most dangerously, they do not think that college should be arduous. Instead they perceive college as an overnight recreation center in which they exercise, eat, and in between playing extracurricular sports, they carry books around. If a professor is lucky, the books are being skimmed hours before class.

John Smith, you old.

I thought college was "arduous" and it was STILL an overnight recreation center. No matter how much work you have to do, residential college is sleepaway camp. Too bad.

(sorry, i realize this is not the case for people who actually work full-time throughout college, but those people are really rare in dormitories)

Thinking boaut stuff...

Hopefully not too mind-meltingly.

should be done in December. don't regret it at all, but i've managed with minimal debt and i think im possessed of a personality uniquely suited for it.

haha oh god i am actually doing this

Anyone have thoughts on an education Ph.D? Wife is taking a few classes in possible prep for one. It's at Columbia Teacher's College, which is good, but it's unfunded, which is bad, and it's also in art education which is...?

unfunded = bad

Beyond that, what are job prospects like for ed Ph.Ds? And any thoughts on the art education angle? OOH seems like there's less demand for that, but OTOH probably also less supply because not a lot of programs offer it?

I have a friend with an M.A. in art education. I think this was useful for her in attaining a high-school teaching job -- I'm not sure what a Ph.D. would be useful for.

teaching college, I guess?

is that what she wants to do? i am pretty anti-ph.d. programs, but if you are going to enter one you better know exactly what you want out of it (and if it's possible to get that)

job prospects would have to be pretty amazing to justify the cost

yeah, iatee otm

does she have to pay tuition, or is she stipend-less. fucking columbia is notorious for this btw.

I could be wrong about this, but I'd assume that in a college setting, an art-education degree would be less important than real-world art experience/credentials.

well i'm assuming she wuold be looking to teach in an education department, not in an art department

yeah maybe look into cuny? xp

Oh, I hadn't considered that, hs. I went to a small school, so.

So (1) yeah the idea would be to teach ed, not art, (2) she has to pay at least some tuition. So far she's gotten a grant and had some americorps funding that have covered her costs, but eventually she will probably pay some. I think it's in the range of $20K/year at full price, which is a lot, although not as much as I might have thought. (3) she does know that the reason she wants to do it is to teach college. She's been a special ed teacher for 6 years, already has her masters, and has an art background.

so she's already done some of it? how many more years? i think professional school hiring is probably different and possibly better than in, say, straight humanities departments, but the academic job search + life is a hard life to choose in a lot of ways.

also I have to say 'phd in arts education' seems like pure credentialism to me. it seems like she should be qualified already based on her background.

also shouldn't she, if anyone, know what the job market would be like?

TBH I am coming here because we're sort of at an impasse about it. I'm skeptical about it but she, her parents and even my own parents seem to be taken in by the Columbia name and think it's a good idea. I'm open to being shown wrong but I'm kind of worried about what it's getting us into.

xpost -- she's taking her first part-time semester of classes now, which were basically free so I figured there was no harm in trying it.

ugh tell them not to be taken in by the name!!! that's how they get you!

yeah you totally can't let ivy league diplomas get you starry eyed.

i mean teacher's college is the number one education school in the country but STILL. also i have to think enrollment in teacher colleges is going to drop because there are...no teaching jobs in this country.

meaning, surely that will have an effect on hiring at teacher ed programs? maybe not immediately.

i hate to be such a bummer and i have a deal of personal bitterness on this topic, so grain of salt, but i would be afraid if i were her.

I would have her find and contact recent grads from the program and ask them about the job prospects. then you can compare that to the cost and make a better decision. but fwiw I imagine most jobs would involve leaving the city.

/ moving multiple times

yeah that's part of what i meant about the difficulty of the academic life. be prepared to relocate to somewhere that will be less awesome than nyc, obvs, and possibly considerably less awesome

xp exactly

and that's still a successful scenario!

Yes, I do kind of realize all of these things. I also feel horrible that my wife has hated her job for several years and feels trapped in it, but this doesn't seem like the right way out.

awwwwww i feel bad about that too! but still, that's another way that ph.d. programs get you.

if there were more opportunities for promotion and professional recognition built into the teaching profession, that would happen less, i think.

people leaving for ph.d. programs that are kind of a gamble

these days my impulse for people who hate their jobs is to get as creative as they can with looking for different kinds of jobs within their field rather than going back to school because fuck graduate school honestly. of course finding a job isn't the easiest thing these days, either. :(

I dunno just have her look at the 99% tumblr for a while. unless the job prospects are *very good* its a pretty risky investment.

and really w/ someone of her background, what does she even expect to learn from the phd process that would make her a better teacher? phds exist to create scholars not art teachers. it's credentials inflation.

well she's looking to move from teaching high school to teaching college; i doubt she believes it will actually make her a better teacher.

well again just to be clear idea would be to teach in a college ed dept, not an art dept

we all know college professors are not trained in pedagogy

actually from teaching elementary sped to college ed

oh okay

and maybe you have to participate in that credentials inflation to get a job these days but it's enough of a sign that it's a rough market to be jumping into.

and I think art schools in general will have declining enrollment in the future.

I would look into teaching hs

xp

i guess the one thing is that special ed teachers are more in demand than other kinds of teachers, so it follows that college professors that can train teachers in special ed would be more in demand than regular old education professors. maybe?

but iatee is otm, she should talk to recent phd grads and find out how the job search went for them

oh wait, she's training to teach college students to be art teachers, isnt she? i have to say that seems like it would be one of the first areas of the education college job market to collapse :/

bubbles upon bubbles

yeah. i tend to get all macro in my thinking about this stuff, so it might not collapse for a little while, but i wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't take too long. /eeyore

I don't think you have to be retire to cringe at the sight of 'unfunded phd'

haha retire=eeyore

What you guys are saying is exactly what I think. So at least I have met goal #1: confirm that I am not crazy. However I don't know how I will meet goal #2 right now: convince her that maybe she ought to look into this a little more.

99% tumblr

just troll it for the worst cases of debt and unemployment

Answer is probably wait a few more months until she is not pregnant

count in me in as dubious.

aw, when is your baby due?

yes congratulations, Hurting!

how much debt/eating into savings are we talking about if she does this- ballpark-wise? if she really is hating her position now maybe doing it and having a couple of years of it not paying off (ie going right back to what she was doing until something opens up academia) might not be terrible. but it depends on how much she needs to put into it in terms of $$$$$

so mad at Columbia right now. such a shitty thing to accept someone into a ph.d. program unfunded. assholes.

don't underestimate the career frustrations of your spouse (/bitter voice of experience)

I would guess it could be anywhere from $30K to $90K debt, depending on a lot of things. We don't really have the savings to cover it (I only just finished school and started working again myself, although thankfully I have no debt from that), so debt is what it would be. Low end would be assuming she's able to work enough while doing it/my salary goes up enough that we can pay a significant chunk of it as we go, and/or maybe some more grants come along.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i14/AUBURN_MYSTIQUE/Big_surprise.gif

Has she talked to some TC students? I know several who have bitter experiences with TC, esp regarding the funding, but also with the PhD itself, and that despite being the #1 education school, there is quite a lot to be desired...I also know some who are more sanguine about TC, so she could get a diversity of views & see how she feels. (I am anti phd personally, and the fact that I am surrounded daily by PhD students only strengthens that sentiment...)

haha nothing will scare you off a ph.d. program like interacting with ph.d. students

yeah she's in a couple classes p/t now. It actually doesn't even sound good from her description, but the force of "I want out of my job" is very strong.

E.g. they have tons of foreign students in her classes, which would be fine except that many don't have the best command of english, which makes discussion difficult.

(the foreign students are not necessarily phd students themselves)

I think the problem w/ this is that 'arts education' is more of a professional field than an academic field so even in theory you don't have opportunities to teach undergrads for $ as a grad student and I'm guessing the education school isn't set up w/ the resources to fund people for 5 years even if they wanted to.

i honestly think just quitting her job and looking for another would be better than enrolling in a ph.d. fulltime.

like, she could take time to brainstorm work she's qualified for and would enjoy, etc.

but maybe that's terrible advice. i think it's also a pyschologically difficult thing to do.

otm it sounds like she'd already qualify to teach hs, which, truth be told, might be what she ended up doing after this phd

I think someone who feels underappreciated by their current position is prob particularly drawn to the glow of becoming an ivy league scholar, but...ivy league phds don't necessarily end up where she might think they do these days

is teaching at the university level a real big dream of hers? doesn't sound outrageous and impractical to me, but the devil is in the cost details

yeah that is the only reason i would advise someone to get a ph.d. honestly, if it was a life dream and they really wanted it and didn't want to do anything else. and even then i'd tell them to prepare not to get it.

(a life dream to be a college professor, i mean)

I mean yeah she's talked about teaching at the university level for a while, and I don't think it's some kind of scholar fantasy. She seems like she's willing to teach at even the least prestigious of colleges too.

horseshoe, if it makes you feel better, your longtime enmity toward Ph.D. programs has often made me feel better about not having gone down that route myself.

added to the cost of tuition is the money you don't earn while you're studying because you're busy studying.

good! you should! you were smart.

xp to j0hn

and how much it costs to live

xp to estela

(You should talk to my boss, btw -- the two of you dropped out of the same program.)

(hahahahaha i don't even need to talk to your boss, then, i can just imagine in my head exactly what we would both fume.)

again, you need to envision a scenario where you and other family memebers disuade her from the TC plan w/o offering up some other similar path to phd/uni job - how's that gonna sit with her (not that her ~happiness~ should hold you hostage but there may be consequences/resentments down the line)

lol memebers

realistically there is no easy or guaranteed path to a uni job, this seems like it'd be an enormous gamble to join a job market w/ a questionable future. I think the key is hurting providing her w/ the right information, not making the decision for her...

like besides all these macro arguments which may be totally otm there is the marriage/relationship dynamic that other people can't really help you with as it is unknowable to anyone outside of you & your wife (perhaps some professional counseling might be helpful)

that is really otm.

fwiw, looking at columbia, at prob one of the only schools giving 'arts education' phds in the country there are a total of 2 tenured faculty in the arts education dept. (and a whole bunch of adjuncts.)

like besides all these macro arguments which may be totally otm there is the marriage/relationship dynamic that other people can't really help you with as it is unknowable to anyone outside of you & your wife (perhaps some professional counseling might be helpful)

― tuom tuom club (buzza), Monday, November 14, 2011 12:18 AM Bookmark

Yeah this seems like the answer, actually, as much as I hate to admit it. This is a pretty huge, serious decision with ramifications down the line.