Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don't Go - Advice. By Thomas H. Benton Nearly six years ago, I wrote a column called "So You Want to Go to Grad School? " (The Chronicle, June 6, 2003). My purpose was to warn undergraduates away from pursuing Ph.D.'s in the humanities by telling them what I had learned about the academic labor system from personal observation and experience. It was a message many prospective graduate students were not getting from their professors, who were generally too eager to clone themselves. All these years later, I still get letters from undergraduates who stumble onto that column.
The follow-up letters I receive from those prospective Ph.D.' Most undergraduates don't realize that there is a shrinking percentage of positions in the humanities that offer job security, benefits, and a livable salary (though it is generally much lower than salaries in other fields requiring as many years of training). They are excited by some subject and believe they have a deep, sustainable interest in it. Thomas H. Grad School Application Timeline. If you're planning to apply to graduate school, it's best to start early. Applications for most PhD programs are due in December or January, while deadlines for master's programs tend to hit in January, February or March. No matter which degree you pursue, starting early will give you more time to prepare and polish your application. Applying earlier will also increase your odds of being admitted. Many graduate programs have rolling admissions, so applications are evaluated as they arrive (rather than all at once).
Spots fill up as the final deadline draws near. Here's a sample schedule for a student hoping to enter grad school in the fall. This is a best-case scenario which leaves time to craft a great application, resolve unforeseen problems (a lost transcript, a delinquent recommender) and submit with time to spare. One final note: Almost every grad school applicant will receive at least one rejection. So, You're Heading off to Grad School, Eh? Inspired by Tenured Radical's Ten Commandments of Moving, along with her comment that the end of summer is fast approaching (although that's not quite true for those of us on the quarter system, which starts the end of Sept. rather than Aug.), I thought I could continue in my time-honored tradition of bossing the hell out of people giving useful advice and make some suggestions for those of you who are foolish to off to grad school. (You have been warned about the crappy job market, and the exploitation of adjunct and part-time workers, and the fact that it will take about 10 years to get a Ph.D. in English despite what they tell you on the brochures, and that 50 percent of the tenure-track jobs in English these days are at the community college level teaching comp, yes?
And you have figured out what this will mean for you? Ok then. Carry on.) 1) Suggestion One: Move Early. 2) So what do you do now that you're here so early? Get to know the place. 6) Plan out the requirements. The Big Lie About the 'Life of the Mind' - Advice. A year ago, I wrote a column called "Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don't Go," advising students that grad school is a bad idea unless they have no need to earn a living for themselves or anyone else, they are rich or connected (or partnered with someone who is), or they are earning a credential for a job they already hold.
In a March 2009 follow-up essay, I removed the category of people who are fortunately partnered because, as many readers wrote in to tell me, graduate school and the "two-body problem" often breaks up many seemingly stable relationships. You can't assume any partnership will withstand the strains of entry into the academic life. Those columns won renewed attention last month from multiple Web sites, and have since attracted a lot of mail and online commentary. The responses tended to split into two categories: One said that I was overemphasizing the pragmatic aspects of graduate school at the expense of the "life of the mind" for its own sake. Thomas H. Just Don't Go, Part 2 - Advice. By Thomas H. Benton In my previous column, I argued that the only people who can safely consider seeking a graduate degree in the humanities are wealthy, connected, supported by a partner, or already employed and seeking enhanced credentials (The Chronicle, January 30).
A few readers seemed to think I wanted to reserve the groves of academe for social elites, as if I were dreaming of a restoration of "Fair Harvard" in the Gilded Age. But what they mistake as an argument affirming the status quo is actually an observation about the way things are: The financial and psychological costs of graduate education in the humanities are too great to bear when the job prospects for graduates are so limited. Some readers wrote to say that, as a professor, I had no right to squash the dreams of prospective graduate students. But I am not the one squashing the dream. Of course, I am calling for nothing of the sort. Job prospects in the humanities have been bad for almost 40 years. Thomas H. Choose Your Identity. I don’t do things in the abstract. Ironic, considering how much I love theory.
But for me, I need concrete examples, models, texts, things. I am far more intrigued by the mechanics of, say, eighteenth century nosepicking devices, than platonic ideals or taxonomies of poetic forms. Material things, with their heft and density and smells, count for far more with me than disembodied or universalized concepts. Hell, I am distrustful of universals, grand narratives, blanket pronouncements and bombastic generalized advice.
Yes, I understand the irony here. Before I return to my earlier topic of applying to grad school and talking about money, I’m going to tell a little story of what my advisor told me. When I officially asked my advisor to be my dissertation advisor, I only had the vaguest outlines of a topic. Instead of telling me where to go, what to do, how to start writing about it, my advisor told me to go wander ______, the largest bookstore in town. And overwhelming. Www.jmu.edu/socanth/anth/wm_library/So_you_want_to_go_to_grad_school.pdf. Section One. The most important questions you can ask yourself is why you really want to attend graduate school. Too many student enroll because they have been encouraged by others and because they haven’t explored other options. This is not sufficient! You should be very clear about why you want to devote the necessary time and energy to developing specialized expertise in this area.
Many students counsel taking at least a year off after undergraduate studies to explore alternatives and to develop clearer focus. You should also develop a clear idea about what doctoral studies entails. Doctoral work is very, very different from undergraduate, master’s or professional degree programs (MBA, JD, MD). The five questions you should be able to answer before you begin to look at specific programs are these: 1.
Why a Ph.D. instead of work or a professional degree? What is your driving passion? 2. 3. As you consider your career goals, find out what the job market is like in that area. 4. 5. What You Always Wanted to Know A. What You Always Wanted to Know About Applying to Graduate School, But Were Afraid to Ask: A Student's Guide Compiled and collected by Christopher Vilmar If you stopped by my office to talk to me about graduate school, the first thing I’d ask you would be: “What do you plan to do with your degree?” See, a lot of people think going to graduate school is exciting, or glamorous, or better than facing the real world.
And not many of them have any definite notions about what graduate school is like. Many people entertain the idea of going to grad school without knowing much about what the different graduate degrees in English are good for, or even what they are and how much work they require. The M.A. degree (Magister Artium) generally takes one or two years to complete. The Ph.D. degree (Philosophiae Doctor) generally takes five to seven years to complete, and some people take longer. Preparing for Ph.D. programs should begin early, before your senior year. BASIC TIMELINE FOR APPLYING TO Ph.D. Guide to Doctoral Programs in English and Other Modern Languages. English majors, careers, graduate schools… ideology? « Theory Teacher's Blog. I thought I’d do something different in this blog today, something pragmatically useful for my students. As one might imagine, students often come into my office distraught about their career prospects (especially in in today’s economic climate, the dreary winter recession of ’09), wondering what to do with a degree in English, and secretly hoping that graduate school might be a nifty way to avoid that scary, uncertain future — a future as loaded with all the hope and fear as those starry-eyed proponents of the American dream can make it.
So, what I’m going to do in this blog post is give some practical advice about how to think about careers after college and even how to search for a good graduate program. But, as this is a theory blog (and since my theory class has just begun its unit on ideology), of course I will also add a few remarks about that as well. Career OptionsMany students come to the English major because they love reading and/or writing. Good luck! Like this: