I was working on my research when the phone rang.

“Where are you?” N asked when I picked up.

“At home,” I said. “Where are you?”

“I’m downstairs.”

“Downstairs where?” I asked.

“Downstairs at home,” N explained.

“Whose home?” I wondered.

“Our home. Where are you?”

“I’m upstairs.”

“Upstairs where?”

After that, I finally went downstairs and we met.

 

I really don’t get it when people begin to complain that their graduate advisors and professors tell them, “Of course, you are going to find a job, you are amazing, you will get snapped up in no time“, etc.

What is it that advisors are supposed to say instead? “I don’t think you are very likely to get a job, you are not very well-read, your research is boring, your writing is clunky, your reasoning is pedestrian. Even good scholars can’t find a job these days, so who’ll hire you?”?

Who is capable of saying such things to their students? (Except my thesis advisor, I mean.)

Not only is this kind of honesty hurtful, it is also quite unproductive. Can you imagine a person who’d hear this and say, “Yes, this is so true. I need to go explore non-academic job options”?

When I was told these (and much, much worse, albeit completely honest and well-deserved ) things, I did not take them well. I still don’t.

Evelina Anville posted this beautiful statement in one of our discussions:

Personally, I am getting so tired of attacks on faculty and on the profession in general. Students SHOULD attend graduate school if they desire. People SHOULD be excited to enter this profession. It’s not for everybody of course but this is a wonderful and amazing profession that actually makes our country a better place. But we need tenure to maintain the profession. And I just wish more people talked about the beauty of the profession, about the need for tenure, and about the evils of administrative bloat.

This is very true. We need to spend more time celebrating the best profession in the world on this blog.

When I was an undergrad, I was friends with a woman who had spent 18 years working for Canada’s Customs and Immigration before going back to school for a BA in Political Science. She told me that what never failed to surprise her was how passionately recent immigrants always insisted that the borders should be closed and no more immigrants should be allowed into the country after them.

I’m always reminded of these conversations with my friend whenever I see recent PhDs clamoring that grad schools should stop admitting any more students.

 

Here is a comment Dr. Ella left:

About European PhDs: they apply for funding with their dissertation proposal, or tag along with an existing funded research program. Teaching responsibilities are often very limited, if there are any at all. In contrast, many US PhD programs require up to 2.5 years of coursework, comprehensive exams that take a semester or a year to prepare, and only then you can start on your actual dissertation research.

For those who are not very familiar with the US system of higher ed, here is why a PhD includes at least 2 years of coursework*: almost nobody does an MA before coming to a PhD program. BAs are very watered down precisely because, as I keep saying, so much remedial learning needs to take place. There were people in my grad program at Yale who’d come to the PhD after taking 5-7 courses in our discipline. Everything else they took was part of the General Education requirement, a second Major or 1-2 Minors, electives, etc. In contrast, after a Canadian BA and MA, I had 36 courses in our discipline (plus a dissertation) under my belt.

I an profoundly convinced that nobody can or should approach doctoral research after 5, 7, or even 10 courses in one’s discipline. Such a person will have such enormous lacunae in his or her knowledge that there is practically zero possibility he or she will manage to become a research scholar. Yes, they can manage to squeeze out a dissertation in their extremely narrow specialization but they end up having a very limited understanding of the field as a whole.

This is why my proposal for the reform of American higher education is: there should be no acceptance into a PhD program without an MA. The practice of admitting people into doctoral programs fresh from their undergrad studies is a profoundly pernicious one. Master’s degrees would also allow people to reconsider whether they need or want a PhD at all.

What do you think about this idea?

* I’m only familiar with how things work in the Humanities. Maybe this differs in STEM, I just don’t know.

It makes me feel really old when I see that people’s New Year’s resolutions include

1. Try my absolute god-damndest to “block” and not fight on Twitter.

I don’t even know how people go about fighting on Twitter. Of course, I will discover this pastime and totally love it just when everybody else will get over it and move on to something else. Story of my life.