grad school
- Stimulating work. I'm paid to teach smart young people to think on their toes, and I'm expected to think, read, and write about cutting-edge ideas in philosophy;
- Flexible hours. Some of my work, like grading and preparing lectures, I can do wherever I want;
- Great co-workers. I'm surrounded by brilliant people, most of whom love teaching, and nearly all of whom love learning. Sitting around a coffee-shop with just a handful of my colleagues is like going back to graduate school. I learn from them all the time;
- Opportunities for self-improvement. In fact, if I'm not constantly learning, I'm falling behind. I get to take students abroad, to learn new languages, to read new books, to listen to lectures - it's a great way to stay sharp;
- Considerable autonomy. For instance, I write my own lectures, and I design my own syllabi; and
- The joy of seeing students grow.
- Grad school is not a simple matter. It's hard to get in, and while it is often fun, it can be both difficult and stressful. I was in grad school for seven years, most of the time earning minimum wage.
- Similarly, Getting hired after grad school is also not simple. The academic hiring cycle can be quite long. Academics tend to take a long time to vet our colleagues, so the time between applying for a job and getting your first paycheck is commonly close to a year. If you're not hired right away, it can be multiple years.
- This is because there aren't that many jobs in the humanities. The number of tenure-track jobs is diminishing in many fields. The humanities seem especially susceptible to being cut when budgets are tight. I suppose this is in part because the benefits of the humanities are communal, not just individual. The individual poet or bassoonist may not get rich by making her art, but the culture is enriched by her presence. We're all better off for having good storytellers, teachers, and artists, and they usually love their work. Which makes it easy to underpay them, or to fire them when things get tight.
- The tenure track is stressful. Satisfying a tenure and promotion committee can feel like shooting at a moving target - in dense fog. When the standards for publication, service, and teaching are clear, they can inhibit high-quality work by focusing your attention on the letter of the law rather than the spirit. If promotion guidelines call for four thirty-page articles in top journals, then that's what you need to write, even if you haven't got a hundred and twenty pages of things to say. On the other hand, if promotion guidelines only call for evidence of or a habit of scholarship, you can be left wondering if you've provided enough evidence, or sufficiently habituated yourself.
- The pay is so-so, and the hours can be long. Every time I hear stories about overpaid university professors, I wonder how I can get one of those jobs. Teaching isn't just what we do in the classroom. Grading is an important part of teaching, and when you're trying to teach people to reason and read and write well, grading becomes a continuation of the conversation you had in class. Multiply that conversation by the number of students you have (I have ninety or more in a typical semester) and you've got a lot of important conversations you're trying to carry on. Which can translate into a lot of hours at work.
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Should I Go To Grad School In The Humanities?
I have a great job. But it's not one I encourage others to pursue.
While I'm not getting rich (humanities jobs at small liberal arts colleges are like that) I've got pretty good job security, and a great work environment. My job offers:
Even so, I'm reluctant to encourage anyone to follow in my footsteps. While I enjoy a great work environment, the road here was long and the rewards are largely immaterial. Consider this:
So here's what I tell my students who are thinking of grad school in the humanities: if you can get into a program that pays you to go to school, it's a great way to spend a few years. Learn what you can, enjoy teaching, and graduate without debt. Then go on to whatever work you can find. But if you insist that the only work you'll allow yourself to look for after grad school is a job like mine, you may be in for a great disappointment. But you may be able to find, or to create for yourself, a job that is as fulfilling in some other field. I hope so.
Because my hope is not that a few of my students will be able to find jobs like mine. My hope is that all of them will, that all of them will find meaningful work with good colleagues, where they can use their gifts for the flourishing of their communities. My hope is that all of them will find jobs where they have the joy of helping others to live well, and to grow.
Which is what makes me keep doing what I do.
Update: An interesting article in The Atlantic entitled "The Ever-Shrinking Role of Tenured College Professors (In One Chart.)
While I'm not getting rich (humanities jobs at small liberal arts colleges are like that) I've got pretty good job security, and a great work environment. My job offers:
Even so, I'm reluctant to encourage anyone to follow in my footsteps. While I enjoy a great work environment, the road here was long and the rewards are largely immaterial. Consider this:
So here's what I tell my students who are thinking of grad school in the humanities: if you can get into a program that pays you to go to school, it's a great way to spend a few years. Learn what you can, enjoy teaching, and graduate without debt. Then go on to whatever work you can find. But if you insist that the only work you'll allow yourself to look for after grad school is a job like mine, you may be in for a great disappointment. But you may be able to find, or to create for yourself, a job that is as fulfilling in some other field. I hope so.
Because my hope is not that a few of my students will be able to find jobs like mine. My hope is that all of them will, that all of them will find meaningful work with good colleagues, where they can use their gifts for the flourishing of their communities. My hope is that all of them will find jobs where they have the joy of helping others to live well, and to grow.
Which is what makes me keep doing what I do.
*****
Update: An interesting article in The Atlantic entitled "The Ever-Shrinking Role of Tenured College Professors (In One Chart.)
∞
Russell Frank and the 4/40 Program
One semester when I was in grad school at Penn State I was assigned to teach a course called "Media Ethics." I had no idea how to teach such a course, so I called up Dr. Russell Frank to ask him for a textbook recommendation.
Frank wrote a weekly column for the Centre Daily Times. At the time, he was an untenured professor in the Department of Communications at Penn State. Even though he did not know me, and surely had many demands on his time, Frank offered to meet me for coffee.
We met for three hours that day, during which I took pages of notes and basically wrote my syllabus for the course. He also gave me a stack of textbooks from his office, offered to guest-lecture in my class (which he later did, several times) and then, to top it all off, he paid for the coffee.
I protested that I was getting all the benefit from this and that I should pay. He replied, "My rule is this: the student never pays." Instead of paying him back, he said, I could "pay it forward" to some of my students.
So I began what I now call The 4/40 program. Whenever I meet students for a meal or coffee, I explain this to them: during their four years of undergraduate study with me (and if they visit me while they're in grad school) I pay. If they want, then they can visit me sometime in the next forty years and take me out for a meal or, better yet, they can use the next forty years to take someone else out for a meal.
I find these meals are always worthwhile. Much of the best learning in college happens outside the classroom, in informal conversations, often while breaking bread together. I teach because I love teaching, and these meals or coffees have provided me with some of my favorite classrooms: coffee shops, restaurants, the dining room table or kitchen in our home.
So to any of my students who may be reading this: don't thank me, thank Russell Frank (you can find his email at the link above or right here if you want). And if you benefited from the coffee, or the meal, pay it forward to someone else.
And come back and visit sometime.
Frank wrote a weekly column for the Centre Daily Times. At the time, he was an untenured professor in the Department of Communications at Penn State. Even though he did not know me, and surely had many demands on his time, Frank offered to meet me for coffee.
We met for three hours that day, during which I took pages of notes and basically wrote my syllabus for the course. He also gave me a stack of textbooks from his office, offered to guest-lecture in my class (which he later did, several times) and then, to top it all off, he paid for the coffee.
I protested that I was getting all the benefit from this and that I should pay. He replied, "My rule is this: the student never pays." Instead of paying him back, he said, I could "pay it forward" to some of my students.
So I began what I now call The 4/40 program. Whenever I meet students for a meal or coffee, I explain this to them: during their four years of undergraduate study with me (and if they visit me while they're in grad school) I pay. If they want, then they can visit me sometime in the next forty years and take me out for a meal or, better yet, they can use the next forty years to take someone else out for a meal.
I find these meals are always worthwhile. Much of the best learning in college happens outside the classroom, in informal conversations, often while breaking bread together. I teach because I love teaching, and these meals or coffees have provided me with some of my favorite classrooms: coffee shops, restaurants, the dining room table or kitchen in our home.
So to any of my students who may be reading this: don't thank me, thank Russell Frank (you can find his email at the link above or right here if you want). And if you benefited from the coffee, or the meal, pay it forward to someone else.
And come back and visit sometime.