what the fuck am i getting myself into with this grad school stuff

I think that major's a good example of how the humanities can link up with science/tech in a way that doesn't distort the humanities; & that's why I like it.

I think you're right that this conference is a way to get students jobs & why is that a bad thing? if the humanities, broadly speaking, had that more in mind, maybe our salaries wouldn't be so low & there wouldn't be so many jokes about burger-flipping etc.

if anyone is doing grad school in the sciences, and _especially_ if they're just coming on to the job market or about to start a postdoc, i recommend this book v. highly: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ph-D-Not-Enough-Peter-Feibelman/dp/0465022227/

it's 140 pages (with big type and one half line spacing), v. readable prose (unlike tomorrow's professor, for example) and seems like v solid advice.

first time in my life i finished a book and just went back to page 1 and read it again. it's probably not completely useless for humanities students.

I think that major's a good example of how the humanities can link up with science/tech in a way that doesn't distort the humanities; & that's why I like it.

I think you're right that this conference is a way to get students jobs & why is that a bad thing? if the humanities, broadly speaking, had that more in mind, maybe our salaries wouldn't be so low & there wouldn't be so many jokes about burger-flipping etc.
--Euler

I agree with this but I feel like the burden should be on humanities academia to make the phd more marketable - which would involve some massive changes. rather than 'hey private sector why aren't you hiring all these super smart 32 year olds with zero work experience'.

yes I agree; symsys at Stanford is a good model for this; though it's not "humanities" as we typically think of it in the USA today

yeah symsys is a really great program ime - fwiw stanford does a decent job at least at the undergrad level of integrating humanites style courses into their science majors so its not just a oneway street. the also tend to be v thoughtful abt finding ways of linking programs w/ industry.

I agree with this but I feel like the burden should be on humanities academia to make the phd more marketable

lol isnt this exactly what the ppl organizing the conference are doing?

thanks for that book rec caek btw

I mean maybe they're trying to set the stage for it but from the article I got the impression it was more 'these people should be hired' than 'let's overhaul the humanities phd system'

let me know what you make of it! i start my first postdoc a week on monday, so it could not have come at a better time for me. dope chapters about: getting jobs, choosing jobs, choosing projects, timing, grants, etc.

http://www.slate.com/id/2300107/pagenum/all/#p2

fun times

I'm not sure why he wants to shit on his own profession like that (he says he's "a Ph.D. who teaches at a liberal arts college", so I assume that means he's a sessional instructor but I could be wrong) and put himself out of a job, but whatever. Strange article.

he's a tenured professor iirc

he has been writing those articles for years at the chronicle for higher education, under a pseudonym and later as himself.

the point about having detailed placement records is good. when my gf was trying to decide on a school, placement was a huge aspect. and while she did receive a list from each school (had to ask for some) they obv only included the success stories.

there isn't an incentive (other than 'honesty') for individual schools to do this tho, and I think the rule would need to be imposed from above.

i know i think literally almost nothing about placements, but: would there be an issue, potentially, with a list of placements that displayed institutional stature but not the nature of placements? so people who'd got shitty coffee-making internships or w/e at local big businesses versus people who'd had real jobs with smaller enterprises

i really know nothing about this though so maybe not

Schools should make public complete placement records, period. That's part of what they're selling, & potential students should know well what they might buy.

but again, it's easy to say 'should'

In my discipline there is growing pressure to do so as a competitive instrument.

yeah but that makes partial disclosure more tempting than full disclosure 'we sent one person to harvard, one to duke and one person can't find a job' vs 'we sent one person to harvard, one person to duke'

and the less competitive grad schools still have a huge incentive not to disclose. and those prob matter more.

I was thinking that if a department's complete placement record was excellent, then that would be an advantage: "even our bad students get jobs"! but I guess the doubt here is whether departments who claim they're presenting "complete" records are being honest.

I think it's something professional organizations ought to enforce, at the least.

yeah, I mean I don't know what it's like to aspire to go to a less competitive grad department, but unless people in your desired area overperform the department, I think it's not worth going to a less competitive department.

my understanding is that even the best departments have pretty shitty placement records vis-a-vis their reputation, and also when viewed against the 7-10 years the typical ph.d will have put into their degree

yeaaaaaaah career services are kind of a joke in schools that brag about their 'alumni network' and seem to operate on the 'who do you know?' basis

exactly why there is a strong incentive for those schools to not to not publish their placement xp

That's not true in my discipline. Though it's hard to say: a record might look shitty on paper but people drop out or chicken out on the job market for reasons besides departmental weakness. Placement records don't express the desires of their candidates. I know a lot of people who aren't super ambitious & those people are going to drag down placement records on paper, but they're also nothing to fear when considering that department---unless you're worried that department will kill your ambition too.

xp to dayo

i think that job placement depends on the level of specialization, too. for my MFA (highly specialized) the employment statistics were pretty grim, even though the school is renowned and respected in its field. my M.Ed. is from a much lesser university, but it's in a very general field and the 1-year out employment rate is +/- like 90%.

yeah but those peoples' stories can be put in context. they still matter. if anything they reflect the department's judgment. there's no such thing as too much information with a decision like this. xp

I agree, but it's not necessarily a flaw of the department if they have a shitty placement record. The stories matter, as you say. It would be good if there were a way to get those stories to potential students (& obviously there is).

i agree w/ you completely, but i just don't know how these statistics could be normalized –- and it would be really sad if some great specialty programs were marginalized or otherwise saw attendance drops b/c their employment statistics were low. as with the rest of current education reform, i'd be concerned about this turning into a metric for ranking and sorting 'quality' based upon a lot of potentially subjective factors.

I think the number of people we're talking about here is small enough that statistics aren't necessary. we could have this same discussion w/ law school - same general problem, student bodies big enough that 63% means something.

http://physicstoday.org/resource/1/phtoad/v64/i9/p8_s2

"Some simple actions can be taken to improve the situation. Scientists being interviewed by the media should require that they be introduced as “physicist John Jones,” and PhD scientists should require that they be addressed as “Dr.” Scientists who provide narratives for TV programs should require that their degree appear on screen in conjunction with their name."

i would pretty much dismiss as a fraud/crank anyone who did this. do people use "Dr" outside work? is this guy just an angry old man? my experience: in the UK basically never except the day you graduate, in germany always outside of work (people love you for it, you get it engraved on your door), and slightly more often at work.

I get Swiss Colony catalogs & other important mass mailings sent to me as Dr because it looks funny. Though if they have an option on the webpage for Sheik I usually pick that instead.

yeah, adding 'Dr' in that sense just makes me think of people writing books on how to improve your life in five easy steps and such.

the worst is adding dr and phd.

dr. phdl

i would one day like to be the only asshole in the entire field of the humanities who has all of their qualifications as part of their name at all times.

oh if I can add a suffix on web forms then I usually add something indicating that I'm a nun or a dentist, in addition to a sheik.

bet the post loves me, Ph.D.

interesting about germany. when my dad lived in holland official institutions addressed his mail as 'Rt Hon' Mr Mc.

ph. tl;dr

It's a bit of a weird rant, but he makes a couple of good points. Like caek mentioned, in Germany it's a lot more normal to show off your doctorate outside of work, so it's not like the writer's suggestions are all that crazy, it's more of an indictment of US/Can/UK attitudes toward Ph.D.'s.

thinkin baout this

http://iat.ubalt.edu/IDIA/

also thinkin baout this

http://www.id.iit.edu/prospective-students/programs-and-applications/master-design-mba/

I would try and get in contact w/ people in the programs and see what the job placement is like

first one has a pretty heft price tag, eh?

word is that the ubalt program has a ridiculously high job placement percentage, people at this meetup i went to the other night were bandying around phrases like "near 100%"

first one has a pretty heft price tag, eh?

― iatee, Wednesday, September 14, 2011 5:18 PM (18 seconds ago) Bookmark

second one much more so tbh!

lol that they have a "hypermedia proficiency exam" imo