Thinking about getting a PhD in Literature

>>9929796
Tell us more. Any idea what you'd want your dissertation to be on?

>>9929796
Worth it? Not even slightly. There is no future, no security. If you pay off my loans, you're welcome to my doctorate. You'll never get a tenure-track job. I teach part-time at two colleges now, and both are slashing number of courses and quadrupling class sizes to stay afloat. I could rant for days about the absurdity of the system, how much work you do for free, etc., but you'll please yourself.

>>9930116
did you go to a good school

>>9930239
Not bad, but not one of the top ten. It's a fool's game in any case: every TT position I apply to has roughly 200+ other qualified applicants. They can afford to be incredibly picky and dismissive. A department's first few culling runs might toss anyone with fewer than three published articles in top journals, anyone whose doctorate isn't exactly the subject at hand, anyone whose specialty seems too similar to an existing established faculty member, anyone who didn't graduate from Oxford, Cambridge, Princeton, etc., and anyone who received their doctorate more than a few years ago and has neither a post-doc or impressive grants to make up for it. I have highly qualified colleagues rotting alongside me in adjunct limbo, and there just aren't enough positions. In the past few years, we've had seven FT profs retire, and none of them was replaced by a new TT hire. Go become an MD.

>>9930291
Heh. Yes, I've heard it all before. I know English majors often can't do math, but it's hilarious how everyone on this board thinks they'll be the lucky ones and it must be a personal fault of the 199 candidates who don't get the job. Enjoy yourself, youngling.
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/education/2015/02/university_hiring_if_you_didn_t_get_your_ph_d_at_an_elite_university_good.html

>>9930272
Go to a smaller university then you stupid cunt. Fucking Americans think that 'muh ivies' are anything but bourgeoisie research factories with a bunch of stupid rich twats and minorities paying them to royally fuck them over and read tumblr posts to them

>>9930355
Didn't read the article, did you? In the current job market, going to a smaller university is great, unless you want a TT position. And who said I was American?

>>9930082
OP here.

I got an MFA and that has amounted to jack shit. (I was very, very poorly advised by undergrad teachers: I would NEVER make that mistake again.)

But I have done some interesting research, particularly on Ezra Pound. I wouldn't want to give away the dissertation plan, but it's legit and has gotten positive attention by professors I know.

>>9930116
Yes, but what about the actual time spent pursuing the PhD? For lovers of literature, isn't it possible that the risk is worthwhile, especially considering the feeling of m e a n i n g in one's life?

>>9929796
who made this awful map?

north georgia over georgia tech? texas a+m over texas austin? uc fucking santa cruz over berkeley and stanford???

It's interesting watching the liberal educational complex circle the drain, screaming at the top of their lungs, "SOMEBODY HELP. EVERYTHING IS WRONG. THERE'S NO MONEY. NO ONE WANTS OUR SERVICES." ...even as they go around cannibalizing the pillars of liberal philosophy and Western literature.

>>9931073
OP here.

Yeah, it's insane. Minnesota's, too, is University of St. Thomas instead of the U of M -- I mean, I approve, but it's batshit.

I picked it to attract attention desu

>>9930272
It's a fool's hope. That's it. But it's one of those rare mountains where the climbing of it constitutes the whole of its worth, ie, living the life of the scholar for those years would be pretty awesome....

>>9930344
Well, there are elite universities and there are elite universities. There are more jobs than graduates from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and U - Toronto.

There are many public ivies which shouldn't exactly be, you know, impossible to enroll in.

>>9930822
Sometimes I feel like these statistics are invented to try to dissuade CERTAIN PEOPLE from applying to Ph.D. programs or to tenure track positions. Just in my own experience I know several professors just a generation ahead of me who managed to pull off tenure. Have things really degraded so rapidly? Who is misleading whom?

>>9931061
>For lovers of literature, isn't it possible that the risk is worthwhile
That is not a risk, man. A risk is like betting your life savings on a double or nothing coin toss. Pursuing an academic career in the humanities is like betting you life savings AND every penny you will ever make for the rest of your life on the chance that 100 different coin tosses will turn up heads. A risk implies there's a possibility of success.

>>9931156
But couldn't one, upon earning a PhD, simply change fields?

--not arguing, here, I have a serious interest in getting this right.

Anyway, couldn't one teach at an elite high school, settle for a community college, attach themselves to some nonprofit, or otherwise "escape" "unscathed"?

>>9930822
>mentioned burgerschools
That's how.

The best universities are small universities. Research factories are only good to work at, and even then are terrible if you actually want to be a teaching professor.

>>9929796
>Michigan Tech

What is this horrible map? Even worse if it's supposed to be referring to literature programs.

>>9931323
i think it is the most popular college football per state

>>9930272
This. Top programs give top jobs and top money. Unless your goal is to work at Idaho State Community College on janitor wages, it's not worth it.

>>9931457
Google tells me it's the universities with the highest acceptance rates (presumably with some exclusions like private or non-research colleges).

>>9931061
It may feel worth it when you're young. It did for me, because I didn't understand the eventual cost of having spent as much time getting stuck in this quagmire as it would have taken to earn an MD. Now that I'm older and have a family, it's a pathetic financial hell. I was just finally offered a third course today, starting in September. If I can organize my family's schedule, come up with a lesson plan, choose and order textbooks, etc. in the next week or so, I might make as much in the next few months as a small shoe store manager, after four months of no income. If you love literature, read, study, take night classes. Hell, get a doctorate for fun later in life, but don't ever think it's your career or future income.

>>9931127
Wouldn't that be nice. In the past five years, in an English Dept. I work at, the number of entering first-year students (from high school, mostly) declaring their major as English has fallen by over 50%. Since the institution uses those numbers as a funding base, the departmental funding was slashed horribly. The size of undergrad courses went from 35 to 150, in some cases (one prof and a marker is much cheaper than 2-4 profs). So the number of available courses for me to teach decreased within a few years by 75%, the number of students I teach increased by about 400%, and there is no job security.

>>9931237
I'll just take a wild guess and say you haven't gotten a doctorate in the humanities or applied for teaching positions there. The "best universities" are the ones that will get your CV kept by the selection committee past the first round, and that's a damn short list now. There is no other criteria if you dream of starting a living as a professor in the years ahead.

BYU isn't in Idaho.

>>9929796
>wants to pursue the good, true, and virtuous
>wants to enter into an institution that is collapsing as I type this
>implying you can't devote your life to your own personal studies without need for financial gain or the status of an empty title

Your time in this world is very, very limited. Spend your days as best you can. Dispel the haze of falsities before you make your choice.

>>9931777
>this is what hacks think
Stop going to a factory school with a dozen other idiots working the same position. Go to a small university and monopolize, ideally replace a retiree.
Smaller classes, too.

Recently had to make this same decision.
I chose not to pursue a Phd based on great advice of some of my profs. They said that making it as an academic is basically as likely as making it big in a band. Plus, to even get into schools it's gonna run you about $1200 after the application fees and GRE test(s).
Even if you do make it, the hours are killer--60 hours regularly. Of course it's not like you're punching a card, but that's still a lot of time not just reading but serving on committees, teaching, grading. It's not secret that divorce rates are very high in academia.
It wasn't for me, but maybe it's for you. Ask yourself whether you'd truly be happy doing that--if you can't say, then don't do it.

>>9930355
this is true

t. poor yale student

>>9932513
You blind kids. We apply to every position offered by a university in anything that could be called a field of ours that comes up anywhere in North America, and so does everyone else with a doctorate. They can always leave for a better position if they get one. There isn't any magical "we're too small for the star candidates" little universities any more. No university bothers to hire from within any more, either: they're trying to build their reputation, and that means bringing in profs with degrees from that same top 10 list. They aren't replacing retirees, they're slashing and burning. The field is doomed.

>>9930116
>If you pay off my loans, you're welcome to my doctorate.
Lmao

The real lesson is if you're not a Jew there's no place for you in academia

>>9931050
Poorly advised in what way? I have a shitty undergrad adviser that I don't even bother going to anymore since he is so wrapped up in non-student things. What was your undergrad in? Literature I'm assuming? Sounds worth a shot at the very least.

>>9929796
Do it already

>>9929796
I'm not really sure how it works in other countries but a lot of people who soon become PHD's in Ireland get their masters then teach in secondary schools for a few years before going further

>>9936592
I've known of a few people who have either taught a bit before going into a program or who have taught at an actual school (not just as part of their own schooling) while pursing a doctorate. Still not sure how common it is here in the United States but it does happen.