Recently, a former student contacted me about the possibility of applying to Ph.D. programs in English. She's a bright, talented, and charming Penn graduate who has been teaching English to foreign-language speakers while she sorts through what she wants to do with her life. When I received her email, I did what I always do in these situations: I said that I would be happy to discuss grad school with her, but that the first thing she should do is inform herself of the exact state of things in the academic humanities. I referred her to Timothy Burke's essay on whether to go to grad school, to the Chronicle of Higher Education's recent profile of the Invisible Adjunct, as well as to the many postings about grad school on IA's site, and she duly went and read them. She then wrote back to me with a series of questions that I answered as best I could, but that I thought might be best addressed by appealing to the collective experience and hardwon wisdom of Critical Mass readers.

With her permission, I post her email here:

I really appreciate the advice and candor in your last email. I do realize the increasing competitiveness in the academic world and the difficulties of securing good positions post-degree, and I must admit that those articles painted a very dismal picture of life after graduate school. It's incredibly discouraging.

Perhaps I am holding a misconception, but is the goal of earning a Ph.D. solely to teach in higher education? Do Ph.D. candidates only want to teach? Is there very little to no freedom in academic life? I am, of course, very attracted to the possibility of and career in teaching, but I am also hoping to explore different options while in school. I understand that graduate school is a huge investment and commitment, financially, mentally, and emotionally, but I was also hoping for it to be a place where I could further enrich my studies and gain invaluable academic exposure. I like to write, creatively and critically, and ultimately I hope that whatever I do is somehow connected to writing. But at this point in my life I think that my writing could benefit greatly from further education. My attitude towards graduate school is not a means to one particular end, but a means to a possibility of ends. From my two years out of school, I have heard tons of advice about trying out various and even random possible career interests, but I have yet to find something that would hold my interest longer than a year.

If getting a Ph.D. is only practical for those who are strictly bent on teaching in higher education, then perhaps it isn't what I should be looking into. Perhaps a masters would be the more suitable option, but I've been advised against masters programs because of the costs associated with them. What is your opinion on masters programs (in English Literature and Creative Writing)? Also, in your opinion, what type of person is well-suited for a Ph.D. program in Literature?

I don't get it. How could a masters program be more expensive than a PhD?

Perhaps I am holding a misconception, but is the goal of earning a Ph.D. solely to teach in higher education? Do Ph.D. candidates only want to teach?

My wife has a stock bit of advice that I think is extremely sound*:

There is only one reason to get a Ph.D. -- because the career path you want to pursue requires it. Do not do it because you think it will make you feel important, because it will do the opposite. Do not do it because "there are a lot of things you could do with it", because there are plenty of things you can do without it. Do not do it because you think it will be an intellectual adventure, because you'd do much better with a library card.

* Disclaimer: we're both science Ph.D.'s, so discount whatever I say by that degree of difference.

From the social science perspective, JSinger's wife is right. Don't pursue a Ph.D. simply because you want a Ph.D.; figure out what you want to do, or what looks good right now, and then set out to get the matching degrees (if that is necessary).

David,

You pay for a Master's out of pocket unless you have outside funding. Ph.D.'s, at least at top-tier programs, are typically fully funded through a combination of fellowship, teaching assistantships, and tuition waivers.

I sympathize with the notion of obtaining a PhD for personal gain and with the knowledge that you may not use it to obtain a job as a tenured Professor. Because I entered a PhD English program with exactly that mindset. However, something happens along the way that changes that initial mindset.

You become part of the institution, you invest time and energy and money, you play the part of an academic, in short, you become fully invested in it. You'll reach a point where there is no turning back, and where not obtaining the coveted position of tenured professor will make the whole endeavor seem futile or superfluous. Not to mention you will see friends not in the academy making money, having free time, and generally doing lots of things that you can't or don't have the time or money to do.

What I did? I stopped with my MA degree (for a variety of reasons). However, I didn't leave academia. I now work as a Project Manager for an academic research institute where I certainly make more money than an adjunct and likely comparable with many new asst. professor positions. I have full library access, great benefits and a flexible schedule. Additionally, I have been taking classes for free (tuition benefit perk) and am likely going to earn a second MA degree---this one purely for self-interest. And, even given all that, I STILL think about going back for my PhD. It gets in your blood and never goes away.

So my point (from experience) is that you can go into the PhD with the idea that, "hey, I'm just doing it for me and if the prof thing doesn't work out I'll do something else" BUT that mindset is tough to keep once you are in the thick of things.

"Do not do it because you think it will be an intellectual adventure, because you'd do much better with a library card." This just isn't so. There are some people who can have intellectual adventures prowling around the library on their own, but most of us need the stimulation of other minds. And graduate school is an excellent place to find stimulating minds who are interested in joint adventures. Of course, many of those minds are attached to flawed characters, and if you enter graduate school with utopian fantasies about what you'll find, you are bound to be disappointed or worse. But if you're willing to take the good with the bad, if you have some self-awareness about your own motives, and if you can keep a sense of humor, then the experience can be worthwhile irrespective of whether you finish the degree or what you "do with" it.

I think that Timothy Burke's essay is irresponsible. What he describes is how a 2d- or 3d-rate graduate program will feel to a student with no self-awareness or center. To call it a "totalizing" experience, to say that no one can resist being "sucked in", is just not true for many people.

Of course, there are aspects of graduate school that are unpleasant for everyone, just as there are unavoidably unpleasant aspects of adolescence. (Graduate school is like a professional adolescence.) But not every adolescence is like a "cotillion for eggheads." Some people look back on their adolescence with great fondness, and some look back similarly on their experience in graduate school.

Guess what? Not everyone is like you. Not every graduate program is like yours was. If you don't understand how widely people and institutions vary, you should not be giving advice to young people.

I went into grad school (I've never revisited this before, by the way) because the first option I wanted to do when I got out of college, the Peace Corps, canceled the program I was supposed to be in, so there I was in late summer with nothing to do -- so I went to grad school at the only place that would still accept my application that late. In considerable measure for me, it was a continued time of goofing off. Bad as some of the experiences were, in retrospect they were better than equivalent experiences and time wasted if I'd had a corporate job. And I acquired a facility with research techniques, reading, reasoning, writing, and general culture that's served me to this day. Mind you, I was always ready to thumb my nose at an academic career, and did (left as ABD realizing in part my life would be more ruined if I continued on to get a Ph.D. than not). So if you can afford it in one way or another, I would say by all means spend the time and effort on the further EDUCATION, assuming you are drawn to the subject matter, but don't expect a career from it.

Erin, there are plenty of Master's programs out there for which your student could receive full or partial funding. I hope you'll convince her that if she really does want to attend grad school, a terminal program should give her a taste of the lifestyle *and* a chance to learn English, or history, or whatever, at a more advanced level. A two-year program ought to do it for her; she doesn't need to make a commitment to a PhD program.

She should also know that unless her graduate courses help to expand her knowledge of a specific subject she's interested in writing about, it's unlikely that grad school will help make her a better writer. Contrary to the evidence presented by some of the most articulate and sensible academic bloggers, academic types in general are not (at least not in my experience) excellent writers.

Education and experience together get you a job after grad school. My experience with a Ph.D program was that the myopic focus on only academic skills was very damaging to the students in my program. Academic who have devoted their whole life to study of a particular subject in an educational setting have little understanding of the learning that takes place on the job or as part of living life (both things interfere with "true dedication" to academics). If you are committed to employment after school, make peace with the fact that you will have to pursue other experiences outside of school to become employable either during or after school. You will not be able to share your committment to this other work with your academic counterparts because it will not be comprehensible to them.

And don't discount the value of the learning you can receive from work. It is less quantifiable than school work (no grades, posters, assignments with A's) but it is no less real. I feel much more accomplished now that I am doing real work in the world, having a real and imediate impact on my community.

If a desire to teach is driving you, look into adult education programs in your area or become a trainer or project manager. There are lots of jobs out there for people who are good at teaching other people how to do things. It may not be exactly the subject you are profoundly moved by but teaching can be done in a satifying way in many contexts.

I'm not an academic, and I don't even play one on TV. However, I think the important questions to consider are:

1. What does the student want to do: teach (primary, high school, under/post-grad or write (for personal, peer, or public consumption).
2. What particular competencies and/or passions does the student possess that would drive a choice one way or the other?
3. What compensation is sought, whether financial, social, or emotional?
4. Who is going to pay such compensation and why?

As an ABD in English, I'd say that a PhD program in English will definitely not make one a better writer; in fact, I found that my writing suffered. I became less clear, less honest, and less able to distinguish what I really thought from what the literary critics I was forced to read thought.

As someone currently serving on a search committee for an instructor in English position at my community college, I'd say that there are currently too Masters in Creative Writing out there who are jobless. If a teaching career in higher ed is the goal, focus your grad study on composition and rhetoric and consider applying for community college jobs after you get some experience teaching comp either as a TA or as an adjunct. If teaching literature or doing research are your goals, I'm afraid you may very well find yourself jobless.

I do agree with the commentor who said you are unlikely to find an intellectual adventure in a PhD program, however, despite other claims here. I think it is more likely you will find yourself forced into a very narrow way of reading books you love, rather than finding your horizons expanded.

This question, about going to get a PhD, ties in pretty directly with the plight of Invisible Adjunct, and as important (Symbolically, IA has come to stand for all adjuncts in the same way that Pat Tillman has come to stand for all soldiers these days) all adjuncts and part-timers. The plight of academic hiring is well covered here and elsewhere. Those of us within the system have an obligation to change it if we can, but we have to know that change will come slowly if at all. In the meantime, how do we address potential PhD students? Further, what responsibility do future PhD students have in all of this? It is all well and good to rage against the machine, a machine in desperate need of facing rage. But at this stage of the game, graduate students and those looking at entering this competitive world need to be cognizant of the realities. If you are planning to enter a field like, say, US history, it is probably incumbent upon you to know the odds. Further, it seems to me that it is pretty irresponsible of those of us with the ability to advise students if we emphasize the great aspects of intellectual life within the academy and do not point out the reality -- your odds of getting the PhD are smaller than you think, your odds of getting a job are slighter still, and your odds of getting tenure at a place yet smaller, and then all of this happening at a place you would otherwise choose to live? Infinitesimal.

The analogy I can come up with now is with professional baseball. If you play minor league baseball, enjoy it, work your rear end off, climb the ranks as best you can. make other plans, though. The odds of you even getting the proverbial cup of coffee is small in such a competitive and limited milieu. And no one owes you a shot. You might get passed over for those you see as your equals or lessers (your impression may be right; it is as likely to be self serving - the manager, or department chair, or search committee, or scout, really may be out for the best fit for their team or department, or may see the other candidate as better qualified -- all academics are not Snidely Whiplash, wringing their hands and tenting their fingers with another devious plot in hand. Your 82 mph heater may not match up to the guy you think is your equal; Your dissertation on the politics of butterchurning in 17th century New Hampshire river towns may not be as fabulous as your echo chamber -- in whose interest it is to have that dissertation be a smash, remember -- is telling you).

In the end, the job market is wretched for a lot of reasons. Academic departments do bear the brunt of the responsibility. But so, in a sense, do taxpayers who simply do not want to, won't, or can't pay to fill the UMass history department, say, with full time, tenure track folks. And so do administrators. And so do members of departments who want it both ways ("it's a shame; but in our particular department this is why we need these adjuncts . . ." -- Plus, of course, even within departments, those masses, often department majorities, on the tenure track are still a bit vulnerable to be sticking their necks out). And so do those of us who have students thinking that, gee, it would be cool to be a professor. But so do those students themselves. If this were an easy solution, we'd have solved it by now.
dc

I think a PhD is worth it even if you don't end up with a teaching job you like, and I say this as a PhD candidate in English lit (medieval) at one of those large research institutions. I'm about a year from filing.

Sure, I'm cynical, but I was cynical about my chances at an academic job when I began. I still regard the training and opportunities I've had as valuable, even irreplaceable. Much depends on the school, the people you get to work with, and (dare I say it) how insistent you are on pursuing what you personally want to get out of the system. You can let your instructors and peers narrow your vision, in other words, or you can learn what you can from them and try not to let perceived narrowness hijack what you want to do. I do concur with practically everyone here, though, that it helps to go in with your eyes open.

I'm applying for jobs this fall, with the intent of trying my best with the academic job list but also pursuing other jobs for which I'm qualified by prior experience, including humanities computing and technical writing. The potential uses of a PhD in literature and of the training that goes into finishing one are not restricted to university-level teaching at the other end. They don't wipe your brain when you leave....

All that said, I don't think a PhD helps one develop creative writing skills and exposure. The kinds of analysis that PhD-level coursework facilitate can be had in a good MA program. The person in question may want to look into combined MA/MFA programs, or PhD/MFA if the higher degree really holds interest. (Some schools offer the MFA only to students who've been accepted to an MA or PhD program.)

But if you're willing to take the good with the bad, if you have some self-awareness about your own motives, and if you can keep a sense of humor, then the experience can be worthwhile irrespective of whether you finish the degree or what you "do with" it.

David, if grad school was a net source of pleasure for you, that's great! I've known people for whom that was the case. But I would very strongly discourage anyone from proceeding on the assumption that the same will be true for them. (And I'd say that even more strongly about first-rate programs.)

(Graduate school is like a professional adolescence.)

Now, that I agree with! But if adolescence has its negative aspects, the real downside of a "professional adolescence" isn't its worst moments, it's the cumulative effect of living in that role until you're 27 or 30 or 35.

Hear, hear on the "professional adolescence" comment.

I'm almost 35 years old, and I am constantly treated like a teenager at this university, as are most of the graduate students, even the few we have here in their 40s and 50s.

This has created a causal loop with most of us, who, treated like teenagers, begin to act like teenagers. I've been in the outside world, unlike most of the grad students here, but all that seems to do is fuel an anger that can, unchecked, become very adolescent.

Now I'm off to adjunct, a position I held before coming back for the Ph.D., and I know that my adolescence will continue, because the university still refuses to accept me as a full-fledged adult.

As for getting a Ph.D. in literature just for the fun of it--I guess this is an option for those who are independantly wealthy. My wife and I are now $150,000 in the hole, and the government will be looking for repayment quite soon.

If you're wealthy enough to take five years off just for the hell of it, that's nice for you. But I must admit that after having dealt with the trust fund grad students for the last 12 years, I find such remarks condescending at best.

"I like to write, creatively and critically, and ultimately I hope that whatever I do is somehow connected to writing. But at this point in my life I think that my writing could benefit greatly from further education."

One option is to work in college publishing (AP and others) instead of getting a PhD. I have an MA in lit, but I learn more about writing by working with my boss who is a good editor--she thinks I still suck. Hey, maybe it is like grad school!

I don't think Winston's comments were directed at me in particular, but while I'm here I'll add another opinion on finances. People do get through Ph.D. programs without incurring huge amounts of debt. Much depends, again, on the school, this time in terms of how much teaching you're willing to do (and how much you're offered) and whether teaching confers a partial fee remission.

If one doesn't have a lot of financial obligations, one can live on $14,500/year in the US's second most expensive region. Without external funding.

My comments were directed at no one in particular; just venting, I guess.

The problem where I'm at is it's one class per term for each grad student. No more. And there aren't any places around willing to hire Ph.D. students as adjuncts, so that leaves out additional teaching to make ends meet. And the stipend for teaching is a joke, particularly once fees and such are taken out. No choice but to borrow, and my wife borrowed for her M.A. as well, so we're really in the hole. There's really not much else to do for money--in this town, it's either get a full-time job (impossible with the Ph.D. work, plus we are required to teach the one class as part of our training), or work part-time in the service industry for minimum wage. No thanks. Particularly when there's always the chance one of your former students will come in and make your life miserable.

Glad to see you checked out my blog, greythistle. I'm trying to be a better blogger lately, and the class directly after mine is providing me with some good blogging material. I'll have to thank her when the term is over ;)

I'm with greythistle on this one - but much depends on the circumstances. I'm getting my degree in a literature department, and while I also have to agree with those who said being in grad school does nothing for your writing - being around other grad students for years and years has been wonderful. Then I sort of outgrew it.

The really bad part, in my program, was coursework. Too much of it, and except for about 3 out of the 12 courses I took, completely pointless. No, worse than that: extremely detrimental to my self-esteem. This may be my school's or program's peculiarity - I don't know. The qualifying exams were a good experience for me - my program calls for a lot of independent work on topics, questions etc. and I loved doing that stuff. My proposal defense was the defense from hell - but other people in my program had better experiences. I think I managed to get in the middle of a sort of fight between my advisor and my department's DGS - but I'll never know the full details. Only that even though my proposal passed, the whole thing was so awful I simply couldn't go on working on that topic anymore and this set me back a couple years. On the other hand, I did find something I am much more interested in...

But what was unequivocally good: all the ideas, books, films I encountered and people I met - in a way that you can't if you don't have the leisure of a few years in grad school. But this is where the peculiarities of specific programs come into play: the teaching requirement in mine is minimal (1 year and you can do it once you run out of funding,) and you get decent funding for a decent amount of time (5 years.) I would say, look for the places that pay decently and don't make you teach more than a year or maybe two, at most. And, make sure you can use funded years to spend doing your own work, whether research-related or writing a novel. A friend of mine did that - something completely unrelated to our program. I ended up getting into digital art - sort of by accident.

I'd say, if someone is hellbent on going to grad school, these kinds of details should be determining factors particular school or program - I had, of course, no idea when I applied, and completely in spite of myself (probably) I picked a program that gave me much of what I needed. Really, the couple of years I had just for reading and thinking and exploring ideas and figuring things out were invaluable. (That's the part after I recovered from proposal-defense shock.) I think that's worth going for a Ph.D. for... and I don't think you have anywhere near the kind of access to research materials in public libraries as you have at a university. Though the funny part is that by the time I began to really enjoy it I already knew I wasn't going to apply for teaching jobs. Don't know if that's helpful for your student, Erin... But she sounds a lot like me right before I applied to grad school, and a lot of other people I know who went to grad school and got a lot out of it in spite of the bad things in academia.

No, it really is a "cotillion for eggheads" who, if/when the time comes, will eat you alive if they need to.

As someone who has succeeded in getting a PhD, landing a tenure-track job, and expects to have tenure in a year's time, I want to assure your student that all this *is* possible. On the other hand, I don't count myself 100% successful in achieving my aspirations--I teach at a university with a four-course teaching load and relatively ill-prepared students. When I look back on where I went right and where I went wrong, I see that my path was determined by how much I knew how, and was in a position to (e.g. financially), play the system. Like many, I have come to the conclusion that the most important factors are the institution that grants you the PhD, and, probably more importantly, who your adviser is. For instance, in my field, I know of two people whose students are hired nearly 100% of the time (there are some good reasons for this, and some not so good).

My advice would be to research the rates of success graduates of the university/ies where you are accepted have in landing tenure-track jobs. Do the same for your prospective adviser, if possible. Finally, ask yourself whether you have any sort of financial pad to cushion you whilst you are waiting for that PhD and tenure-track job to develop. [And note in passing that this advice will tend to reinforce the tendency for university positions to be held by members of society's financial elite -- but that's another topic.] If you've got the right institution, the right adviser, and the right financial circumstances, you have a good chance of success.

I'm an undergrad who's in a PhD program in Philosophy next year without funding, so I've been thinking about this kind of thing pretty hard. I happen to know this is exactly what I want to do, and what I'm told is that if you're not absolutely sure that you want to do it, don't. It's really not worth the 7 years of your life to get a degree that reduces your job prospects. And your job prospects DO go down with a PhD.

My advice is to apply to PhD programs, but don't discount taking an MA and leaving. I think the earlier James was right. Don't get stuck with a one track mind like I already have.

=)

It's not impossible to feel perfectly content moving into industry after a PhD -- but it's not easy, especially given that almost all of your professors and colleagues will figure it means that you're not actually any good. It's not impossible to believe differently, but it's also not easy.

I have no idea what it's like in English departments, but it's often possible to go into a PhD program (with funding) and leave with a terminal MA, if you end up feeling a PhD is a bad choice.

I am nearly finished my PhD in a field in the Humanities. I knew the realities of the job market when I went in to this. I had an intellectual interest that I wanted to pursue, and I didn't care whether it would lead to an academic career or not. It's true that now I feel more invested in the system and the profession. I am also older, and money and career seem more important that they did when I begun this. Maybe I was a little naive, a little idealistic. But the value of a PhD can't just be reduced to the question as to whether it leads to a tenure-track job or not. I don't particularly enjoy teaching, I have discovered, and don't particularly enjoy spending my working day entirely with undergraduates. As many have said here and elsewhere, there is a lot of drudgery in academic work. There are a lot of personality disorders in the humanities, whether cause or consequences of the decision of these individuals to enter academia I don't know. There is, yes, a lot of cant and pretension. There is some unpleasantness. However, I had a passion for my studies and I got to explore and develop it. I read a lot of books I wasn't asked to read, and didn't read many that I was supposed to read. I made some great friendships. I traveled. I chose a department that would pay for me to study, in a public university, mainly with teaching assistantships, and I haven't borrowed any money to do this [and, frankly, I think that it is insane to borrow money to attend graduate school in the humanities]. I have made compromises. Sometimes I feel as if I am writing my dissertation to please my committee - but I don't care, because I just want the damn thing done! Yet I chose my topic, and it still excites me enough to see it through. I'll go on the job market once or twice, but I won't go anywhere for anything and I won't be an adjunct for years on end. And if I don't get a job, I'll have to try something else, and yet I doubt I will spend the rest of my life poor, and broken, and bitter.
The academic humanities in this country cultivate a narrow, sectarian mentality that is not found in the same way in other disciplines which have more regular contacts with the world beyond the university walls. There is a disdain for non-academic jobs which I find ludicrous given the realities of our profession. We are not a religious order.
I strongly agree that the conditions of academic employment need fundamental review. However, for me, the PhD had value as an end in itself, regardless of whether I get tenure at Harvard or Yale, and if I don't, I really won't give a damn if my former colleagues think less of me and I would only have contempt for them if they did.
I would say to any prospective humanities graduate student : 1) make sure you have a real passion for your field 2) make sure you want to go to grad school to pursue this passion, and not because you want three letters after your name or you think tenure sounds like a sweet deal or you are motivated primarily by money or status or careerism or job security or because you are intellectually insecure 3) make sure you'll get financial and moral support from your prospective department, in writing 4) realize that you are making a foolhardy choice, that it will take you years of your life, that you will be older, and grumpier, when you are done, that you will have spent your youth in libraries and probably you will have been poor.
Yes, go into it with your eyes open. But on balance, for me, I think it was worthwhile.

"it's often possible to go into a PhD program (with funding) and leave with a terminal MA, if you end up feeling a PhD is a bad choice."

A couple of my friends here have done that - it's a pretty sweet deal, since they got paid 30,000 plus tuition and health insurance, etc. to get an MA, and then went on to sweet state department jobs with starting salaries a lot higher than those of us who've stayed on for the PhD are likely to see for a VERY long time.

Just like me, except that I didn't get 30,000 over the two years, and I had to pay health and student fees out of that, and I don't have a phenomenally well-paying job (yet?), though I have one that's going to give more than my stipend did, and I'm living somewhere with a lower cost of living. So I only regret the leaving a bit.

There seems to be a vast difference between people who manage to get into programs fully funded and leave without student loan debt and those who end up a hundred or so thousand dollars in the hole upon finishing their programs.

I wish Wolf Angel enough money to avoid bad roommates (though I've had good ones in the past).

What is really interesting is the group of people who intend to accumulate student debt, know they won't be able to pay it, but enjoy the ride. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals recently held that one of those had to get a "real job" rather than playing first violin and getting the student loans discharged in bankruptcy.

Hmm, I'm lost, but the thread is interesting. I especially like the idea of entering PhD programs to get tuition waivers and stipends on the way to an M.A.

What we really need is a two tier PhD system. One PhD requires teaching and teaching experience and is aimed at producing university professors. The other is aimed at producing PhDs with knowledge in the area -- kind of the way many Business PhD programs work -- sure, you can teach, and with grads getting 107k or so for 2/2 schedules, many people do, but lots never intend to teach and could care less about T.A. and other duties.

Anyway, to bed.

Ought to see more posted about jobs at State (and the CIA) for people who exit with an MA or a PHD.

Steve
http://adrr.com/living/

I think that anyone who believes that a PhD is the key to an academic career needs to rethink their intentions regarding grad school.

That said, I do feel that I benefitted from my experiences in grad school. Some of them, no. The subtle indoctrination (or acculturation -- I'm not sure that deliberate intent was involved) into the notion that a person with a doctorate is fit only for academic life, no. Being forced to defend my ideas and develop them, being able to talk about complex subjects with people who had studied them in depth, being among people who accepted my intelligence rather than being awed or annoyed by it, feeling like I was part of a larger process of expanding the scope of human knowledge, the discipline I learned -- these were all good things.

I am certain that one need not go to graduate school to obtain them. For me, it was the best environment for my intellectual development.

I would say, as a caution, that while I am proud of my degree, I am rueful of the ways I allowed grad school to limit my mental and psychic horizons. There is something to be said for a focused mind, but it can become pathological if one is not careful.

(An example: I went into grad school with a research bent, with no interest in teaching. I kept taking more and more steps on the teaching path to pay bills and make myself "marketable" and I ended up in a series of teaching-intensive visiting positions while my research languished. I haven't researched anything new since my dissertation, and wonder if I ever will.)

I would advise your student to actively research all the alternative possibilities out there for a bright young mind. Then, if she still decides grad school is for her, she will know that a world beyond academia exists, even if her professors insist (or worse, unthinkingly assume) that it doesn't.

I find it curious that David Velleman is calling Johns Hopkins' History program second- or third-rate.

I also seem to remember Professor Velleman stating that every humanities program at Michigan except philosophy made all decisions based on identity politics, so I suppose he is cultivating eccentricities. And that's fine, though it's a hell of lot less interesting than what the other guy's doing with The Sims, if you ask me.

One thing I have learned from reading this blog (and specifically, the comments on this post) is how very different Ph.D. programs in the sciences and the humanities are.

I have a Ph.D. in biological sciences. It was a very long hard slog with a couple of points where I thought I was going to quit, but I wound up succeeding. I have a position at a small regional university, and I am newly tenured. So I have been successful thus far in my career. And I've met my career goals: I wanted to wind up somewhere where teaching was a priority and being the Big Famous Grant Bringer was less important. (I know where my talents lie; I am a better teacher than I am a researcher).

That said, I watched people enter and leave the graduate program I was in during my time there, and I realized a couple of things.

First, if you're in it solely to earn more money, you're better off going into business for yourself, or inventing something, or going into the computer fields. It's sort of an indentured servitude, being in grad school. (I only made it through without taking on massive loans becuase I was able to live rent-free with my parents while I was in school). And once you get out, finding a job can be challenging, even in the sciences (I was very lucky, and I was also willing to move just about anywhere for a good job). I know people who went through the same time as I did who are still looking for permanent employment.

You have to have a drive - to want the Ph.D. - beyond the career possibilities and the possibility of earning more money. (Both of my parents are academics with Ph.D.'s in the sciences; I knew I wanted to follow that path almost as soon as I started college). You have to be willing to give up five to ten years of your life to follow that goal. My social life during that time revolved around the lab - going out for pizza with my labmates, or hanging out drinking coffee. I scarcely dated during that time and didn't really have friends outside the university.

You also have to be incredibly stubborn to succeed in grad school in the sciences. I tell new grad students that you have to be smart enough to do the work but dumb enough not to know when you're beaten. I say that with tongue in cheek, but I saw my share of really intelligent people give up when they hit a large or small bump in their research, or when funding became iffy, or when their pilot study didn't work out. I had to deal with massive data analysis problems, with being sent out to do a large amount of fieldwork at a time when I thought I should have been finishing up, and a considerable lack of funding (I wound up paying for equipment, analyses, and computer programs out of my own pockets). But I wanted that degree, and I didn't want to walk out of school calling myself a failure (Not that not completing a Ph.D. marks you as such; it's just my attitude that when I can't do what I intend to do I'm a failure).

It was hard work and often awful work. But there were also a lot of wonderful times - cameraderie in the lab, and calling in all the favors I had accumulated over the years to get people to go out as field hands with me, and the pleasure of finally seeing a pattern emerge from that mess of data, and knowing that the dissertation was finally done.

And nothing compared to that moment when my graduate advisor walked out of the conference room, shook my hand, and said "of course, you passed." That's something no one can ever take away from me.

While I have not done graduate work myself, I have a good friend who is on a seven-year dual degree track, masters and doctorate, heavily funded by TA work. From watching her, I have to say that the most important thing is to keep your sense of humor about the whole business. While she has done certain trendy classes and papers to make herself marketable (she does want to teach), she understands them exactly for what they are, trendy.

She also spent a year abroad at Oxford as an undergrad, and I think that addition to her experience has served her well. Her adviser there assigned her Spenser's Faerie Queen (which is multiple books, and considered heavy going.) Richard Feynman passed along a great bit of advice, which is to get your graduate degrees at a different institution than your undergrad, because universities are so very different in their methods; if at all possible, your letter-writer should consider moving to a different region than she grew up in or went to college in. The differences will help her keep her perspective.

As noted above, a person who is unsure whether to get a master's degree or a Ph.D. will probably find more funding options if she joins a Ph.D. program. However, a word of caution: many (most?) Ph.D. programs, whether their graduates actually tend to succeed in academia or not, are exclusively focused on academic careers, and a student who is not committed to such a career or who has any intellectual interests outside of her department is likely to be troubled by an appalling level of snobbishness on the part of her fellow department members toward people like her. However, having said that, I must say that it is unrealistic to expect to be able to have as great an intellectual experience while out in the world working at a typical full-time job as one can have in a good graduate program.

If you want to continue learning and thinking and writing in academia without making a long-term, risky committment to a PhD program, consider getting some kind of staff job at a university with a strong extension or continuing education program that also offers steep tuition discounts to employees (that second part is very important). For example, see Harvard University's Extention School.

Some of these programs even offer MA degrees, often in some sort of generalized "liberal arts studies" which allow you to custom design a program and/or thesis according to what you are most interested in. Such a degree will be almost useless in getting any kind of job (with the possible exception of being an academic librarian, which I am, and which is the only profession I know that actually values subject masters degrees.) but may offer some personal satisfaction.

Heather, happy English PhD program drop-out