On Graduate Students
May. 22nd, 2003 08:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldSomething worrying from J. Bradford Delong's blog:
The Invisible Adjunct raves and foams at the mouth upon encountering Laura Vanderkam's "System Wastes Ph.D. Brainpower." Vanderkam writes:
It makes me want to rage and foam at the mouth as well. You see, people who apply to graduate school have a (largely correct) self-image as people who are good at academic pursuits. A lot of past experience has taught them that if there is an academic needle to thread, they will be the ones who succeed in doing so. So it's not enough for the 35% of humanities departments that give their prospective students the straight poop to do so, for the prospectives will say, "1/3 of us will get tenure track jobs? I'm good at academic pursuits, so that must mean that the odds for me are pretty good." They don't think--or most of them don't think--Wait a minute, everybody else here is good at academic pursuits too. I've been in the top quarter of academic distributions all my life, but I have only one chance in four of being in the top quarter of this one.
You see this kind of failure to take account of the particular pool you are in in lots of situations. How many of the people buying stocks ask why, if the stock is such a good deal to buy, the person who currently holds it is so anxious to sell? How many college basketball stars realize that their NBA careers are overwhelmingly likely to be nonexistent or short? To attribute some sort of moral fault--as Laura Vanderkam does--to prospective graduate students who are about to get s*****d by the system merely because they suffer from the normal drawbacks and limitations of human cognition is brutally unfair.
On the other hand, when Vanderkam turns to the university presidents, the deans, and the senior faculty who somehow are too anxious to get enough teaching fellows to keep senior faculty teaching workloads low to ever resolve the problem of... ahem... "inadequate information," I stop foaming at the mouth and start nodding in approval.
I've read some criticisms of this, but I'm still worried. Ah well; I'll wait for my MA degree and then see what happens.
The Invisible Adjunct raves and foams at the mouth upon encountering Laura Vanderkam's "System Wastes Ph.D. Brainpower." Vanderkam writes:
...this mismatch between professorships available and Ph.D.s granted is a colossal waste of brainpower sorely needed elsewhere. Universities that glut the doctorate market bear much responsibility for the situation. But graduate students aren't blameless.... the "starving Ph.D." phenomenon is here to stay. Even the ivory tower can't save anyone from that reality.
Today's market mismatch began in the 1960s.... But the hiring binge soon turned into a hangover. By the late 1970s, even top students found themselves exiled to places they never imagined. Then colleges and universities realized they could cut costs by hiring on a part-time or temporary basis. The Modern Language Association counted only 431 tenure-track English jobs landed in 2001, compared with 977 English Ph.D.s.... All fine ? if everyone knows the odds.... One survey found only 35% of students received realistic job-placement information from their departments.
Even enlightened students, however, delude themselves into thinking they can buck the laws of supply and demand. In graduate school, they experience the rare privilege of devoting themselves fully to learning what they love while being paid a stipend, however small, to do so. Having escaped reality once, they don't expect to encounter it again. "Most people who write their dissertations think they'll beat the odds," says Rosemary Feal, executive director of the Modern Language Association. "They think 'I'm meant for this,' or 'I'll be one of the ones who makes it.' " They cling to this fantasy...
Some graduate students do wake up. Much of the recent unionization movement can be traced to students deciding... they won't put up with the low wages, high teaching loads.... [U]niversities could improve the problem of inadequate information if they wished. Departments should warn prospective students about placement rates and encourage students to tailor their studies to existing jobs...
It makes me want to rage and foam at the mouth as well. You see, people who apply to graduate school have a (largely correct) self-image as people who are good at academic pursuits. A lot of past experience has taught them that if there is an academic needle to thread, they will be the ones who succeed in doing so. So it's not enough for the 35% of humanities departments that give their prospective students the straight poop to do so, for the prospectives will say, "1/3 of us will get tenure track jobs? I'm good at academic pursuits, so that must mean that the odds for me are pretty good." They don't think--or most of them don't think--Wait a minute, everybody else here is good at academic pursuits too. I've been in the top quarter of academic distributions all my life, but I have only one chance in four of being in the top quarter of this one.
You see this kind of failure to take account of the particular pool you are in in lots of situations. How many of the people buying stocks ask why, if the stock is such a good deal to buy, the person who currently holds it is so anxious to sell? How many college basketball stars realize that their NBA careers are overwhelmingly likely to be nonexistent or short? To attribute some sort of moral fault--as Laura Vanderkam does--to prospective graduate students who are about to get s*****d by the system merely because they suffer from the normal drawbacks and limitations of human cognition is brutally unfair.
On the other hand, when Vanderkam turns to the university presidents, the deans, and the senior faculty who somehow are too anxious to get enough teaching fellows to keep senior faculty teaching workloads low to ever resolve the problem of... ahem... "inadequate information," I stop foaming at the mouth and start nodding in approval.
I've read some criticisms of this, but I'm still worried. Ah well; I'll wait for my MA degree and then see what happens.
