Friday, November 27, 2009

Subjected to Futility in Hope

After meeting many grad students and young professors at SBL this year, I've been musing a bit about the long-term job prospects for many of us. It's a depressing subject. I was reminded of a couple of posts from Chris Brady on the subject of grad students and maybe not getting a PhD. More depressing.

In honor of the universal experience of grad students in the humanities everywhere, I've paraphrased Romans 8:19-21 (building on an off-the-cuff quip using the biblical anthological style I made at 5:30 am on the way to the airport on Tuesday - yes, it was a bit early for that, Wen!).
For the students wait with eager longing for the conferring of degrees. For the students were subjected to futility, willingly, and through the professors who subjected them, in hope that the students themselves would be set free from their bondage to coursework and obtain the freedom of the glory of the tenure-track.
P.S. If you're interested in Aramaic, early biblical interpretation, issues in Higher Education, and religious studies related comics and you don't follow Chris's blog Targuman, well, shame on you - subscribe right now.

8 comments:

  1. It was a bit early for anything. :) Pretty sure I missed this altogether - caffeine was still making its way to the bloodstream. :)

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  2. That's why I republished it here - plus I had a lot of time to think on Tuesday. My plane was delayed over an hour, then I missed my bus connection in Chicago. Lots of time sitting around.

    We were talking about a friend of ours who escaped the futility. :)

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  3. I think that getting a PhD has a clear payoff. You become a professional researcher. I mean this seriously. At UW, the co-author of "So What Are You Going to Do With That?: A Guide for M.A.'s and Ph.D's Seeking Careers Outside the Academy," came to speak and made this point. She said a PhD is an information Green Beret. If someone has a PhD, you can drop him or her into a jungle of information and he or she will perform expert reconnaissance. PhD's know how to research, and this is helpful for a whole lot of jobs. In fact, more businesses could use some more professional researchers who know how to look at multiple angles of an issue. "Fact-checking" is considered a luxury, but is essential because it avoids all sorts of trouble.

    So against some of the discussion on Brady's page, I think that fewer PhD's is bad for society. We need those professional researchers out there.

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  4. That's why there's still hope, Rich. Plus I think what Chris was aiming at was that the PhD may not be the payoff you need depending on your interests and job outlook. Part of the point is that you don't necessarily need a PhD to be an intelligent, thoughtful human being. On the other hand, you're right that doing a PhD gives skills that can be gained nowhere else.

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  5. I'm a software engineer (which is a fancy way of saying programmer). I don't do my living out of personal hobbies, like religion or women.

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  6. Plus, did you notice how many of the professor-types at SBL were (not to put too fine a point on it) aging, before long we'll either shuffle off to retirement, or perhaps if we don't then shuffle off more extremely...

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  7. Thanks for the links and post. It was great to meet in person! As you pointed out, I am not saying that getting a PhD is bad or foolish, just that one needs to be realistic with their expectations and goals (and financial constraints).

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  8. Get the Ph.D. man! -Donna

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