darcusblog

Got a question recently from a graduate student questioning whether to go on to complete a PhD. The question reflects the usual anxieties about the difficulties of the job market, the rarified world of academic life, etc. Below is my slightly edited response …

Well, first, I suspect most people who do make it through ask themselves that question at one point in their graduate career or another. I think it’s more common for people who have gone straight through from undergraduate work. Time away from academia tends to one a little more perspective on it.

What is that perspective? For me, academia makes sense for people who really like doing the work; whatever that may be: theory, field work, teaching, etc. That’s not to say there aren’t times when they also hate the work. I certainly find writing, for example, a trial. But ultimately, we’d rather be doing this than practically anything else.

The downside is that you give up the structured 9-5 world. You basically never stop working. A vacation, then, is just a slow-down; something that opportunistic politicians simply don’t get. You think about ideas all the time. Whether that’s a glass half-full (as it is for me) or empty is a matter of perspective (again). From my perspective, what better a job to have than to get paid to think and write and teach about the things that I care about?

Not all intellectuals are snobs, and probably most of them aren’t in fact.

The job market? There’s no denying it’s tough, particularly if you want to end up at a more research-focused institution. Very good people often spend a few years in temporary positions before they land a tenure-track job. But it’s not as bad in geography as in some other fields, and your options open up if you consider more teaching-oriented jobs. Again, though, that’s a matter of perspective. If you don’t like teaching, then that wouldn’t be much fun.

The value of a PhD outside of the academy? This I’m not really sure, but I’d speculate that it’s probably not worth the hassle. The reason is that by definition a PhD is very specialized training, and what you would gain would probably not be very portable. Any training you get with respect to research skills and such you’ve probably already gained with an MA. [this varies by field of course]

So you’re left with questions, among them what would you do if not academia? The bottom line is that you can succeed if you want, but you have to dedicate yourself to it fully. It reminds me of what an architecture professor of mine once said when I had decided to leave an architecture graduate program: “Architecture is really hard even if you love it. It’s impossible if you don’t.” The same might apply to academia.