These quotes are some of the responses made on the Survey
of Doctoral Education and Career Preparation. The quotes are sorted by
discipline. You can see the response from other
disciplines. These quotes supplement an article
of advice for selecting a doctoral program. Students responded to the
question: "Knowing everything that you know now, what advice would
you give others entering or in the early years of graduate school? "
The quotes are sorted into six categories. Generally, there are a half
dozen comments per category, the alternating colors are different student's
comments. These categories were
applied by us, as we read through the thousands of comments. They are the
most common categories of advice pertaining to the selection of a doctoral
program. The frequency with which various kinds of advice emerged varies
by discipline. You can see the relative
distribution here.
History
Know
yourself and know what doctoral study entails
26.6%
of the history students surveyed offered advice about this topic.
Think seriously about WHY you want to
go to grad school in the first place. If
you are simply entering a program because you don't know what else you want to
do with your life, take more time before starting a grad program.
If you simply are DYING to be an academic or prof, or are incredibly
passionate about your field, then start.
I was naive entering grad school; I
thought it would be a great way to gain an expertise in history that I could
then use outside of academia (namely in a writing and editing career).
I didn't realize how focused grad programs are on training ALL grad
students to become professors. I
also didn't realize what a long (and sometimes rather grueling) process all of
this would be. Sometimes I wonder
if I could have achieved my career goals WITHOUT having gone to grad school.
I don't dislike what I'm doing; but
sometimes I'm not sure if it's worth it, considering that I'm not sure I want
an academic job. SO--I would encourage potential students to talk at length with
other grad students and profs, and enter a grad program with their eyes wide
open as to what the expectations, demands, and potential outcomes of grad
school are.
Talk to people and try to understand,
really understand, what grad school is about.
I didn't do a very good job of it and I spent a lot of time taking
wrong turns in this program.
If you are in the liberal arts,
especially history, do the degree because you want it.
The job market is horrible and there are no guarantees at the end.
Therefore, keep in mind other job opportunities.
Pick an advisor as soon as you can, and
try to find someone personable, with whom you are compatible.
There is plenty of misery involved in working with an ogre.
Maybe visit campuses early on and meet
some of the faculty so you can make an informed decision about where to apply
and where to go.
Don't treat graduate school as holding
pen for other options. If you
came to graduate school because you always succeeded as a student, bear in
mind that graduate school is about turning you into a researcher and teacher.
Graduate programs require a pivotal switch in thinking about your talents and
desires.
Be prepared for self-doubts and
loneliness; in the end, work is solitude.
First, ask yourself: Why am I doing
this? What do I want to be? Am I really sure that grad school is the place to
find myself? If your answer is “I think it would be cool to be Dr.
so-and-so,” then forget it. If your answer is: “I have a really good idea
of what it means to be a historian/sociologist/folklorist/ physicist, and
there is nothing else I would rather be,” then, well, it’s still probably
not a good idea. Try catering, or real estate.
If, on the other hand, these alternatives are utterly abhorrent to you,
move on to the next step.
Determine if you are pursuing your
field (in my case, history) in order to have a career in academia, a career
outside the academy, or if you are just doing it because you want/have nothing
better to do. If the last point is true, you should either be independently
wealthy or content to go into a ridiculous amount of debt for no good reason.
Humanities/arts people are no longer valued by today's society, if they ever
were.
If the first of these is the case, find
out the attrition/completion rates of the Ph.D. programs you are considering.
Then look at the placement data upon graduation. Be careful to determine if
the jobs that graduates get are tenure-track, full-time or not. If the dept.
does not provide this information, or if you cannot determine it from external
studies or from talking to graduate students and faculty in the program, DO
NOT ENTER the program. The dept. is clearly not being responsible, and not
making it easy for prospective students to make intelligent choices. This
information is equally important (if not more so) than such issues as the
reputation of the program and the funding situation/endowment/ resources.
These, of course, are also important, and the prospective student should take
them into account when he/she makes his/her decision.
This may be the most important bit of
advice: don't borrow $$$ to go to grad school. Not one red cent. Make sure you
pursue every possible avenue of funding before going. If none surface, keep
your job at Target and keep applying each year until you get funding. It makes
absolutely no sense for anyone smart enough to get into grad school to be so
dumb as to go neck-high into debt when the job market is so bad (and shows no
signs of letting up). I have friends in history programs who are
$30,000-70,000 in debt. Amortized over 30 years, they'll be paying something
like $500-1,000/ month to their creditors until almost the end of their lives.
All this and no equity.
Be absolutely sure you love your field
enough to give up time, money, effort, and sweat.... If you're not 100%
certain, then do something else for a while.
It's a wonderful, exhilarating, horrible, frustrating process; you'll
be poor for years, you'll work like a dog, your advisor will probably kick
your ego around a bit, so if you're not passionate about your field you'll
probably have a hard time. On the other hand, it can be a great experience.
I'm glad I did it, but I can't say it's been easy.
Be sure it’s what you want--grad
school and academia are not easy. As
one older student said to me when I was visiting schools, “If there is
anything else you can see yourself doing, do it.”
(Cynical, but rings true to me now).
In particular, be sure you love your subject!
Be prepared for years of poverty, long
hours, non-existent weekends, exploiting faculty members, Byzantine
administrative paperwork, and constant self-doubt.
The first year of graduate school will be the most unmitigated hell you
have lived through with the possible exception of 7th grade.
It should get better afterwards. If
not, drop out.
Investigate
the program thoroughly
20.1%
of the history students surveyed offered advice about this topic.
When selecting a grad school, pick a
department that has a strong, supportive community of grad students.
Your fellow grad students will provide you with more advice, support,
and intellectual guidance than any advisor.
A university is more than a collection
of buildings and brains. It’s a place, too, where you’ll probably spend at
least five years. And, given academic job prospects, it might be the last time
(before you retire, anyway) where you actually get to choose where to live. If
you are happy only within a half-hour of an ocean, stick to the coasts; if you
need to see the mountains, avoid Kansas.
If you’re happy where you are physically, you’ll also be a better
student and scholar.
Talk to students in the program where
you want to go. Buy them a beer and ask them to give you the straight scoop
about faculty, attrition rates and time to degree, financial support, campus
facilities, if/where people get jobs when they finish, etc.
Your advisor is very important. Find
out if you get along personally, what their track record with former students
is (do they get support? do they finish? do they get jobs?), find out what
their modus operandi is and if that fits your style.
Go to graduate school if you think that
you’ll enjoy the school part, and not just because you want the Ph.D. or the
academic job at the end of it all. The best (and happiest) students are those
who are enjoying the ride.
I don't think many of my peers had an
honest explanation of the time that a Ph.D. in history would take, the
enormous cost, the dearth of financial assistance (other than loans that would
leave many with crushing debt payments--some more than $800 a month), the
difficulty of finding employment, or the possibilities for non-academic
professions. Nor were we
adequately prepared for the high rate of attrition--I think that it must range
between 50-75%--that the university seemed to countenance as an acceptable
process. It was painful to watch
friends and colleagues with a deep passion for their studies leave in a cloud
of bitterness and failure as the cost of a graduate education finally became
too much to bear, or the impossibility of finishing while working 30-40 hours
a week finally became evident.
Learn everything you can about the
program you're interested in and about the professors with whom you will work.
Know that it will be a difficult 5-7
years of your life, with little time to devote to other things.
Knowing all that, I highly recommend graduate school to those who are
willing to put in the work and the time.
It is worth it in the end!
Carefully examine the actual semester
course offerings for several years (not the list of course in the catalog) to
determine exactly what the direction of the program is, and what courses they
are really giving and who is really teaching.
All too often, and in my program especially, students are accepted for
programs that are poorly supported with teaching faculty and courses, which
they discover only after entering. For
example, my period in early modern European history, the catalog listed a
dozen grad courses and five professors, but in actual fact there is only one
course offered, a general seminar, and only one full professor (who rarely
teaches) and one assistant professor, who does teach, but who was denied
tenure and will not be replaced. Yet,
this year, three students were admitted in the early modern European program.
Make sure you take into consideration
all factors and possibilities before you enter.
For example, are you so good in your field that you will receive
competitive funding at every stage? If
not, do you have you own personal resources set aside?
Do you have children -- how does your campus help with childcare, if at
all? How will you fund your research?
What percent of students have research funded by your institution?
If the percentage is small, select a topic that can be researched
locally. Also, explore all money
opportunities, not just those in your department or university.
Have an idea of the field you will
study, and, if possible, of the advisor you'd like to work with.
Go to the university and meet that advisor and get a preliminary feel
for whether you can work with him or her. Talk to his or her other graduate
students -- what kind of advisor does this person make?
Are they hands off and do you need someone who sets deadlines?
Are they autocratic and unconcerned with whether you eat or not?
Ask TONS of questions.
This is enough, but I could go on for
much longer. The bottom line is,
know yourself and the program well. Don't
think things will change for your circumstances - if you think it's an ill
fit, it probably is. There are
many wonderful people in academia who can help you when you stall, but if you
are in a rigid program and run into problems and you don't find one of those
people, it is your academic success that will suffer.
If you have a choice about where to
enroll, visit the schools and meet with faculty and students.
Your relationships with your advisors/mentors and with fellow students
will play a big role in how happy you are in graduate school and how you will
grow intellectually.
However, also remember that in order to
be happy and to learn, you need adequate funding and a reasonable workload in
your RA/TA position. Find out how
well your school supports students and what the workload is like. Ask if graduate student employees are unionized and engaged
in collective bargaining. If not,
get involved in the movement to unionize!
Research and meet potential advisors
before deciding where to enter graduate school; the same goes for the graduate
community. Collegial support and
conversation are very important to one's intellectual and emotional well being
in grad school.
Understand
the job market
21.3%
of the history students surveyed offered advice about this topic.
The first thing I tell new students is
that there are very few jobs in humanities/social sciences in academia right
now. Also, there are many, many very bright and talented teachers
and researchers who are unemployed or who are forced to take one semester or
one-year adjunct positions in which they get paid very little and they teach a
great deal. In other words, the
poor job market makes us ripe for exploitation.
I feel like we need to be honest with people entering graduate school.
There are too few jobs and too many Ph.D.s.
Don’t enter history grad school
expecting to be able to find a job -- no matter how talented you may be.
You must expect that you will attend grad school and still not get a
job even with dissertation in hand. If
you cannot walk away at the end of the process without a job and yet not be
bitter then grad school isn't for you.
Find out what happens to people who
enter the program. Do they get work afterwards? Where?
What else can you do with your degree
when you leave besides teach? Develop
transferable skills.
Make sure you need a Ph.D. to make the
living you want to make and be flexible enough during the process to rethink
whether you need the Ph.D. if your goals have changed.
Pressure the department to learn and
explain more about non-academic work one can do with a history degree.
People don't know what their options are, and somehow to discuss
non-academic careers has a whiff of failure about it.
This is ridiculous.
The job market is simply awful and
shows little chance of improvement. If
you can think of anything else to do that will make you happy, go do that;
otherwise, you're probably limiting yourself to a life of underemployment with
low pay and no benefits teaching part time for schools all over creation with
little or no chance of advancement or permanent employment.
Have realistic expectations about their
ability to get the job they want and their own suitability to that job.
Many people in the program I was in, for example, liked teaching but
not the level and quantity of research and writing necessary to get a
competitive academic job. Nonetheless,
these were the only jobs seen as worthy.
People entering Ph.D. programs should be more willing to address up
front what they will do if after 7-10 yrs they can't obtain a university
professorship.
Understand
and get funding
25.3%
of the history students surveyed offered advice about this topic.
If you don't get accepted into a
program with a “full” funding package, don't go.
Don't expect funding to continue until
you're finished: be proactive in determining how long it will last, to what
degree, and what other sources of funding are available.
Be clear on how much funding (or lack
of it) there will be, how much of funding will come from teaching
assistantships (and recognize how much that will slow down your progress).
Make a realistic assessment of the
available funding in the humanities. I
have seen many motivated and talented students leave the program because they
failed to take such concerns into account when entering school.
Their desire for the degree steadily waned as their appreciation for
the costs (money, time, energy) grew.
Funding is a terrible problem for
history grad students and probably for most in the humanities.
My husband and I have both had to work our ways through school and
together have amassed about $130,000 in debt.
This is not a good way to begin one's professional life...especially
when the job market is horrible. I
think graduate education will soon become the privilege of the wealthy.
I hope programs do a better job of informing incoming students of the
costs of this education.
Be certain that your funding package is
very clear and that you will be supported during your research/write-up years.
Make sure you enter a program with
equal funding for all students. This
makes a significant difference for the amount of support you can expect from
your peers.
Select
your advisor carefully
17.2%
of the history students surveyed offered advice about this topic.
Make sure that your advisor not only
has similar academic interests, but is compatible personally as well:
he/she has similar philosophies on the graduate student/advisor
relationship, shares the same goals for what you should get out of a graduate
program, and provides the kinds of emotional support you need to perform your
best work (if is you need someone to be on your case constantly, or you need
more space to develop on your own, or is supportive vs. critical).
A good, open relationship with an
advisor who is interested in advising and mentoring students is vital.
I believe all students’ benefit from intellectual and emotional
support and the ongoing availability of an advisor.
All too frequently, advisors seem far more concerned with their own
research than with actually fulfilling their roles as advisors.
Talk to other students currently working with the advisors who interest
you prior to entering your program. Speak
directly to your advisor about these feelings regarding their students and
their vision of the advisor/student relationship.
I am convinced that this relationship is central to a successful
experience in a doctoral program.
Go with the advisor you can really talk
to, and who listens to your ideas, whether or not that person is the most well
known or prestigious.
Pick an advisor who will work hard on
your behalf reading drafts, writing letters, and looking for job
opportunities.
Make intellectual contacts/communities
with people outside of your discipline and university.
Look for a program and advisor which
pushes students. I do not mean a program/advisor which emphasizes
speed/efficiency above all else, but the timelines and guidelines in my
department are so loose that, unless a graduate student has a really strong
grasp on what specifically he or she wants or needs to do, they can waste a
lot of time between taking courses and completing prelims, etc.
Take
time off between undergraduate and PhD studies
10.3%
of the history students surveyed offered advice about this topic.
Take time off before entering grad
school. Enter the workforce, and
come back to grad school when you really want to.
Every student in my program who went directly from undergrad to grad
school has not completed the program. And
every student who has left the program for a “year off” has never returned!
Taking time off BEFORE entering graduate
school is invaluable. I gained a
sense of perspective on higher education and of my own role in it that I could
not have had I pushed straight through.
I also benefited from doing my M.A. and
Ph.D. at different institutions.
I think it is also important for
prospective or early career graduate students to ask the hard questions both of
themselves and their departments about why they are there.
Are you focused on process or outcome?
Both are important. Graduate
school should never be an escape or exclusively a means to an end but an end in
itself.
Take time off before coming in; at least
one year, even if you're very sure. One
year won't be a big delay and even if at the end you think that you were ready
all along, the year off will have been a good change and a touchstone to remind
you that you know you belong when times get rough.
Get some job experience first, after
college, to make sure you are truly committed to graduate work.
Even just a year off provides a welcome breather in class work, and
alerts you to other possibilities.
If
I were talking to a 22-year-old I would say hold off and work at something for a
few years. An older person is more likely to know what they want to do (this was
my situation--I was 29 when I started).
Quotes from other
disciplines. | Article
of advice for selecting a doctoral program | Distribution
of quotes in all fields. | Survey
of Doctoral Education and Career Preparation.