Will someone please make one like this but about Physics. Would really help motivate me to not give up and go all the way for the Ph.D. Most of the ones I see are depressing.
I'm planning on being a humanities PhD because I want to be, not because I want money, so all you haters can stop hating. If you want to be a PhD in science or math, go ahead, but dont make the humanities seem unimportant.
Should ANYBODY get a PhD?? I understand that the experienced academics/PhD students want to warn us about potential risks in the job market etc, but if nobody gets PhD's, then what happens to the humanities? Or if only the privileged are going to interpret, then what happens to our world? Isn't there some room for people willing to take calculated risks to pursue a something they are passionate about?
While people on this forum may express their concern, let us not speak so simple. thats naive!
@bhishma01 - if everyone in the humanities disappeared tomorrow, society would not be harmed. Too many of them are babbling theoretical garbage merely to one another, publishing in obscure journals. The literary world outside of academia has enough expert writers and critics, and they write for the public, not for a insular minority. Why do we need to import students from other countries for engineering and medical positions? Because american students want to live a life of the mind.
@bhishma01 - "then what happens to the humanities?" to continue, so many in the humanities are mere observers of others' work.They don't *produce*, in the regular economic sense, anything which society uses. They may produce plenty of papers and theses and so on, but that is all paid for by the money within academia, and consumed largely by the people within academia. That money and time spentis wasted, because it has little ongoing societal value, it seems like an "investment" but not really.
@MrBigEnchilada - well there are practical PhDs, in science, math, engineering. But the humanities are an utter waste of time. American had a proud literary tradition in the early part of this century well before the huge post WW2 growth in universities. We don't need them. I want to go to every humanities PhD wanna be and say don't shit your life up....get a job...job experience....stop!!
@bhishma01 - some critics of higher ed say that, and i support this position, that student loans should only be given to those students who study practical subjects, those which society is in a demonstrable need of. Medical, legal, engineering, chemistry, and so on.
Ton of "ifs" in setting up this scenario of privilege and moreover there is no mention of the almost universal lack of appropriate or in many cases liveable compensation - more than half of the professors in the humanities make under $50,000 and half of those make under $30,000 - while teaching 5/5 loads and scrounging for summer teaching just to be able to eat.) - and that is only getting worse. This video would have made sense in 1980 - in 2011 it is just flat out ignorant.
If ONLY it were as rosy as this video makes it out to be!
That said...the North American system is MUCH nicer to grad students than the British system is. My PhD years were LEAN indeed (although, I don't know many other people who were habitually spending a couple months in France a year....that part was certainly nice!).
People attacking this video are just stupid. It comments on the best benefits possible in the field, just as the video its in response to commented on the worst possible outcomes.
@Fell4Ever "Just stupid." Very penetrating and cogent analysis, there.
The very stupidest thing in this video is the very ordinary word, "probably." Think about it. How probable are "best benefits" versus "worst possible outcomes"? Is it a 1:1 ratio? 1:1000? Which way? It is true that the time I spent getting my Ph.D. (and MA) in philosophy were the best times of my life, largely because I was able to teach, even though that slowed me down a lot. Where am I now? Changing careers.
I don't see why everybody is complaining. I hold a prestigious chair in the humanities at an Ivy League college, teach two courses a semester and make a six figure salary--and I'm still ABD!
Don't you understand satire when you see it? Or did you all just skip the video and read the reviews, like most grad students?
If you are truly a department chair and making 6-fig, then you would have started your career some 20 years ago or early 90's, a time of record university hiring and booming state budgets. Well it turns out the world is very different now, the universities are saturated. A PhD in Humanities right now will face against dozens for any teaching position, which are rarer than gold.
Add the fact that the only job prospect for a PhD in Humanities is teaching, then their life really sucks.
@goma3 You're right, I did get my degree in the early 90s (in history). "Record university hiring"? "Booming state budgets"? Not hardly. Some people in my program got good academic jobs but the Baby Boomers had tenure & weren't going anywhere. They strung us along by telling us the job market would open up in five years (it was always five years) and the jobs would fall from the sky like rain. It was all bullshit. That's why I'm now a government contractor with no benefits or job security.
hahaha -- this is ridiculous. You know how *I* benefit from living in an affluent town? By paying incredibly high rent. And I have never had any of my travels to Ireland (to work on Irish lit) paid for, even though my department is in the top 20 in my field. If I lived in Europe, I would be on the hook for tuition and would get no benefits and no pay. 25% of grad students get tenure track jobs.
I agree that the life of the mind is an awesome aspiration, but it's not the work I get paid to do.
People who like to teach shouldn't go to graduate school in the humanities....where you get punished for putting time and effort into your teaching...
I definitely think you're right. Thankfully i had my MA paid for by the University so i haven't actually paid for education yet and I am not planning to either. I would have gone the US route but the prospect of 6 years is really too long especially since i think i have done enough coursework already on my BA (hons) and MA
My "generous" stipend was $5000 per year of which $1000 was deducted for "fees." My research in Europe was paid with a personal loan, not a scholarship. I impoverished my family for 10 years paying off student loans. There are few jobs in the humanities because universities are removing these positions in favor of drone-like business faculty. I teach four courses a semester and love it. There are other mistakes here. Whoever put this video together has no concept of the reality of academia.
This video completely misses the point that, of course, these things are essentially paid for while you're IN graduate school, but that the affluence, funding, etc. is IN NO WAY guaranteed once you have completed a Ph.D. That is the "scam" of academia in the humanities. The system (academic societies, conference, etc.) assumes that everyone gets a tenure-track position, which is just not anywhere near the factual case. It's less than 50% in English, and it's 54% in musicology, for example.
Did it ever occur to any of you that this is so absurd that it's actually a joke? Based on all the comments here, academics don't seem to have much of a sense of humor, or at least of irony.
So I suppose most people with an IQ over 40 will watch both this video and the one it's responding to, and realize that the truth lies somewhere in the middle. (The other one at least has the advantage of being funny.)
@jdawgmcdawg Getting a PhD involves MANY MANY years of hard work, sacrifice, poverty, and social isolation. But if you're willing to sacrifice your 20's you'll have get a good job in the end doing something you love. Only for the extremely serious. And when I say serious I mean DEADLY fucking serious.
@RadioFreeWisconsin I'm very aware--I've got one myself. The thing about getting a good job in the end is tenuous--AT BEST. Fortunately I love my job myself, but my point remains, the truth lies somewhere in between the two videos.
@RadioFreeWisconsin I agree. You totally sacrifice your 20s. It's especially rough for a woman...you basically won't be dating anyone until you are in your 30s!
I watched nearly my entire department get cut over a three year period. I was in the top 2% of my undergraduate class (of nearly 20,000 students), and I went on to a well-respected graduate program. None of my friends from that program have found jobs since they graduated.
Plus, I've realized that it's immoral to study the humanities at this stage. I can't repay my loans yet and so I'm part of the strain on the system. I feel lots of guilt about this, which is why I'm turning to engineering.
Totally silly! The truth is that college professors only suffer about unmotivated students taking their classes, and yawning at the wonderful things we thought would interest them, but didn't.
Totally silly! The truth is that college professors only suffer about unmotivated students taking their classes, and yawning at the wonderful things we thought would interest them, but didn't. A
Well, I can't argue with the salary + tuition part. I get paid to go to grad school. I'm teaching two sections of Spanish and I'm kind of drowning and miserable. I thought I loved what I'm doing, but now I think I want to saw my leg off and drown in a pool of my own blood. Still, it's better than trying to find something to do with my double Spanish/English major.
@TehShelli You, unlike most humanities grads, have a concrete skill. That foreign language ability is marketable almost everywhere, assuming you are actually fluent. I wouldn't be so down on having majored in the second most widely spoken language in the world. It's a great asset if you want to use it out there.
As a grad student one is most likely in the top 10% educational level for Americans. That education level commands roughly $65,000/year. After completing a PhD one is in the top 2-3% of educational attainment and commands slightly more, about $75,000. Yet while we are graduate students we're paid less than $20,000 (sometimes much much less).
That is a scam.
Claiming tuition as part of our payroll is absolutely LUDICROUS!
Clearly those who made this are out of touch with reality/admins/Ivies.
It's notable that this response to the earlier video features a *male* undergraduate (who somehow seems to have already taught at the college level) as the "appropriate" corrective to the naive *girl* undergraduate who has little sense of what graduate school is or what will be expected of her if she is accepted.
N.B. I'm completing my dissertation at a well-ranked US grad school, and we definintely are not paid to live in Europe or financed for unlimited conference travel.
While this 'might' be true in the American system, for people like us in UK, somehow all this seems too fairytale. If we manage to scrape a tuition waiver (at the very least) we would be dancing with joy. Also with the huge cuts to arts and humanities topped with almost non existent academic jobs, life as a Phd student is quite quite bleak, i am afraid.
Ask me I am freezing my toes applying to Phd programs and attending interviews for non existent scholarship support
@rhitsvu Apply US. It is a harder road in the US (much longer) but few in academia will argue that American programs are far more respected. As someone in the UK who has studied in both the US and UK, I think the American system is more realistic. It tells you upfront if there is room for you- and if there is, it is mostly paid for. The UK likes to use the ma/phds as money makers. So I would definately recommend taking the GRE if you are serious about academia.
Really stupid and counter-productive. Of course there are upsides to graduate study in the humanities--this goes without saying--but the crisis in academic publishing and hiring makes it essential that we disclose the challenges of this life choice up front and not whitewash it, as you do.
This was obviously scripted by an idealistic liberal arts major or humanities grad student who got insulted by pragmatic, if hard nosed and greedy, business majors once too often.
Either that, or it was put out by a grad school to counteract the illuminating effects of the video to which it is a reaction. They feared that students might actually realize that many american colleges have degenerated into degree mills churning out a surplus of over-educated and under-experienced youths.
My wife HAS that tenured art history professorship at the 2nd largest college in our state. She earned it via 8 years of college. I paid for it with 8 years of hard work. She's paid about the same as my brother who drives a forklift. And we don't have the money to travel to Europe, especially now that our currency is screwed.
This is so naive and simplistic that it borders on the offensive.
And last time I checked, people are free to read, go to museums, take trips to Europe, and live a life of the mind while NOT being a graduate student.
Taking things way too serious...it is a cartoon, I like cartoons, now more than ever. I do not have to wait until saturday morning. The future is now.
I'm not for or against people getting the degrees they want, but this is atrocious. "Fresh winds are needed" sounds like a fart joke. And then, "...the contemplative life, rooted to the very cathedral schools that gave graduate study rise in the first place..." This should be "give rise to." What a mash of mangled clichés! The cathedral schools used to have standards, and send some grad students home to learn to read and talk right.
Hmm, my experience of getting a PhD was living at the poverty level in a tiny apartment, waiting around for advisors who never read my work, eating a lot of rice and beans and then taking crappy jobs all over the country, far away from my partner and family, working a minimum 65 hours/week. I seriously considered leaving academia more than once because the job prospects were so grim and I was so broke. I love being a prof. but I'm one of the lucky ones who got a good job after years of trying.
What kind of world are you living in? This video does not speak truth at all - notice how only a very tiny percentage of humanities professors/students actually live this kind of lifestyle.
Have you fully considered the option of becoming a dilettante, which permits you to engage in scholarly pursuits without rigor or real preparation, to make errors that (if noticed at all) will have no consequences to your real livelihood and to attract chicks, just as though you were a real Ph. D.
Will someone please make one like this but about Physics. Would really help motivate me to not give up and go all the way for the Ph.D. Most of the ones I see are depressing.
Mrcldlo 4 weeks ago
love the work here
khijasmith 1 month ago
i enjoyed this vid
jjclassjj 1 month ago
i enjoyed this vid
khijasmith 1 month ago
love the video really good
prchecker 1 month ago
Sorry, but the other one was funny. This is blind cheerleading that has no wit and sounds like it comes from a brochure. And I'm a PhD student...
hamfisto 1 month ago
I kind of wonder why they bother even offering undergraduate degrees anymore
plaidchuck 1 month ago
I'm planning on being a humanities PhD because I want to be, not because I want money, so all you haters can stop hating. If you want to be a PhD in science or math, go ahead, but dont make the humanities seem unimportant.
HarryGinnyDxC 2 months ago
love it
shanenhillyer 2 months ago
Ignore the man behind the curtain. Get a PhD in the humanities.
dzsquared1 2 months ago
is this being sarcastic + stupid on purpose....dang i cant think this through <_<
MrBigEnchilada 2 months ago
Should ANYBODY get a PhD?? I understand that the experienced academics/PhD students want to warn us about potential risks in the job market etc, but if nobody gets PhD's, then what happens to the humanities? Or if only the privileged are going to interpret, then what happens to our world? Isn't there some room for people willing to take calculated risks to pursue a something they are passionate about?
While people on this forum may express their concern, let us not speak so simple. thats naive!
bhishma01 3 months ago
@bhishma01 - if everyone in the humanities disappeared tomorrow, society would not be harmed. Too many of them are babbling theoretical garbage merely to one another, publishing in obscure journals. The literary world outside of academia has enough expert writers and critics, and they write for the public, not for a insular minority. Why do we need to import students from other countries for engineering and medical positions? Because american students want to live a life of the mind.
decimated550 2 months ago
@bhishma01 - "then what happens to the humanities?" to continue, so many in the humanities are mere observers of others' work.They don't *produce*, in the regular economic sense, anything which society uses. They may produce plenty of papers and theses and so on, but that is all paid for by the money within academia, and consumed largely by the people within academia. That money and time spentis wasted, because it has little ongoing societal value, it seems like an "investment" but not really.
decimated550 2 months ago
@decimated550 honestly all phd students have to write papers that are unnecessary and waste of time.
MrBigEnchilada 2 months ago
@MrBigEnchilada - well there are practical PhDs, in science, math, engineering. But the humanities are an utter waste of time. American had a proud literary tradition in the early part of this century well before the huge post WW2 growth in universities. We don't need them. I want to go to every humanities PhD wanna be and say don't shit your life up....get a job...job experience....stop!!
decimated550 2 months ago
@bhishma01 - some critics of higher ed say that, and i support this position, that student loans should only be given to those students who study practical subjects, those which society is in a demonstrable need of. Medical, legal, engineering, chemistry, and so on.
decimated550 2 months ago
Ton of "ifs" in setting up this scenario of privilege and moreover there is no mention of the almost universal lack of appropriate or in many cases liveable compensation - more than half of the professors in the humanities make under $50,000 and half of those make under $30,000 - while teaching 5/5 loads and scrounging for summer teaching just to be able to eat.) - and that is only getting worse. This video would have made sense in 1980 - in 2011 it is just flat out ignorant.
OswaldvonWolkenstein 4 months ago 2
Being a professor in the Humanities is one of the most ridiculously privileged positions a human being in this veil of tears could desire.
Mags9292 4 months ago
The person that made this can't possibly be a PhD student.
alwaystruggling 6 months ago 11
Total BS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
loftincs9999 7 months ago
getting a phd is a waste of time. you might as well get an MA and save your money to put toward something that acctually matters, like a house
chrispollock 8 months ago
If ONLY it were as rosy as this video makes it out to be!
That said...the North American system is MUCH nicer to grad students than the British system is. My PhD years were LEAN indeed (although, I don't know many other people who were habitually spending a couple months in France a year....that part was certainly nice!).
jjkrause84 9 months ago
The very stupidest thing in this video is the very ordinary word, "probably." Think about it.
ToadHead 9 months ago
People attacking this video are just stupid. It comments on the best benefits possible in the field, just as the video its in response to commented on the worst possible outcomes.
Fell4Ever 9 months ago
@Fell4Ever "Just stupid." Very penetrating and cogent analysis, there.
The very stupidest thing in this video is the very ordinary word, "probably." Think about it. How probable are "best benefits" versus "worst possible outcomes"? Is it a 1:1 ratio? 1:1000? Which way? It is true that the time I spent getting my Ph.D. (and MA) in philosophy were the best times of my life, largely because I was able to teach, even though that slowed me down a lot. Where am I now? Changing careers.
ToadHead 9 months ago
I don't see why everybody is complaining. I hold a prestigious chair in the humanities at an Ivy League college, teach two courses a semester and make a six figure salary--and I'm still ABD!
Don't you understand satire when you see it? Or did you all just skip the video and read the reviews, like most grad students?
Bemused46 9 months ago
@Bemused46
If you are truly a department chair and making 6-fig, then you would have started your career some 20 years ago or early 90's, a time of record university hiring and booming state budgets. Well it turns out the world is very different now, the universities are saturated. A PhD in Humanities right now will face against dozens for any teaching position, which are rarer than gold.
Add the fact that the only job prospect for a PhD in Humanities is teaching, then their life really sucks.
goma3 5 months ago
@goma3 You're right, I did get my degree in the early 90s (in history). "Record university hiring"? "Booming state budgets"? Not hardly. Some people in my program got good academic jobs but the Baby Boomers had tenure & weren't going anywhere. They strung us along by telling us the job market would open up in five years (it was always five years) and the jobs would fall from the sky like rain. It was all bullshit. That's why I'm now a government contractor with no benefits or job security.
Bemused46 5 months ago
hahaha -- this is ridiculous. You know how *I* benefit from living in an affluent town? By paying incredibly high rent. And I have never had any of my travels to Ireland (to work on Irish lit) paid for, even though my department is in the top 20 in my field. If I lived in Europe, I would be on the hook for tuition and would get no benefits and no pay. 25% of grad students get tenure track jobs.
I agree that the life of the mind is an awesome aspiration, but it's not the work I get paid to do.
mDesiree13 9 months ago
ahha this is a masterstroke level troll
RSlaev 9 months ago
People who like to teach shouldn't go to graduate school in the humanities....where you get punished for putting time and effort into your teaching...
ruthlindsay 10 months ago
humanities = useless.
giant24us 1 year ago
@giant24us What a close-minded way to view the world. Don't be ridiculous.
Atalantius 1 year ago
Bahahaha Humanities!!!
axlotl1031 1 year ago
I definitely think you're right. Thankfully i had my MA paid for by the University so i haven't actually paid for education yet and I am not planning to either. I would have gone the US route but the prospect of 6 years is really too long especially since i think i have done enough coursework already on my BA (hons) and MA
rhitsvu 1 year ago
HOLY SHIT !
what fantasy world do you live in you stupid fuck ?
you honestly believe you'll travel often to Europe and that the university will pay for it ? LOL
what a fucking moron
you2besux 1 year ago
My "generous" stipend was $5000 per year of which $1000 was deducted for "fees." My research in Europe was paid with a personal loan, not a scholarship. I impoverished my family for 10 years paying off student loans. There are few jobs in the humanities because universities are removing these positions in favor of drone-like business faculty. I teach four courses a semester and love it. There are other mistakes here. Whoever put this video together has no concept of the reality of academia.
Steelerspatula 1 year ago 7
This video completely misses the point that, of course, these things are essentially paid for while you're IN graduate school, but that the affluence, funding, etc. is IN NO WAY guaranteed once you have completed a Ph.D. That is the "scam" of academia in the humanities. The system (academic societies, conference, etc.) assumes that everyone gets a tenure-track position, which is just not anywhere near the factual case. It's less than 50% in English, and it's 54% in musicology, for example.
durbow 1 year ago 4
Did it ever occur to any of you that this is so absurd that it's actually a joke? Based on all the comments here, academics don't seem to have much of a sense of humor, or at least of irony.
choltovich 1 year ago
I knew this was bullshit as soon as I heard them list "Et cetera" as if there were anything more to it.
psychoticsquirrel 1 year ago
What.... I will not regurgitate Foucault....
youngnotjung 1 year ago
So I suppose most people with an IQ over 40 will watch both this video and the one it's responding to, and realize that the truth lies somewhere in the middle. (The other one at least has the advantage of being funny.)
jdawgmcdawg 1 year ago
@jdawgmcdawg Getting a PhD involves MANY MANY years of hard work, sacrifice, poverty, and social isolation. But if you're willing to sacrifice your 20's you'll have get a good job in the end doing something you love. Only for the extremely serious. And when I say serious I mean DEADLY fucking serious.
RadioFreeWisconsin 1 year ago
Comment removed
jdawgmcdawg 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@RadioFreeWisconsin I'm very aware--I've got one myself. The thing about getting a good job in the end is tenuous--AT BEST. Fortunately I love my job myself, but my point remains, the truth lies somewhere in between the two videos.
jdawgmcdawg 1 year ago 3
@RadioFreeWisconsin what do you mean? so, r u implying that all those phds that did not get jobs were not serious? how do u know that?
isieAB 10 months ago
@RadioFreeWisconsin I agree. You totally sacrifice your 20s. It's especially rough for a woman...you basically won't be dating anyone until you are in your 30s!
nadi1010 9 months ago
I watched nearly my entire department get cut over a three year period. I was in the top 2% of my undergraduate class (of nearly 20,000 students), and I went on to a well-respected graduate program. None of my friends from that program have found jobs since they graduated.
Plus, I've realized that it's immoral to study the humanities at this stage. I can't repay my loans yet and so I'm part of the strain on the system. I feel lots of guilt about this, which is why I'm turning to engineering.
optichumora 1 year ago 8
This has been flagged as spam show
Totally silly! The truth is that college professors only suffer about unmotivated students taking their classes, and yawning at the wonderful things we thought would interest them, but didn't.
Adonea29 1 year ago
Totally silly! The truth is that college professors only suffer about unmotivated students taking their classes, and yawning at the wonderful things we thought would interest them, but didn't. A
Adonea29 1 year ago
Well, I can't argue with the salary + tuition part. I get paid to go to grad school. I'm teaching two sections of Spanish and I'm kind of drowning and miserable. I thought I loved what I'm doing, but now I think I want to saw my leg off and drown in a pool of my own blood. Still, it's better than trying to find something to do with my double Spanish/English major.
TehShelli 1 year ago
@TehShelli You, unlike most humanities grads, have a concrete skill. That foreign language ability is marketable almost everywhere, assuming you are actually fluent. I wouldn't be so down on having majored in the second most widely spoken language in the world. It's a great asset if you want to use it out there.
jenlinc2006 1 year ago
As a grad student one is most likely in the top 10% educational level for Americans. That education level commands roughly $65,000/year. After completing a PhD one is in the top 2-3% of educational attainment and commands slightly more, about $75,000. Yet while we are graduate students we're paid less than $20,000 (sometimes much much less).
That is a scam.
Claiming tuition as part of our payroll is absolutely LUDICROUS!
Clearly those who made this are out of touch with reality/admins/Ivies.
nealrklomp 1 year ago 4
It's notable that this response to the earlier video features a *male* undergraduate (who somehow seems to have already taught at the college level) as the "appropriate" corrective to the naive *girl* undergraduate who has little sense of what graduate school is or what will be expected of her if she is accepted.
N.B. I'm completing my dissertation at a well-ranked US grad school, and we definintely are not paid to live in Europe or financed for unlimited conference travel.
LaurenLByler 1 year ago 5
While this 'might' be true in the American system, for people like us in UK, somehow all this seems too fairytale. If we manage to scrape a tuition waiver (at the very least) we would be dancing with joy. Also with the huge cuts to arts and humanities topped with almost non existent academic jobs, life as a Phd student is quite quite bleak, i am afraid.
Ask me I am freezing my toes applying to Phd programs and attending interviews for non existent scholarship support
Postgraduate Student
rhitsvu 1 year ago
@rhitsvu Apply US. It is a harder road in the US (much longer) but few in academia will argue that American programs are far more respected. As someone in the UK who has studied in both the US and UK, I think the American system is more realistic. It tells you upfront if there is room for you- and if there is, it is mostly paid for. The UK likes to use the ma/phds as money makers. So I would definately recommend taking the GRE if you are serious about academia.
jenlinc2006 1 year ago
Most of this is blatantly untrue. - Humanities student
jpveedubs 1 year ago 7
Yeah, the creator of this video is clearly clueless about graduate student life, finances, and the nature of most academic disciplines.
- Another Humanities PhD Student.
TheTenebrist 1 year ago 9
The person that made this needs to get bitch-slapped.
Fas6pa 1 year ago
i used to think this was how grad school worked. then i went. and it's not.
pioughd87 1 year ago 4
Really stupid and counter-productive. Of course there are upsides to graduate study in the humanities--this goes without saying--but the crisis in academic publishing and hiring makes it essential that we disclose the challenges of this life choice up front and not whitewash it, as you do.
-Humanities PhD student
curatorintraining 1 year ago 53
Holy shit is is stupid.
lolzforfun1337 1 year ago 5
This was obviously scripted by an idealistic liberal arts major or humanities grad student who got insulted by pragmatic, if hard nosed and greedy, business majors once too often.
Either that, or it was put out by a grad school to counteract the illuminating effects of the video to which it is a reaction. They feared that students might actually realize that many american colleges have degenerated into degree mills churning out a surplus of over-educated and under-experienced youths.
rkissoon1 1 year ago 5
My wife HAS that tenured art history professorship at the 2nd largest college in our state. She earned it via 8 years of college. I paid for it with 8 years of hard work. She's paid about the same as my brother who drives a forklift. And we don't have the money to travel to Europe, especially now that our currency is screwed.
Sincopare 1 year ago 9
Where's the punchline?
TheRealMikeSmith 1 year ago 3
hahahaha, ok. Seems kind of big that they omitted the thousands of pages of student essays and papers they have to read each month.
beaulingpin 1 year ago
@beaulingpin If you enjoy the subject, is that really a bad thing?
bozellandbuckley 1 year ago
@bozellandbuckley no one loves reading papers written for intro level english classes. no one.
beaulingpin 1 year ago
This is so naive and simplistic that it borders on the offensive.
And last time I checked, people are free to read, go to museums, take trips to Europe, and live a life of the mind while NOT being a graduate student.
CleoCaesar 1 year ago 12
I get coverage for medical, dental and vision, and I'm a TA
jkbrait 1 year ago 4
This is horrible.
rmjs777 1 year ago
rose colored glasses lol
sec0f111 1 year ago 3
This is hopelessly naive.
BandofSorensons 1 year ago 64
Taking things way too serious...it is a cartoon, I like cartoons, now more than ever. I do not have to wait until saturday morning. The future is now.
pollobionico 1 year ago
I'm not for or against people getting the degrees they want, but this is atrocious. "Fresh winds are needed" sounds like a fart joke. And then, "...the contemplative life, rooted to the very cathedral schools that gave graduate study rise in the first place..." This should be "give rise to." What a mash of mangled clichés! The cathedral schools used to have standards, and send some grad students home to learn to read and talk right.
inalchukable 1 year ago 2
Great response to too much negativity.
drhalsall 1 year ago
Hmm, my experience of getting a PhD was living at the poverty level in a tiny apartment, waiting around for advisors who never read my work, eating a lot of rice and beans and then taking crappy jobs all over the country, far away from my partner and family, working a minimum 65 hours/week. I seriously considered leaving academia more than once because the job prospects were so grim and I was so broke. I love being a prof. but I'm one of the lucky ones who got a good job after years of trying.
chesterrosie 1 year ago 6
What kind of world are you living in? This video does not speak truth at all - notice how only a very tiny percentage of humanities professors/students actually live this kind of lifestyle.
Slimdawgc 1 year ago 4
Reprising my response at your millinerd blog:
Have you fully considered the option of becoming a dilettante, which permits you to engage in scholarly pursuits without rigor or real preparation, to make errors that (if noticed at all) will have no consequences to your real livelihood and to attract chicks, just as though you were a real Ph. D.
shadysidelantern 1 year ago