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I have an advanced degree in the Humanities and it has served me extraordinarily well career-wise. The thesis-centered thinking, concise communication, and art

I have an advanced degree in the Humanities and it has served me extraordinarily well career-wise. The thesis-centered thinking, concise communication, and artistic drive in my work has always set me apart, and I owe that to my training. Even more specifically, learning from high-integrity journalists taught me that a complete and honest rendition of the facts is very rare and valuable in the business world. Both myself and my partner from the same program have coveted positions in no small part because of this training. That being said I went to a #1 program at UC Berkeley, did not even consider becoming a professor, and worked hard at technical skills in the background. I too would have failed miserably on the tenure track.

panglott 11y ago
There is such a huge disconnect between people humanities professors and humanities PhDs who are successful but did not seek to become a professor. Programs don't keep track of them, there is a general disdain for anything not tenure-track, there are no "scripts" to prepare students. Professors think there are jobs for PhDs outside the academy, but in general have to way to prepare grad students for them.
- tsunamifury 11y ago
  I and my partner were socially shunned from my program for leaving the field, not tracked, and never invited to an event... until suddenly when they wanted money. After coming back and visiting, I found the vast majority of professors shallow and self centered, coddled by positions that afforded them little to no emotional growth or challenge that is demanded of the rest of humanity.
johan_larson 11y ago
I have a doctorate in a technical field, and work as a software developer. Fifteen years after finishing, I can say with confidence that the degree was not a good deal. It wasn't useless, mind you, but what I learned wasn't worth the five or six or eight years it took, depending on when you start counting. It might have been worth two.
- tsunamifury 11y ago
  Yea, 2 was my limit.

panglott 11y ago

There is such a huge disconnect between people humanities professors and humanities PhDs who are successful but did not seek to become a professor. Programs don't keep track of them, there is a general disdain for anything not tenure-track, there are no "scripts" to prepare students. Professors think there are jobs for PhDs outside the academy, but in general have to way to prepare grad students for them.

tsunamifury 11y ago
I and my partner were socially shunned from my program for leaving the field, not tracked, and never invited to an event... until suddenly when they wanted money. After coming back and visiting, I found the vast majority of professors shallow and self centered, coddled by positions that afforded them little to no emotional growth or challenge that is demanded of the rest of humanity.

johan_larson 11y ago

I have a doctorate in a technical field, and work as a software developer. Fifteen years after finishing, I can say with confidence that the degree was not a good deal. It wasn't useless, mind you, but what I learned wasn't worth the five or six or eight years it took, depending on when you start counting. It might have been worth two.

tsunamifury 11y ago
Yea, 2 was my limit.