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Serious question: my fiancee is thinking of pursuing a PhD in the humanities field. She has a BA, MA and MPhil, and the natural next step is to get a PhD She h
by puranjay 11y ago
Serious question: my fiancee is thinking of pursuing a PhD in the humanities field. She has a BA, MA and MPhil, and the natural next step is to get a PhD
She has consistently been among the top 5% of every academic institution she has been in. Her GRE is 333, and she has several research papers under her belt.
Would it make sense for her to get a PhD? Or is the job market too terrible in the humanities?
- dozzie 11y agoAnd what would she do with this new title? This should be the main thing that determines whether it's worth it.
- skj 11y agoPeople focus on the title and what it can buy you, but forget the skill set acquired and what that can buy you. I have a PhD, but it didn't really help me get my job. What it did do is change me from a worker drone into an independent thinker and designer who can write design docs blindingly fast (compared to my highly esteemed, but slower writing, peers). Not saying that everyone without a PhD is a worker drone, just that I was.
- nbclapton 11y agoI've known PhDs who wrote very high level design docs full of hand-waved features. When they implemented anything, half of the features were segfaulting and the code base was a mess. None of this changed their self confidence in the slightest. Curiously, people pushing for formal methods, unit tests and sane design practices were all non-PhDs.