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I entered grad school at 22, thinking I would become a CS prof. I loved CS research I did as an undergrad in a prof's lab. That prof was my role model for my st

I entered grad school at 22, thinking I would become a CS prof. I loved CS research I did as an undergrad in a prof's lab. That prof was my role model for my still not fully formed brain. I wasn't told all these things by him or the program, but I did my research and found stats about how so few PhDs become profs. Side note: all the profs are those who made it, so their advice about how to make it is like taking financial advice from lottery winners. I read lots of these kinds of "grad school isn't worth it" confessionals. But many were about humanities PhDs, not STEM. And I thought I was special, above average, even maybe a genius. And I was special, but apparently not special enough. I dropped out to work in tech and have a better salary and life than my few ex classmates in my program who did make it in academia. But one of my housemates was a humanities PhD who also started at 22, and was smarter and a harder worker than any of us STEM PhD students. We all thought that if any of us deserved to make it in academia, it was him. But the humanities are shrinking in the academy. What the article describes is his current life. An PhD from an R1 university who can only find a patchwork of adjunct positions at different 2 year community colleges. He can't go work in tech, who is going to pay a historian six figures or even a living wage? He got some work doing freelance writing and editing, mostly helping college applicants with their essays, but ChatGPT is destroying the freelance writing market. We all made these decisions at age 22, after spending 4 very formative years in college. I made the same stupid decision he did and mine worked out, but the intellectual bug that bit me just so happened to be infinitely more valuable to industry than the one that bit him.

post- 3y ago
> He can't go work in tech, who is going to pay a historian six figures or even a living wage? I appreciate the thinking that went into the parent post, but I want to challenge this statement, which is emblematic of the kind of reasoning that paints training in the humanities as frivolous and out of touch with the demands of the market, as if the market is the sole arbiter of reality. I recently earned a PhD in a humanities field, and I'm currently gainfully employed as a research software engineer at a major university. I'm making less than I did when I was in tech just out of college, but more than many of my humanities colleagues in various positions between the PhD and the tenure track. My point is not to brag about being able to get into tech with a humanities background, but to say that I don't think I'm anything special. When I was first applying for tech jobs out of college, I drew on my training in literature and human languages to guide my learning and application of CS fundamentals. I admit that I caught a lucky break with companies willing to take a chance on someone with a non-traditional background, and I'm grateful to have these skills to draw on if a traditional academic career doesn't work out for me. But I think my story is repeatable. But back to the original point: rather than denigrating the value of a history PhD, it's important to question the market forces that have created this kind of precariousness for people who possess not only important knowledge about the past but, more importantly, the training and skills to use that knowledge to interpret the present. The assumption that jobs are available to people because of what they _know_ is based on faulty logic that comes from the MBA-ification of everything -- the obsession with "deliverables." Really, what PhD training in any discipline brings is both a deep pool of knowledge and the training to synthesize and use those "facts" in novel ways. > ChatGPT is destroying the freelance writing market Relatedly, this statement only makes sense if one assumes that we have given up on teaching everyday people -- non-specialists -- the importance of the medium for a message's delivery, dissemination, and broader understanding. "ChatGPT is destroying the freelance writing market" because we have collectively failed to reinforce the value of human perspectives on an issue. Allowing "The Market" to dictate reality has led to schisms in shared truth like climate change denialism. We need interpreters of history, literature, drama, etc. in order to get back to any hope of getting back to broad agreement about what the world is. Will we ever get everyone to agree? Of course not, but market forces can't repair these divisions. As the old Upton Sinclair quote goes, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
- FredPret 3y ago
  The market doesn't dictate reality - it is part of reality. If a skill isn't needed, there won't be a demand for it, and it won't pay well, no matter how many years of learning and personal growth are required to acquire the skill. The big bad market refusing to pay historians a good wage is just society's built-in mechanism for trying to guide people into doing things that are most needed. A lot of the humanities were historically aimed at rich kids who don't need to engage with the labour market; we really shouldn't be encouraging middle-class kids to take on a mountain of student debt when they should be focusing on maximizing their earnings.
  - currymj 3y ago
    the problem is that having a healthy community of scholars doing good historical research using sophisticated methods, produces a lot of positive externalities. most people never engage with it but having such people around does limit historical bullshit. this has been good for society. but it's now falling apart.
    - FredPret 3y ago
      I agree it’s a positive, but each one of us has to sell our value-add to the rest of society. This is actually a wonderful constraint to have because it keeps each of us in touch with the rest of humanity
      - hobs 3y ago
        Except for all the people that are born rich, they don't have to do anything.
        FredPret 3y ago
        But becoming a historian is a good option for them.
    - badpun 3y ago
ryandrake 3y ago
> Side note: all the profs are those who made it, so their advice about how to make it is like taking financial advice from lottery winners. Or taking business advice from successful entrepreneurs. Everyone is looking for the magical advice—The Formula. But there is none. You can execute perfectly and still lose. You can also bumble through without trying and succeed. You can grow up in the wrong country. You can have the right parents. So much is out of our control. We almost always underestimate the outsized role luck and chance play in our endeavors.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
ghaff 3y ago
There were a number of careers that undergraduate me was somewhat enamored of. But undergraduate me, surprisingly, was also aware that the odds of my attaining them at the levels I would find satisfying and at least reasonably lucrative were vanishingly small. So I should just stick with a job from my good engineering school.
ghaff 3y ago
>ChatGPT is destroying the freelance writing market. As someone very close to this area, I seriously question this. Yes, there are very low-rent content mills with material being cranked out by people who are being paid pennies per word. But serious freelance writing being commissioned by many corporations (where the pay is more in line with $1/word) are not going to be replaced by ChatGPT anytime soon. The writers may use ChatGPT as an assistant and perhaps rates will decline further over time but this basically falls in the same category as we won't need programmers any longer. Maybe? But now you're in the category of AI will take all the jobs.
- mitthrowaway2 3y ago
  I'm also close to this area, and executives see the writing on the wall. ChatGPT doesn't even need to be nearly as good as the writers it replaces for those writers to lose their jobs. It just has to be good enough that the people who write the cheques can't tell the difference, and such people don't all have a good eye for quality writing.
throwawaymaths 3y ago
This kind of talk was bubbling around STEM phds, too at top institutions in the 2005-2015 era, so even if you're in your early 40s, you should have at least been able to make an informed decision.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

post- 3y ago

> He can't go work in tech, who is going to pay a historian six figures or even a living wage? I appreciate the thinking that went into the parent post, but I want to challenge this statement, which is emblematic of the kind of reasoning that paints training in the humanities as frivolous and out of touch with the demands of the market, as if the market is the sole arbiter of reality. I recently earned a PhD in a humanities field, and I'm currently gainfully employed as a research software engineer at a major university. I'm making less than I did when I was in tech just out of college, but more than many of my humanities colleagues in various positions between the PhD and the tenure track. My point is not to brag about being able to get into tech with a humanities background, but to say that I don't think I'm anything special. When I was first applying for tech jobs out of college, I drew on my training in literature and human languages to guide my learning and application of CS fundamentals. I admit that I caught a lucky break with companies willing to take a chance on someone with a non-traditional background, and I'm grateful to have these skills to draw on if a traditional academic career doesn't work out for me. But I think my story is repeatable. But back to the original point: rather than denigrating the value of a history PhD, it's important to question the market forces that have created this kind of precariousness for people who possess not only important knowledge about the past but, more importantly, the training and skills to use that knowledge to interpret the present. The assumption that jobs are available to people because of what they _know_ is based on faulty logic that comes from the MBA-ification of everything -- the obsession with "deliverables." Really, what PhD training in any discipline brings is both a deep pool of knowledge and the training to synthesize and use those "facts" in novel ways. > ChatGPT is destroying the freelance writing market Relatedly, this statement only makes sense if one assumes that we have given up on teaching everyday people -- non-specialists -- the importance of the medium for a message's delivery, dissemination, and broader understanding. "ChatGPT is destroying the freelance writing market" because we have collectively failed to reinforce the value of human perspectives on an issue. Allowing "The Market" to dictate reality has led to schisms in shared truth like climate change denialism. We need interpreters of history, literature, drama, etc. in order to get back to any hope of getting back to broad agreement about what the world is. Will we ever get everyone to agree? Of course not, but market forces can't repair these divisions. As the old Upton Sinclair quote goes, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

FredPret 3y ago
The market doesn't dictate reality - it is part of reality. If a skill isn't needed, there won't be a demand for it, and it won't pay well, no matter how many years of learning and personal growth are required to acquire the skill. The big bad market refusing to pay historians a good wage is just society's built-in mechanism for trying to guide people into doing things that are most needed. A lot of the humanities were historically aimed at rich kids who don't need to engage with the labour market; we really shouldn't be encouraging middle-class kids to take on a mountain of student debt when they should be focusing on maximizing their earnings.
- currymj 3y ago
  the problem is that having a healthy community of scholars doing good historical research using sophisticated methods, produces a lot of positive externalities. most people never engage with it but having such people around does limit historical bullshit. this has been good for society. but it's now falling apart.
  - FredPret 3y ago
    I agree it’s a positive, but each one of us has to sell our value-add to the rest of society. This is actually a wonderful constraint to have because it keeps each of us in touch with the rest of humanity
    - hobs 3y ago
      Except for all the people that are born rich, they don't have to do anything.
      - FredPret 3y ago
        But becoming a historian is a good option for them.
  - badpun 3y ago

ryandrake 3y ago

> Side note: all the profs are those who made it, so their advice about how to make it is like taking financial advice from lottery winners. Or taking business advice from successful entrepreneurs. Everyone is looking for the magical advice—The Formula. But there is none. You can execute perfectly and still lose. You can also bumble through without trying and succeed. You can grow up in the wrong country. You can have the right parents. So much is out of our control. We almost always underestimate the outsized role luck and chance play in our endeavors.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

ghaff 3y ago

There were a number of careers that undergraduate me was somewhat enamored of. But undergraduate me, surprisingly, was also aware that the odds of my attaining them at the levels I would find satisfying and at least reasonably lucrative were vanishingly small. So I should just stick with a job from my good engineering school.

ghaff 3y ago

>ChatGPT is destroying the freelance writing market. As someone very close to this area, I seriously question this. Yes, there are very low-rent content mills with material being cranked out by people who are being paid pennies per word. But serious freelance writing being commissioned by many corporations (where the pay is more in line with $1/word) are not going to be replaced by ChatGPT anytime soon. The writers may use ChatGPT as an assistant and perhaps rates will decline further over time but this basically falls in the same category as we won't need programmers any longer. Maybe? But now you're in the category of AI will take all the jobs.

mitthrowaway2 3y ago
I'm also close to this area, and executives see the writing on the wall. ChatGPT doesn't even need to be nearly as good as the writers it replaces for those writers to lose their jobs. It just has to be good enough that the people who write the cheques can't tell the difference, and such people don't all have a good eye for quality writing.

throwawaymaths 3y ago

This kind of talk was bubbling around STEM phds, too at top institutions in the 2005-2015 era, so even if you're in your early 40s, you should have at least been able to make an informed decision.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]