6 ms·

Fixing the Ph.D.

36 points by sizzle 12y ago

skierscott 12y ago
Fixing the English Ph.D; that's the only field they mention. They can make inferences about related fields but would have a hard time with other fields (STEM fields and even psychology).
- dnautics 12y ago
  "The M.L.A. report estimates that only sixty per cent of newly-minted Ph.D.s will find tenure-track jobs after graduation" It's even worse for sciences. But I think there are some insights in common; worth a read.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    OTOH, in the sciences, there's probably a greater likelihood that newly-minted Ph.D.s aren't wanting tenure-track jobs. There's not a lot of work specifically for English Ph.D.s in industry...
  - dkural 12y ago
    That number is entirely false by the way. They divide the total number of open positions by number of new students for that year only. The denominator, of course, should include everyone looking for a tenure-track job: The entirety of post-grad pool for a few years, part-time faculty in adjunct / teaching jobs, foreign grad students delaying graduation (thus can stay in the country) due to lack of jobs, etc.
    - Retric 12y ago
      Assuming the numbers are reasonably stable it's fairly accurate. Basicly, they don't care if someone waited 10 years they found a tenure track job so there 'in'. Which means some of this years graduates may a need to wait 10 years but the ratio should be close to jobs / graduates.
      - jhardcastle 12y ago
        But they only compared it against job listings on their own association website. This seems like incredibly lazy statistical research. They didn't look hard for a number, but instead accepted the first, easiest number they could generate as a "rough figure."
  - joshvm 12y ago
    Once you get your doctorate, the logical step for most STEM graduates is a postdoctoral position. There aren't many of these at all, most departments have double the number of PhD students than they do postdocs. So right off the bat, half the students will be finding jobs elsewhere. Industry (hardware/software/analytics/whatever) pays more, is often more fulfilling and although your work isn't completely open it is usually more obviously relevant than your PhD. So 60% will find tenure track jobs? Well that's obviously true. If there are only about half the postdoc positions compared to the number of new PhDs then only half the PhD students will be getting tenure track jobs. Most postdoc positions are 2-3 years and are filled by newly minted PhDs. The logical evolution for most people is to do a postdoc (or two) and wait until their research is renowned enough for the university to offer a lectureship. You do that for another few years until they offer you a Readership, wait a bit longer and you get your coveted Professorship. If you're really lucky and you're top of your field you can hit assistant professor by 30-35 in the UK. Until you get the all-important lectureship offer you're a contract worker and there is always the prospect that funding will be cut and you won't be able to renew your position. Remember that once you've done your postdoc there are even fewer positions to be promoted into. Doing a PhD has largely put me off the idea of staying in academia, I think this is becoming more common. Being a professor would be nice, good pay (£60k min) lots of travel, but it's a very stressful job, you have no time to do any real research beyond project management and by that time you're thoroughly institutionalised. Should point out that my experience is from physics, ymmv. On the plus side I don't know anyone who has struggled to find a job from my department; plenty go into research in non university groups like Microsoft, the British Antarctic Survey, the Met Office, etc.
    - BellsOnSunday 12y ago
      > If you're really lucky and you're top of your field you can hit assistant professor by 30-35 in the UK. This role doesn't really exist on the UK, the equivalent is that of Lecturer/Senior Lecturer. I think you're overstating the barrier to entry -- it's not that high unless you're fixed on a top university. In CS,I know lots of people younger than 35 with SL jobs. Getting to the level or prof after that is another matter but on the whole I think that should be hard.
  - sidww2 12y ago
    Becoming a professor is hardly the only reason to do a PhD in the sciences.
CyberFonic 12y ago
From reading other articles and blogs on the problems with PhDs suggests that the situation is generally the same in other fields. It is generally accepted that the PhD program is to train academic researchers. People who do both research and write papers, articles. Grants, etc are awarded on the basis of publishing accomplishments. Hence the "Publish or Perish" cry. There is an oversupply of PhD graduates, so the academic job market is very competitive. Of course, in STEM, many PhDs find jobs in non-academic fields.
- ehurrell 12y ago
  As someone who has earned a PhD I think the key thing is these programs are set up to train _researchers_, not specifically academic ones. As you say non-academic jobs in STEM are easy enough to find, and industrial research is alive and well.
jamesaguilar 12y ago
Interesting that they are blaming the profs. There is certainly some culpability there. But there is plenty of info available to students about their prospects. If they want to take on massive debt to essentially be entertained for a few extra years, at some point, that is their choice.
- sjtrny 12y ago
  It's not a always the case that people incur massive debt. A lot of students have scholarships that cover their fugitive fees and include a small stipend.
apdinin 12y ago
This article wrongly implies that people getting English PhDs are only doing so in order to become tenure-track English professors. But I just completed my PhD in English two weeks ago, and I'm also the TECH co-founder of a VC-backed startup. Many of my peers are not just tech savvy, they're also developers, designers, and entrepreneurs. They just also happen to be interested in studying slightly older forms of technology -- literary technologies. Yes... books and poems and epics and dramas are all technologies, too. I should hope the HN community isn't fooled by the _New Yorker_ article's professional typecasting. After all, Paul Graham has an entire book called _Hackers and Painters_, and he argues: "Of all the different types of people I've known, hackers and painters are among the most alike. What hackers and painters have in common is that they're both makers. Along with composers, architects, and writers, what hackers and painters are trying to do is make good things." (http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html). "Hacking" -- as both Paul Graham and much of my dissertation argues -- isn't a purely scientific discipline. It's also a humanist and aesthetic pursuit. If you don't believe me, go pick up a collection of Emily Dickinson poems (you know... the things you probably haven't looked at since you were in 9th grade). You might be surprised to discover all of the conditional logic, the programatic loops, and the object oriented structures.
- gone35 12y ago
  This article wrongly implies that people getting English PhDs are only doing so in order to become tenure-track English professors. But I just completed my PhD in English two weeks ago, and I'm also the TECH co-founder of a VC-backed startup. Many of my peers are not just tech savvy, they're also developers, designers, and entrepreneurs. They just also happen to be interested in studying slightly older forms of technology -- literary technologies. Impressive. However, judging from the available empirical evidence from recent professional surveys [1], you and your like-minded peers are indeed the exception, not the rule: over the last 35 years, a consistent 90-95% of newly-minted English PhDs sought academic faculty positions; with only 5-10% seeking careers outside academia [Fig. 2]. There is a reason why the so-called 'alt-ac' career track is called that way in the broader MLA community. [1] http://mlaresearch.commons.mla.org/2014/02/26/our-phd-employment-problem/ http://mlaresearch.commons.mla.org/2014/02/26/our-phd-employ...
- 12y ago
tiatia 12y ago
There is advice in business: "fail, fail often, fail EARLY!" Yes, the article is right in one thing: It can take you ten years (including undergraduate studies) to get a PhD. It takes you 10 years to find out if there is a market (not now but in 10 years) for you. Don't get a PhD. Don't get a PhD in any field. TiaTia, PhD
iamwithnail 12y ago
In honesty, part of the problem with PhD 'grad school' in the US is that the prior parts of the pipeline - undergraduate and high school - are so poor. If you're spending a couple of years when people come to college teaching them, effectively remedial science, then of course it's going to set the whole thing back a number of years (manifesting itself, at least partly in this case, in it taking 10 years to complete a PhD in the US.) (Data source: the ten people or so I know who've worked in academia in the EU and the US - hardly conclusive, but compelling qualitative data when you consider the strength of their views.) The other issue here is that, if you take into account the fact that most people studying a PhD in the UK will already have done a (taught) Masters level course, then there's a helpful process of elimination there as well. It seems much less of a pre-requisite in the US.
mkag 12y ago
It seems that the main issue is that people are only now discovering that PhDs and perhaps sometimes undergrad degrees in humanities are not vocational. This isn't to say they aren't worthwhile or that students shouldn't pursue them. There are plenty of degrees or experiences that are unlikely to be marketable in the future economy. The main thing students must learn is how to learn, and one can accomplish this by studying a variety of fields. It does, however, mean that subsidizing higher education is a risky proposition. Universities go to great lengths to create humanities requirements perhaps in part motivated by a genuine belief that core requirements are necessary for a proper education, but likely also to beef up departments that have been isolated from market pressures. These departments are often political (almost always liberal), ideological, and rarely subject to any kind of quality control (there was the famous case of Larry Summers questioning what exactly Cornell West was doing as a tenured Harvard professor). Subsidizing learning with no direct market rewards can be a very smart long term investment in human capital. We need history and literature to have the cognitive tools to innovate and to articulate ideas necessary for the Western world to exist. But on the other hand, it's a dangerous proposition to create a mini-industry where you pay people without a clear understanding of what they are doing and why.
mathattack 12y ago
It takes a while to get to the key point: If anything, a continuing over-production of Ph.D.s will only make the problem worse. It creates an ever-growing pool of cheap labor, which administrators are only too happy to employ in place of tenure-track faculty. Shortening Phd programs, and many other so-called solutions doesn't fix this. Blaming a lack of interest in writing doesn't fix it either. In my mind, the #1 fix is to highlight with full transparency the lack of career options, so that potential Phds know what they're up against. The second is to create a relevant drop-off point after 2 years. 2 years in a Physics Phd program is good enough to enable many other careers. 2 years in a Phd program in English should be enough to prepare the student to work in the news, writing or something similar. The big issue here is optimal school behavior (produce as many Phds as possible) conflicts with optimal system behavior (produce roughly the amount as jobs). In the sciences, limits to funding helps provide some of the cap.

36 points by sizzle 12y ago

Fixing the English Ph.D; that's the only field they mention. They can make inferences about related fields but would have a hard time with other fields (STEM fields and even psychology).

dnautics 12y ago
"The M.L.A. report estimates that only sixty per cent of newly-minted Ph.D.s will find tenure-track jobs after graduation" It's even worse for sciences. But I think there are some insights in common; worth a read.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  OTOH, in the sciences, there's probably a greater likelihood that newly-minted Ph.D.s aren't wanting tenure-track jobs. There's not a lot of work specifically for English Ph.D.s in industry...
- dkural 12y ago
  That number is entirely false by the way. They divide the total number of open positions by number of new students for that year only. The denominator, of course, should include everyone looking for a tenure-track job: The entirety of post-grad pool for a few years, part-time faculty in adjunct / teaching jobs, foreign grad students delaying graduation (thus can stay in the country) due to lack of jobs, etc.
  - Retric 12y ago
    Assuming the numbers are reasonably stable it's fairly accurate. Basicly, they don't care if someone waited 10 years they found a tenure track job so there 'in'. Which means some of this years graduates may a need to wait 10 years but the ratio should be close to jobs / graduates.
    - jhardcastle 12y ago
      But they only compared it against job listings on their own association website. This seems like incredibly lazy statistical research. They didn't look hard for a number, but instead accepted the first, easiest number they could generate as a "rough figure."
- joshvm 12y ago
  Once you get your doctorate, the logical step for most STEM graduates is a postdoctoral position. There aren't many of these at all, most departments have double the number of PhD students than they do postdocs. So right off the bat, half the students will be finding jobs elsewhere. Industry (hardware/software/analytics/whatever) pays more, is often more fulfilling and although your work isn't completely open it is usually more obviously relevant than your PhD. So 60% will find tenure track jobs? Well that's obviously true. If there are only about half the postdoc positions compared to the number of new PhDs then only half the PhD students will be getting tenure track jobs. Most postdoc positions are 2-3 years and are filled by newly minted PhDs. The logical evolution for most people is to do a postdoc (or two) and wait until their research is renowned enough for the university to offer a lectureship. You do that for another few years until they offer you a Readership, wait a bit longer and you get your coveted Professorship. If you're really lucky and you're top of your field you can hit assistant professor by 30-35 in the UK. Until you get the all-important lectureship offer you're a contract worker and there is always the prospect that funding will be cut and you won't be able to renew your position. Remember that once you've done your postdoc there are even fewer positions to be promoted into. Doing a PhD has largely put me off the idea of staying in academia, I think this is becoming more common. Being a professor would be nice, good pay (£60k min) lots of travel, but it's a very stressful job, you have no time to do any real research beyond project management and by that time you're thoroughly institutionalised. Should point out that my experience is from physics, ymmv. On the plus side I don't know anyone who has struggled to find a job from my department; plenty go into research in non university groups like Microsoft, the British Antarctic Survey, the Met Office, etc.
  - BellsOnSunday 12y ago
    > If you're really lucky and you're top of your field you can hit assistant professor by 30-35 in the UK. This role doesn't really exist on the UK, the equivalent is that of Lecturer/Senior Lecturer. I think you're overstating the barrier to entry -- it's not that high unless you're fixed on a top university. In CS,I know lots of people younger than 35 with SL jobs. Getting to the level or prof after that is another matter but on the whole I think that should be hard.
- sidww2 12y ago
  Becoming a professor is hardly the only reason to do a PhD in the sciences.

CyberFonic 12y ago

From reading other articles and blogs on the problems with PhDs suggests that the situation is generally the same in other fields. It is generally accepted that the PhD program is to train academic researchers. People who do both research and write papers, articles. Grants, etc are awarded on the basis of publishing accomplishments. Hence the "Publish or Perish" cry. There is an oversupply of PhD graduates, so the academic job market is very competitive. Of course, in STEM, many PhDs find jobs in non-academic fields.

ehurrell 12y ago
As someone who has earned a PhD I think the key thing is these programs are set up to train _researchers_, not specifically academic ones. As you say non-academic jobs in STEM are easy enough to find, and industrial research is alive and well.

jamesaguilar 12y ago

Interesting that they are blaming the profs. There is certainly some culpability there. But there is plenty of info available to students about their prospects. If they want to take on massive debt to essentially be entertained for a few extra years, at some point, that is their choice.

sjtrny 12y ago
It's not a always the case that people incur massive debt. A lot of students have scholarships that cover their fugitive fees and include a small stipend.

apdinin 12y ago

This article wrongly implies that people getting English PhDs are only doing so in order to become tenure-track English professors. But I just completed my PhD in English two weeks ago, and I'm also the TECH co-founder of a VC-backed startup. Many of my peers are not just tech savvy, they're also developers, designers, and entrepreneurs. They just also happen to be interested in studying slightly older forms of technology -- literary technologies. Yes... books and poems and epics and dramas are all technologies, too. I should hope the HN community isn't fooled by the _New Yorker_ article's professional typecasting. After all, Paul Graham has an entire book called _Hackers and Painters_, and he argues: "Of all the different types of people I've known, hackers and painters are among the most alike. What hackers and painters have in common is that they're both makers. Along with composers, architects, and writers, what hackers and painters are trying to do is make good things." (http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html). "Hacking" -- as both Paul Graham and much of my dissertation argues -- isn't a purely scientific discipline. It's also a humanist and aesthetic pursuit. If you don't believe me, go pick up a collection of Emily Dickinson poems (you know... the things you probably haven't looked at since you were in 9th grade). You might be surprised to discover all of the conditional logic, the programatic loops, and the object oriented structures.

gone35 12y ago
This article wrongly implies that people getting English PhDs are only doing so in order to become tenure-track English professors. But I just completed my PhD in English two weeks ago, and I'm also the TECH co-founder of a VC-backed startup. Many of my peers are not just tech savvy, they're also developers, designers, and entrepreneurs. They just also happen to be interested in studying slightly older forms of technology -- literary technologies. Impressive. However, judging from the available empirical evidence from recent professional surveys [1], you and your like-minded peers are indeed the exception, not the rule: over the last 35 years, a consistent 90-95% of newly-minted English PhDs sought academic faculty positions; with only 5-10% seeking careers outside academia [Fig. 2]. There is a reason why the so-called 'alt-ac' career track is called that way in the broader MLA community. [1] http://mlaresearch.commons.mla.org/2014/02/26/our-phd-employment-problem/ http://mlaresearch.commons.mla.org/2014/02/26/our-phd-employ...
12y ago

tiatia 12y ago

There is advice in business: "fail, fail often, fail EARLY!" Yes, the article is right in one thing: It can take you ten years (including undergraduate studies) to get a PhD. It takes you 10 years to find out if there is a market (not now but in 10 years) for you. Don't get a PhD. Don't get a PhD in any field. TiaTia, PhD

iamwithnail 12y ago

In honesty, part of the problem with PhD 'grad school' in the US is that the prior parts of the pipeline - undergraduate and high school - are so poor. If you're spending a couple of years when people come to college teaching them, effectively remedial science, then of course it's going to set the whole thing back a number of years (manifesting itself, at least partly in this case, in it taking 10 years to complete a PhD in the US.) (Data source: the ten people or so I know who've worked in academia in the EU and the US - hardly conclusive, but compelling qualitative data when you consider the strength of their views.) The other issue here is that, if you take into account the fact that most people studying a PhD in the UK will already have done a (taught) Masters level course, then there's a helpful process of elimination there as well. It seems much less of a pre-requisite in the US.

mkag 12y ago

It seems that the main issue is that people are only now discovering that PhDs and perhaps sometimes undergrad degrees in humanities are not vocational. This isn't to say they aren't worthwhile or that students shouldn't pursue them. There are plenty of degrees or experiences that are unlikely to be marketable in the future economy. The main thing students must learn is how to learn, and one can accomplish this by studying a variety of fields. It does, however, mean that subsidizing higher education is a risky proposition. Universities go to great lengths to create humanities requirements perhaps in part motivated by a genuine belief that core requirements are necessary for a proper education, but likely also to beef up departments that have been isolated from market pressures. These departments are often political (almost always liberal), ideological, and rarely subject to any kind of quality control (there was the famous case of Larry Summers questioning what exactly Cornell West was doing as a tenured Harvard professor). Subsidizing learning with no direct market rewards can be a very smart long term investment in human capital. We need history and literature to have the cognitive tools to innovate and to articulate ideas necessary for the Western world to exist. But on the other hand, it's a dangerous proposition to create a mini-industry where you pay people without a clear understanding of what they are doing and why.

mathattack 12y ago

It takes a while to get to the key point: If anything, a continuing over-production of Ph.D.s will only make the problem worse. It creates an ever-growing pool of cheap labor, which administrators are only too happy to employ in place of tenure-track faculty. Shortening Phd programs, and many other so-called solutions doesn't fix this. Blaming a lack of interest in writing doesn't fix it either. In my mind, the #1 fix is to highlight with full transparency the lack of career options, so that potential Phds know what they're up against. The second is to create a relevant drop-off point after 2 years. 2 years in a Physics Phd program is good enough to enable many other careers. 2 years in a Phd program in English should be enough to prepare the student to work in the news, writing or something similar. The big issue here is optimal school behavior (produce as many Phds as possible) conflicts with optimal system behavior (produce roughly the amount as jobs). In the sciences, limits to funding helps provide some of the cap.