/lit/ - Literature

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Anonymous Thu Aug 22 22:54:02 2013 No.4052517 [Reply] [Original]

QUESTION:

Everyone says to me that getting a Ph. D in English or philosophy would mean no job, possibly debt, and years gone of my life. And if I did get a job, it'd be shit and I wouldn't have a choice of location. Is this true?

I'm a 4.0 in his junior year with one publication so far going to a decent state school (UW-Madison). But again, everyone I've spoken to tells me it's just one big nightmare and that I should get out while I can.

Are they right, /lit/?

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 22 23:06:03 2013 No.4052530 Who cares what they think? If that is what you so desire, then you should pursue such things.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 22 23:25:02 2013 No.4052575 >Are they right, /lit/? Mainly, although if it's your passion and you think that you are extremely talented, than it's worth a shot.

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 22 23:26:02 2013 No.4052576 >>4052517 Are you Patrick Rothpuss?

Anonymous Thu Aug 22 23:28:02 2013 No.4052580

Look up attrition rates. Look up how long it takes to get a Ph. D in Literature or Philosophy compared to other programs.

Are you ok with teaching comp 1 to freshmen for the first 10 years of your career? Without benefits? Are you ok with fighting over your niche, theory-based research subject that no one but you will care about?

If you do it, don't do it for the career. Have a back up plan.

Anonymous Thu Aug 22 23:31:02 2013 No.4052584

fuck formal us english education
haven't had a single college teacher for any course related to art or english who wasn't a fucking tool
a phd english teacher just gave me a 100% on the semester essay and plans to use it as an example in future classes. An essay I wrote in 4 hours, did no research on or proofreading and attacked the 'public misinterpretation on advertising' without having given any definition as to what that misinterpretation was or making any attempt to show that this misinterpretation was even a thing 'people' thought. Fuck the job aspect, why the hell would you want to deal with these idiots

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 22 23:39:02 2013 No.4052603 File: 1.01 MB, 871x543, lake full of fish.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>4052517 DO not do it OP. Symptoms may include: -No job -Possible (scratch that: DEFINITE debt) -Years gone of your life I repeat OP, DO NOT GET A PHD IN ENGLISH.

Anonymous Thu Aug 22 23:54:02 2013 No.4052646

>>4052517

All of academia is about being someone's personal bitch long enough, until you can get your own personal bitch(es)

English is worse because there is much more bullshit, knowing the right people is even more important, toeing the line is crucial, being able to make enough waves but not overshadow superiors

shit sucks man, but congrats on your had work.

If you cant make it to a great phd program, then try for an MFA (unless that is really not you), or otherwise try to get a job

yes a phd does overqualify you

Anonymous Fri Aug 23 00:00:02 2013 No.4052656

>>4052517
>choice of location
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 23 00:14:02 2013 No.4052687 >>4052584 >haven't had a single college teacher for any course related to art or english who wasn't a fucking tool that's funny, genetics major here, all my best teachers in college have been humanities our bio teachers are really bad

Anonymous Fri Aug 23 00:19:02 2013 No.4052704

My dad got his phd in the seventies and now he has a cushy 90k/year job at a state university. He got in when the getting was good though. When I expressed to him my desire to "be just like him" he basically, in so many words, told me to major in English if that's what I really wanted to do, but to set my sights on something else. Contrary to popular opinion there are a lot of things that can be done with a degree in English. Just forget about teaching, at any level. Online education is going to be the death of English instructors everywhere.

>>	Working Class Academic Marxist Fri Aug 23 00:22:02 2013 No.4052712 >>4052704 >Online education is going to be the death of English instructors everywhere. Nope. They'll want 35 hour a week "markers" and "chat room supervisors" for 20-30K in today's money.

>>	Working Class Academic Marxist Fri Aug 23 00:23:02 2013 No.4052714 >>4052712 For those who don't work in the industry that's 35 _contact_ hours. In my country the _highest legal_ contact hours for people conducting real academic work is 13. Most academics work 5-10 contact hours.

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 23 00:24:02 2013 No.4052717 >>4052517 PHD, no PHD, college degree, no college degree, good college, bad college, high school education, high school drop out... None of it matters, OP. Connections get you a good job, not education.

Working Class Academic Marxist Fri Aug 23 00:26:02 2013 No.4052721

>>4052717
To be honest, I've not seen any academic appointments in the last 10 years from people without a PhD. Working as an academic, it is a no-ticket-no-start requirement.

On the other hand I've seen a lot of people directly appointed to "academic administrator" ("Dean" "Sub-Dean" etc) whose research careers are nothing and thesis topics should have been rejected by the applications committee.

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 23 00:31:02 2013 No.4052733 >>4052584 what uni do you go to? a county college? jesus. >>4052687

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 23 01:10:02 2013 No.4052838 >>4052517 They're right. Get out. Make more room for me because I'm sure as hell not leaving.

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 23 01:25:02 2013 No.4052867 >>4052733 uci and now that I think about it, I had one pretty good bio professor and one great physics professor, but noone else too good. My grad student latin TA (who taught the whole class) was actually the best teacher I think I've had there.

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 23 01:30:02 2013 No.4052884 >>4052867 you're lying

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 23 01:34:03 2013 No.4052890 >>4052867 >uci sure your professor wasn't derrida? because that would explain it.

>>	Working Class Academic Marxist Fri Aug 23 01:36:03 2013 No.4052897 >>4052890 It couldn't have been Derrida. Every day he must drink champagne in a beautiful home. It was a condition of his appointment. Poor Derrida.

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 23 01:37:02 2013 No.4052904 >>4052897 >>4052890 plus he was ded

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 23 01:39:02 2013 No.4052908 >>4052890 when my dad was a grad student, he took one of Derrida's seminar >tfw patrician inb4 "i wanna meet that dad"

>>	Working Class Academic Marxist Fri Aug 23 01:42:02 2013 No.4052917 >>4052908 Your poor father. He has my condolences and pity.

Anonymous Fri Aug 23 01:43:02 2013 No.4052918

>>4052867
Amen. The two best teachers I had as an undergrad were TAs--and I actually went to a university that was worth a shit.

There's something very lazy and settled-in about most professors. They're all just going through the motions. It's the TAs that have the spark and interest and curiosity that keeps entire fields of study going.

Working Class Academic Marxist Fri Aug 23 01:48:03 2013 No.4052931

>>4052918
"We're not paid to teach."

We really aren't. We're paid to produce high quality research. Undergraduates are a money lube that lets us sit in rooms thinking obscure shit that only we want to read.

Some of us do bother to teach, out of pride, or due to some obscure political mission about the class overturning capitalism, or religious vocation; but, at the end of the day, we're not paid to teach.

Also, where I work the minimum "small group" class size is about 30. There's no way you can actually "teach" academic thought in a group that size. And the mission of the University has always been, in relation to teaching, giving undergraduates an opportunity to teach themselves.

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 23 01:56:02 2013 No.4052946 >>4052917 wasn't his worst professor... that was probably Arthur Danto, whose class literally consisted solely of him read his own papers out loud

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 23 01:58:02 2013 No.4052950 Here's a tip, OP: do not take advice from people who are still in school (aka the majority of people on this board).

Anonymous Fri Aug 23 02:00:02 2013 No.4052955

>>4052931
This is why one TA is better than you and your ilk combined. You sit on your fat arses, merely enduring students--and even then because they're the cash cows that keep your "serious work" going.

Your whole post gave me a really creepy vibe. Like some days you don't even show up to class, instead putting a note on the door that says, "NO CLASS TODAY. IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS, GOOGLE IT."

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 23 02:03:02 2013 No.4052963 >>4052908 What I want to know is why did derrida go from Yale to UCI, of all places. I can never wrap my head around how they could be considered top rank for crit theory, everyone in the arts there are totally conditioned knobs.

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 23 02:03:02 2013 No.4052961 >>4052931 >or due to some obscure political mission about the class overturning capitalism Can't indoctrination get you fired?

Working Class Marxist Academic Fri Aug 23 02:08:02 2013 No.4052972

>>4052955
See Veblen on the function of the University.

Going back to Oxford, it is the mission of the Undergraduate to fuck shit up when stuff is wrong in the institution.

>You sit on your fat arses, merely enduring students--and even then because they're the cash cows that keep your "serious work" going.

I personally don't. But yes, permanent staff as a group do. Welcome to the layer cake.

>Like some days you don't even show up to class
"Tenure" doesn't extend that far.

>>4052961
>Can't indoctrination get you fired?
The best way to arm the class for warfare is to provide them with a high quality education and let them find their own way to practical class struggle. You can't "learn" burning a police station from a book. You learn it at work. From the machine.

>>	pathetique Fri Aug 23 02:16:02 2013 No.4052989 >>4052972 >You can't "learn" burning a police station from a book. You learn it at work. From the machine. σн ωσω ѕσ є∂gє ωσω

>>	Working Class Marxist Academic Fri Aug 23 02:18:02 2013 No.4052993 >>4052989 >Marx >edgy >2013 Old Kazza still has the baby juice in him.

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 23 03:17:03 2013 No.4053058 >>4052993 what do you even teach?

>>	Working Class Marxist Academic Fri Aug 23 03:22:02 2013 No.4053065 >>4053058 How much of a dumb cunt do you think I am, mate?

Anonymous Fri Aug 23 06:02:04 2013 No.4053236

>>4053065
at least a general area, jesus christ
there are a million unis in australia, i couldn't dox you if i tried
i doxed a prof a while back but he gave out way too much info (his very narrow field of interest, letting us know he taught at one of 3 unis, and gayness). i'm not asking you to go that far.
even in that case, nothing happened

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 23 06:39:03 2013 No.4053271 >But again, everyone I've spoken to tells me it's just one big nightmare and that I should get out while I can. academia in general is a nightmare. might as well do something you enjoy if you plan on going into it

Anonymous Fri Aug 23 08:25:04 2013 No.4053433

>>4052517
The usual powerhouse departments (Columbia, Hopkins, Yale, Chicago, Berkeley, etc.) receive roughly 700 applications for about a dozen admits.

If you can make it to one of these, do the PhD. It's worth it. I am at one of the institutions I named (did my MA at another one); I'm not in English though I am in the humanities. We've placed every graduate to a prestigious postdoc or TT position within 5 years of graduation. The jobs are fewer, but still there--you just need to show off elite credentials these days.

Of course, a lot is on you too.

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