/lit/ - Literature

Also very high work/pay ratio, and the fact that it is difficult to be nerdy and academically hardworking enough to become professor.

I'm talking about tenured professors in most serious fields here.

>>5640533
>nerdy

>>5640515
University government funding keeps falling, and they keep demanding departments cut cash spent on faculty. So, departments are hiring fewer and fewer full-time tenure-track positions (most outgoing/retiring profs aren't being replaced) and instead rely on low-paid grad students and adjuncts like me, who are hired course-by-course with no security or benefits. Meanwhile, they've expanded the grad school programs in many cases, and never kick out anyone, because you keep paying tuition as long as you're writing your thesis, once your funding runs out. The result is 200+ qualified applicants for every tenure-track job, and only the top 5% ever have a chance of an interview. If you're an "A-" grad student, respectable but not wining awards and getting A+, you're essentially doomed now, whereas a generation ago you'd have had a career.

>>5640571

>PhD-tards getting btfo

Hahahha back in the bread-line liberal arts fags (includes STEM faggots now they can suck a dick, too) enjoy your H1B "diversity"!

HAHAHAHA modern liberal democracy BTFO

>>5640584
This post is a good example of how it is becoming increasingly difficult to identify "ironic" shitposting, vs. shitposting and even post-ironic shitposting

>>5640515
>Why is it so difficult to become a pro academic/professor?
The olympics only lets amateurs compete.

Both

>>5640571
>tfw 3.78 GPA in my PhD program

Panic.

>>5640655
Can you adequately specify research problems, conduct evidence gathering, analyse evidence, solve theoretical problems using analysed evidence, and report research in publication?

How much you publish matters more.

Serious question even if it sounds dumb:
How about just giving phil classes to plebs? Whenever a teen says he wants to study phil, or liberal arts in general, people say "I would like to learn that as a hobby, but not a job" but learning it as a hobby is quite hard. You could give introductory classes or something more in a guidance form.
I'm not thinking about seminars or stuff like that, more like the when you want to learn a language and you take a class with some professor on your free time. I'm sure that it could add some nice points in extracurriculars or something like that too.

>>5640696
How do you even publish stuff? Are there guidelines according to each publication or general ones? Do I have to be part of a certain university to apply to each one?

>>5640536
Being willing to spend eight hours a day (including week ends, and some holidays) on an academic topic for a decade require some amount of nerdiness.

>>5640594
Easy. If it's shit, it's ((un)(post)ironic) shitposting. Which is the same as shitposting.

>>5640747
>How do you even publish stuff?

You submit to a journal's submission address.

You negotiate a contract with an academic book publisher.

You are approached (based on conferences, or your "name") to publish in an edited collection.

>Are there guidelines according to each publication or general ones?

Original contribution to scholarly knowledge passing peer review. On top of that there are outlet specific formatting, citation, writing standards.

>Do I have to be part of a certain university to apply to each one?

No, independent scholars may submit.

>>5640787
>Original contribution to scholarly knowledge passing peer review.
So I should get a professor to check my stuff and give me an academic thumbs up?

>>5640787
Also, thank you very much, you are a nice anon and I hope they don't kick you out. Or that if that happens you get something better than before, obviously.

I'm in my 5th year of a humanities PhD. It's the worst decision I've ever made. I keep trying to kill myself but I just can't go through with it. I'll tie the rope, stare at it for hours, and then cry myself to sleep.

I can't take the 16 hour days anymore. I can't compete with the Ching Chongs (I wasn't a racist before grad school). I can't take anymore academic speak ("the careful reader will notice"). It's all such bullshit. You have to be seriously "damaged" to get a PhD (I haven't met one sane person - and I don't mean my colleagues are insane in the glamorous John Nash way, I mean they are actually unpleasant and neurotic and incapable of functioning outside their little tea time playworld).

I hope I can kill myself before I defend my dissertation, because it will only get worse after that.

there's actually a fair amount of jobs available at a given time, you just need to be exceptional

and not live in a shitty country outside of based america

>>5640820
you haven't got the balls to do it
Enjoy being a pleb.

As BAs and increasingly postgraduate degrees have gone from being specialist things to being extended high school degrees, basically within the span of a generation or two, academia has had to adjust. In order to simulate, on the surface, that the university is still an academic atmosphere, and that academia is still linked with this random gened interdisciplinary pseudo-humanistic studies factory you attend for your license to work in a cubicle, fuckloads of people who should have been professionals and office workers have been drawn away from that into postgrad studies.

The result is an enormous number of PhDs and MAs that woul make holders of those degrees in the same fields just a few generations ago either laugh or cry. If the BA is extended high school, PhDs are now on par with what BAs used to be. But the institution of professorship hasn't officially changed to reflect this, so you have an endless horde of worthless fucking idiots who technically have the qualifications to apply for professorial positions.

The system can either massive inflate the number of professors, or find some way to weed out and preoccupy these useless retards without straightforwardly saying so. The former isn't really an option, so the latter happens. Thus academia has adjusted to being staffed with armies of functionaries: adjuncts and assistant professors and demi-professors and permanent PhD students whose time to thesis defense keeps getting prolonged indefinitely because there's simply no pressure to leave the 3000 year tenure track they're on. Simply put, the system finds a way to use these excess people, mostly by giving them bitch work, which has the unfortunate side effects of a) twisting upper level academic output to use PhDs as slave labour instead of relying more on professorial creativity and industry, ultimately leading to derivative, 'factory'-style publications, and b) infinitely resupplying and exponentially increasing the next 'generation' of worthless adjunct slaves by using them to teach yet more undergrads and grade yet more papers written by people who could and should be getting their technical degree in two years of concerted study.

>>5640820
give me a fucking break dude

3rd year undergrad here

should I just quit my plans and shoot for law school?

>>5640854
>he thinks law school is better than grad school
>he thinks there aren't 500,000 excess lawyers begging for basic shitty positions
>he thinks law school isn't filled to brimming with retards with good grades

>>5640820
Kill yourself by going on a shooting spree and wiping out some of the subhumans at your school. Strike a blow for the white race.

>>5640854
Take it from someone who switched horses mid-stream: Just run with what you've gotten so far. You'll regret it.

>>5640834
>>5640851

This is always how you start. This is how I was 5 years ago. A PhD is a huge wank over how smart you are, but you never win. It's like walking up to people on the street, begging them to call you smart, then having them call you an idiot. 16 hours a day, 350 days a year.

"I'm smarter than most people. I'll make it. I'm a genius. I won't become one of those unemployed losers or adjuncts. I have real talent. I have a 4.0 from a top 10 university."

Good luck. I don't mean that sarcastically or bitingly. I mean it sincerely. If you intend on going for a PhD, you should know that you're about to experience the 6 most horrible years of your life, and that if you stay in academia, every year after that will keep getting worse.

>>5640793

Peer review meaning fellow scholars who don't know you think it's worth publishing, or that you are capable of revising it into a publishable article in the near future. Your professor should read your work first and give it a thumbs up before sending it to a journal so you don't embarrass both of you, but that thumbs up is entirely separate from it being published or not.

>>5640868
what is your degree in

>>5640868
Since we have a sort of different college structure in my country a lot of people get the exact equivalent of a major and then go to the states and re do the last year, that way they come back with an extra title just by doing the same thing (albeit with a different professor and what not) and it actually works in the fields where public relations matter.

>>5640876
The philosophy of language.

>>5640868
>"I'm smarter than most people. I'll make it. I'm a genius. I won't become one of those unemployed losers or adjuncts. I have real talent. I have a 4.0 from a top 10 university."

That's basically where I am. Just starting out though.

I tell myself my GPA and my school mean my chances are better than all the B's and losers who can't hack the work. But I know that's not true, and that I'm really competing with billions of other 4.0s. Ones who take Adderall, and have laundry lists of extracurriculars and committees they've chaired. And even the superstar young professors I've seen throughout my attendance at university were still just basic salarymen, their reward for making legitimately amazing (and amazingly lucky) discoveries being that they actually got a job, at the bottom of the totem pole.

I don't really mind the work, at least. But presumably that will change after 5 years.

>>5640875
But do I have to take care of getting it reviewed or is just implied with getting it published?
Imagining that someone has a paper they think meets the criteria, do you just send it and hope for the best or you get some recommendations before?

>>5640793
If you don't know if you've made an original contribution to scholarly knowledge, that's the best indication that

1) You haven't or
2) You've not conducted an appropriate literature review

>>5640868
>thinking "I'm a genius"
>at the beginning of your PhD

Either you're much smarter than most people I've studied with, or you were trained in an dangerousely unrealistic environment.

>>5640887
My question was more about the meaning of the second part, "passing peer review". But even if it sounds obvious is a decent point to always keep in mind.

>>5640887
Personally I would consider it a great failure if I ever made an "original contribution to scholarly knowledge."

>>5640885

It's reviewed by people working for the journal when you submit it. If you want you can just submit anything whenever, but if you want to get published in an actually good journal, it needs to be a finely crafted piece of original scholarship which is incredibly clear about how it's original and why it's worth saying, reading, publishing, etc. You presumably have people you can talk to about (and possibly have read over) your paper before submitting who have gone through the process many times and know what gets through and what doesn't, so you should talk to them.

Some publications will also provide you a reader's report or two. That is, the people who are peer reviewing your paper may reject it, but they'll also send you a page or so of their feedback.

>>5640820
¡TEÁ-TIMÉ!
¡TEÁ-TIMÉ!
¡TEÁ-TIMÉ!
¡TEÁ-TIMÉ!

CHAAAAAAAANGE PLACES!

>>5640891
The scholarly outlet will conduct the peer review by sending your paper to anonymous referees who will consider if your paper is publishable. That's if the editor decides to send your paper to peer review.

>>5640868
>If you intend on going for a PhD, you should know that you're about to experience the 6 most horrible years of your life

I don't know what your program environment or funding situation is like, but I'm studying English and it's pretty great. Super intense and stressful, but a great time.

>>5640895
Last questions and I promise I'll stop bothering you: Is there some sort of curriculum vitae to send with your work or some way to bloat the value of your work (or that people with better connections would use for that)? Should I go first for small/local publications and work my way up or is it just wasting potentially good work?

>>5640917
You don't send a bio with a journal article, you send an affiliation (University of X, foo.bar@x.edu.nl).

You always submit work to the most prominent journal that best fits the research finding, that you think will publish it. At worst the editor will "desk reject."

>>5640917
>bloat the value of your work

No way to do that. It's either publishable or it's not. The closest thing is if you are far along in your career and well-established you may be asked to submit a publication on some topic of interest to you, in which case your name does play a role in the publication, but no journal is going to care that you're President of the Greentexting Club.

>>5640934
>>5640944
Thanks a lot. Each day I'm closer to publishing my thesis on the impact of Gundam in the society and economy of Japan.

>>5640950
ha ha ha oh lord, I hope you're gunning for a New Media / Media Studies job. Your topic has 5 years of currency left in it, and you'd better be capable of research in things other than "what interests you"

>>5640950

God speed, imouto-san.

If you want an actual high paying job:

1) Engineering (Petroleum based is best)

2) Medicine

Even ivy fags are getting their shit srekt by this economy. Sucks to be them.

I'm planning on becoming a general surgeon or something, so when society collapses and the need for people to critique a poem isn't there, you will still need a guy to take out your appendix or drain all that cum clotting up your asshole.

>mfw will never live the literary lifestyle

>>5640950
i kekked

>>5640957
It was a joke. I did write something about how Gundam is a prime example of how you can manufacture interest through parallel media to the point of affecting the way most of the population will interpret the facts in your favor, but I'd never assume that it was publication material.
I did read an article about split screens in a publication supported by my university and it was pretty poor in it's take on the subject, so media studies does sound like a pretty approachable start. I mean, Umberto Eco did that.

>>5640958
(pic related)

>>5640965

>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Young_Doctor's_Notebook

you will be living the life

>>5640820

now cmon

what would you rather be doing?

>>5640965
I'm studying geophysics. Much better career prospects than engineering.

>>5640993
>I did read an article about split screens in a publication supported by my university
Unless you're from a hispanic community, or you're talking about a German "Jahrbuch," sponsored publications are looked down upon.

>>5640854
No, finish your undergrad, and go get a nice job. Just stay the hell away from humanities grad school. If I could, I'd sell you any of my four of degrees for one year's tuition back: does that tell you what kind of racket we're in?

>>5641045
The fact that you paid your own tuition already says more about the quality of your scholarship.

>>5640837
RIP macadamia

>>5641045
My degree isn't going to be worth anything unless I went for an economics dual major or something like that, which would probably mean 1.5-2 more years.

>tfw in literature phd and absolutely adoring it

I can't see why you guys hate it. Entering my third year and it's exactly what I had hoped. I get paid to read, write and research. I actually get paid to go to places full of other literature enthusiasts and talk about the things I love with them. I get to talk to people about the kind of things I never thought I would get to speak with other people about - intelligent, well-read people abound.

Maybe because I think of myself in terms of self-improvement too much. When I get to add one more "manuscript in preparation" to my CV or scoot it to another section, I feel giddy. When I get a pile of twenty books sent to my doorstep from the library, I don't feel overwhelmed, I feel excited.

I always wanted a life devoted to esoteria and analysis, and spend all my day reading, so it's exactly what I was wanting.

>>5641077
But oh, what the future holds.

>>5641077
What Peter Pan Neverland world are you living in?

I know you're deluding and projecting how your life could be with a lit phD but there is literally no market for you.

>>5641077
Whered you undergrad? How were your grades?

>>5641087
>needing a market
>not becoming "that crazy hobo with the PhD talking about Yeats," getting on Humans of NY, and setting up a Patreon

>>5641085
>>5641087
It's not like I don't have other skills, anons. I'm a part-time sysadmin. I don't want an adjunct position, I'm just planning to be an independent scholar.

>>5641095
University of Texas, and not exceptional. I did poorly one semester during a depression, so my GPA was barely over 3.25.

>>5640881
Yikes, I'm glad after getting my undergrad in phil I realized I'm too stupid/not neurotic/don't care enough to make meaningful contributions to philosophy, especially the areas I'm most interested in.

The two standard routes of academia or law school seem to be pretty soul crushing, keep your chin up man you can always say fuck it and move to some small town with a menial job, reading whatever you want to in your spare time and developing a practice in whatever you like doing.

>>5641106
>University of Texas, and not exceptional. I did poorly one semester during a depression, so my GPA was barely over 3.25.
Thats comforting to hear, but what about your financial situation? Stress there?

>>5641106
>I'm just planning to be an independent scholar

And I'm going to take over for Kim Jong-un

>>5641098
>living the dream

>>5641114
Scratch the hobo thing, I want this

>>5641077
>I am bourgeois
Does Daddy pay the rent, or did he give you a trust?

>>5641114
What do you think is required of a person to be an independent scholar?

It's not like you have to be affiliated to go to conferences. You just won't have a grant. It's not that big a deal. Publishing would be harder, but I like presenting better.

>>5641127
>[Rent is] not that big a deal.
It is so hard to find good help these days.

>>5641113
I have a good job and grants, like I mentioned. It's not really stressful. I'm also married though, which is an added safety I guess some others on here might not have.

>>5641125
My parents were poverty level and didn't finish high school.

>>5641130
I'm sorry you're angry that I have a job, anon. But membership to respectable organizations is rarely more than $50 a year.

>>5641131
>A married, Systemadmin PhD student who was born into poverty

Yeah, okay

>>5641131
>>5641138
Wait until your grants dry up and you're in the adjunct mill.

>>5640820
I wrote this post. I was just joking.

>>5641140
>being this mad you can't get a job

Maybe if you didn't post a blog post on tumblr after every interview about how the person you interviewed with was bourgeois scum, someone would hire you.

>>5641142
I have a good job that I don't plan to quit any time soon. Don't see why you're fixated on me being unemployed.

>>5641140
I don't see how I would prove it to you. My mom worked in a body shop and my dad has never been more than an odd jobs guy. I'm extraordinarily self-motivated and interested in the world.

Why would the married bit matter with poverty though?

>>5641162
We're in a thread where OP doesn't know how academic publishing works, and I'm meant to take your career trajectory as an English Literature scholar seriously?

>>5641160
Now I need to see the blog your referencing.

>>5641169

Does anyone really know how publishing works, though? PMLA keeps turning down my seminar papers, even the ones I got As on. Shit makes no sense.

>>5641169
I don't care about English literature, as an aside. I'm in a different field of lit.

Anyway, my whole point was that it's not a career, but a passion I'm very devoted to. I have a different job. I just adore doing this, and there's no reason you can't do a hobby "professionally" to some degree, while having a career too.

>>5641185
Shooting kind of high there, try some with better acceptance rates, they're like 10:1. Have you browsed through the MLA Directory of Periodicals?

>>5641193
How do you get to know how hard to get a publciation is? Just asking around?

>>5641185
dude, i'm not in your field, but i googled PMLA and it seems that:
the MLA is the association for litfags, and PMLA is its journal.
coming from my perspective, publishing in the premier outlet as this seems to be is the type of thing that takes years, if ever.
an "A seminar paper", jesus christ, you self-entitled shit

>>5641185
>seminar papers
Do you even discuss your submissions with your supervisor?

>>5641209
>How do you get to know how hard to get a publciation is?
You get a vibe. What could this be…its another rejection letter!

>>5641209
Plenty of ways. For one, you should look at the Directory of Periodicals I mentioned, seeing as it tells you an average of how many papers are submitted to it, and how many are accepted.

Are you actually in graduate school? Did you not get the "intro to graduate research" course yet? That should have told you all of this.

>>5641219
>Do you even discuss your submissions with your supervisor?

I try not to get too bogged down in that kind of thing.

>>5641237
dude i'm really glad you have another job because you are horrible at this
i pray everyone else applying for the same jobs i do is exactly like you

>>5641245
You're mixing your anons, anon.

>>5641245
oh i'm not reading too carefully and thought you were the sysadmin guy

>>5641237
>>Do you even discuss your submissions with your supervisor?
>I try not to get too bogged down in that kind of thing.


I am feeling better about my prospects for a tenure-track equivalent position already.

Thank you based OP for showing me just how dumb participants in US graduate studies programmes can be.

>>5641245
>>5641251
I'm the one who was talking about my job, in >>5641226 and >>5641193.

I've published twice, plus non-academic publishing. But like I said, I'm more of a presenter.

>>5641260
I get the feeling he's not actually in graduate studies.

Unless it's a really shit program.

>>5641267

I am, but I'm lying about everything for laughs.

I have a paper I've been recommended to revise for publication, but I've never submitted anything to a journal before.

>>5641274
You can always consult with whoever recommended you revise it.

But you probably already know that. Good luck.

>>5641274
>>5641281
also as a hint: The Explicator is where a lot of my colleagues get their first hit in. You'll probably have to trim it down a bit though.

>>5641274

>>5641281

Oh, I know the whole deal. I just need a chance to pretend I have the free time to revise it.

>>5641267
>Unless it's a really shit program.
Never underestimate the hunger of a degree mill to claim they graduate PhDs.

>>5641288
He was pretty open about it and didn't pretend to be a master troll, no need to use that pic.

>>5641293
>no free time
>spends time on 4chan trolling

get your priorities straight right now anon

>>5641299

Never. I'm doing research for my dissertation on the poetics of shitposting.

>>5641312
Tell your supervisor that you've engaged in gross ethics violations in work with human subjects. The MLA has a strong code regarding interactive literature with live participants, and you done gone fucked up.

>>5641319

I'm e-mailing him right now. Subject line is "plz" and I've attached a rar of my sadfrog folder.

>>5641345
If that doesn't work pretend that you are Zeeburg.

>>5640881
Fuck, where. Semiotics is what I'm looking at.

>>5640881
>>5641531
Follow the traditional graduation of an early 20th century anglophone philosophy PhD: Cap, Gown, Suicide.

>>5640820
Are you Australian?

>tfw parents won't help pay for college unless i get a "useful degree" and can help pay for my sibling's education
>tfw studying comp sci and i like it but it gets boring after a while and too late to switch programs
>tfw a soul-crushing 9 to 5 followed by reading books in my apartment will be my future
>tfw just want to sit down in a classroom and talk about books with kids (high school or college, doesnt matter)

>tfw you know you've got it easy compared to most of the world and you're probably going to have a comfortable life but there will always be something missing

>>5641562
shit gotta make this related to the thread

is getting a masters or some shit in the humanities with a STEM undergrad possible or will i be in over my head? i figured this is the place to ask since theres a bunch of grad people in this thread

self loathing and projection: the thread

>>5641565

no it's not impossible, plenty of people do double degrees in Arts/Sci

>>5641068
An undergrad degree isn't worth dick, don't waste doubling. Take it from a plebey 3.85 double.

>>5641565
You'll just have to make your case in the applications, but if you're interested and motivated and can get good letters, shouldn't be that hard. I would suggest the Masters first though.

>>5641106
>3.25

>>5641600
Pad it with extra courses if you're too worried. Or take the ones you did badly on over again.

>>5641565
In some systems you can do a grad dip to bridge to a masters.

>>5641565
It depends on what you want to do with it. I am Canadian and there is opportunity for those that do an undergraduate degree in medicinal or biochemical sciences then get into a health administration graduate program. It isn't my optimal choice, but a good friend went down that road and she is happy and making decent money now. Mind you, it was a fall back for medical school so her grades were high and she had a solid CV.

>>5641542
Australians in their "fifth year" would be kicked out of the programme, Australian programmes are 3 + 1 semester.

Australians don't defend dissertations.

>>5641610
>Graduate Diploma

this sounds like what i basically want, but i cant find any in the us

>tfw I'm going to go to Reed for philosophy
> gonna try to get into a top 10 grad schol
>tfw if nothing works out, I'm just gonna kill myself
>it's that easy.

>>5641641
Honest advice, if you can manage to attend from home and not cripple yourself too bad with debt the undergrad will only be a waste and not something that will completely screw you over for the rest of your life. I know shits that went into STEM and graduated with around 3.5 GPAs and are a shitton in debt and just prolong it with grad studies for no reason. Get the fuck out early if grad school is just going to cripple you more.

>>5641641
why not do a PhD in STEM

It isn't like they're stuck in the adjunct grind.

They're stuck in the post-doc grind.