/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.10871037]

High school /lit/ teacher considering grad school here: would a professorship be more likely as a professor of English Lit or History? I'm aware that both fields are utterly saturated, although I'm entirely content to pester enough colleges until I'm eventually hired.

[Anonymous No.10871191]

>>10871037
The word
>until
suggests you're not aware of the scale of the problem. By definition, if a field is oversubscribed then some applicants will -never- be able to get jobs in it.

As for your question, I don't know- try googling the issue. Bear in mind that the dividing line will fall -within- subjects as well as between them, eg I've heard that in the US American history is very heavily oversubscribed, while something like Asian history may be less so.

[Anonymous No.10871296]

>>10871037
you're not cut out for it if you have to ask this sort of question

[Anonymous No.10871334]

>>10871037
Putting it crudely, are you white or male? It’s gonna be tough. I’m just finishing my PhD and plan to teach in high school, since it’s just impossible now (in Canada at least, I hear it’s worse in the USA). The difficulty is that colleges/universities are hiring fewer and fewer tenure-track jobs, content to replace retiring professors with a constant rotation of contracted adjuncts. When a TT job does come up, the competition is fierce. I know brilliant people who have achieved much more than I ever wanted to academically, who still cannot get permanent work.

Realistically, in order to find work you’ll have to publish like a madman (which means, over the course of a PhD, 3 or 4 articles on top of negotiating for the publication of your dissertation). Smaller colleges farther from major centres have less competition, but you’re also less likely to teach ‘lit’ than ‘communication’.

Practical advice..... if you’ve got a steady and permanent thing going now, keep it. If you have the itch to study, do an MA for a year. The job market for humanities jobs in the academy is worse than you think.

[Anonymous No.10871345]

Like the other people are saying it's incredibly hard to get a job in academia, to the point that it's a running joke even in the top 5 departments in the world that no one is going to get a job, let alone a good/prestigious/cushy job. The only people who should go for a PhD are insane people who are ridiculously devoted to the scholarship itself.

One of the first red flags that someone is badly mistaken or confused about what grad school is (in general, let alone these days) is that they think of it in terms of "becoming a professor." You'll become a professor after a gruelling decade of bullshit and then a couple more years of even worse postdoc bullshit with no job security and no ability to raise a family. You're likely to have your first real job at like 35 and that's if you're a superstar academic who gets into an Ivy League for your PhD and excels even relative to that. Everybody else is going to be grabbing for bullshit positions at the lower rungs. Also academia is about to contract and become even worse than it's ever been. Way way worse, for humanities and social sciences people.

It's a bit like asking "I want to be a war hero. Should I join the Army or the Marines?" Someone "in the know" wouldn't just have to correct you about how likely it is that you'll become a war hero, they'd basically have to deconstruct your conception of what war and soldiering are altogether.

That said, I am in a program right now where the last round of people who came into the program had all been out of academia for a long time, including one who was a high school teacher, and they're really smart and will probably do well. It's not totally out of the question. But they also did a huge money-sink MA program beforehand, and I bet there were a lot more people in that MA program who just felt like it was a wasted year and money. I don't want to discourage you but you should definitely know exactly what you're getting into.

[Anonymous No.10871348]

>>10871345
>
It's a bit like asking "I want to be a war hero. Should I join the Army or the Marines?" Someone "in the know" wouldn't just have to correct you about how likely it is that you'll become a war hero, they'd basically have to deconstruct your conception of what war and soldiering are altogether.
this is great and i'm stealing this line for the future anon

[Anonymous No.10871357]

>>10871345
Anon isn't even exaggerating.

It's in part a question of what you're willing to sacrifice and gamble on a career. I have a family and want to be a teacher more than a scholar, so there's only so much I'm willing to put on the altar of academic bullshut. If OP is single and willing to do sessional work for years, maybe he'll make it. I'd say it's better to stay where he is, though.

[Anonymous No.10871384]

>>10871334
english or history?

[Anonymous No.10871391]

>>10871384
I'm in English. I can't imagine history could be as bad, but it's tough in the humanities in general.

[Anonymous No.10871396]

>>10871345
Great reply. Though one could also question: what jobs DON'T fit that description these days? STEM has already become a meme. The humanities pose the challenges you exposed. What else is there?
>le trades dude
Will become saturated in the near future do to all the shilling, although there is some potential. But the potential is if you're willing to be your own boss, an entrepreneur. That will always exist because it's very elastic, regardless of how much it pays. But other than that we are all fucked. I just want the student debt bubble to burst soon, I'm tired of this hopeless atmosphere. Let it break down already so something new takes its place. If a crisis doesn't come soon, we will all go on slaving away for the slightest chance of some job while all our money goes to the top.

[Anonymous No.10871429]

>>10871391
>>10871345
>>10871334
>tfw doing history phd in a low ranked us school

[Anonymous No.10871441]

>>10871429
Just be realistic with your expectations and honest with yourself about your ambitions. And publish publish publish.

[Anonymous No.10871448]

>>10871396

This is kind of Zizek's thesis on why we should support most revolution and ruckus even if it's armed and what not (in spite of whether or not I think Zizek is a meme). According to him, Marx's analysis of the working class completely fails to apply today, because the very thing which was considered a condition of exploitation back then (being proletariat) is the dream of dreams nowadays.

The introduction in society of permanently unemployed people, and people that are completely locked out of the concept of "safety net", in massive numbers, has allowed capital to co-opt "being a proletariat" into "having a stable, guaranteed job with security" and subsequently make it a scarce and more desirable outcome for any given person. It would not be an exaggeration (which I claim boldly because I live in a third world country) to say that having a proper job like the previous generations is starting to actually fit the description of the poster you quoted (i.e like trying to become a war hero).

As for the OP himself, academia is only worth it if you are obsessed. Not only the obsession will fulfill your time, it will also help you ascend to at least a position where you can be sure you will get a new shitty position the next day rather than be fired. Actually getting a professorship on the other hand, takes more than obsession and will require you to do so much more than pester enough colleges. You'll need to build up connections and establish these connections, and after that demonstrate to said connections that you are worthy of being more than a connection, a "colleague" which is purposely a vague statement to show just how difficult it might be. I seriously do not recommend joining academia if you're not obsessed with your topic, and I urge you to think very much before diving in that cesspool. I am a physicist and by now (3rd year of PhD) I have already seen a reasonable number of close friends commit suicide (not leave, not drop out, commit suicide) over the woes they faced, most of it arriving from the fact they weren't actually interested in physics (I emphasize, not interested enough to be obsessed, even though they were very good at it).

[Anonymous No.10871466]

>>10871441
Dude, I just want a job. I would gladly settle for a 5-5 community college teaching job. My fear is even CC's would reject me
I seriously believe I have no chance
>publish
yeah I'm doing that, with the realization that the stanford grad with no publication + 2 conference paper will be placed above me

[Anonymous No.10871487]

>>10871466
I totally understand the desire to just get a job. I came really close to one lately, which would have been overworked and underpaid. I'm just finishing my dissertation and my research would have been perfect for the position. But I got passed over for someone else with more teaching experience. Just cant fucking win.

In any of the hiring committees that I've been involved with, any real publications in peer-reviewed journals would put you ahead of someone from a better school and nothing. So maybe there's hope.

[Anonymous No.10871499]

>>10871487
Where did you applied? Liberal Arts colleges?
I already crossed out r1-r2 schools, liberal art colleges, I'll probably focus on the low rank liberal arts and most likely community colleges.
>teaching experience
problem is I'm on a visa and I can't work outside my department, so I will only have "TA" experience on paper even if I thought some courses on my own

[Anonymous No.10871518]

>>10871499
The interview I had recently was for a small rural lib arts college. Ive focused on liberal arts and community college positions, but no success yet.

>so I will only have "TA" experience on paper even if I thought some courses on my own

Shit dude. Hope you can figure something out.

[Anonymous No.10871524]

>>10871518
Likewise, good luck to you too.
How long have you been searching for a job?

[Anonymous No.10871531]

>>10871345

Insightful post anon. I just got accepted to the Teacher Ed program at my school and I'm planning on being a teacher for some years and eventually going down the path you described with hopes of becoming a professor. Academia has become quite a passion for me but I am aware that the road is daunting. But one thing I'm curious about is what exactly does it mean to be a "superstar academic". I don't know what people are looking for in one's publications. I'm black and one of my black professors told me that writing for a black academic audience is a lot different from writing for your standard white liberal (for obvious reasons). It makes me think a lot because I'm constantly being aggrandized by white liberals in my school for being black and insightful but I think it's a farce. I'm curious to what would actually be considered groundbreaking content in academic circle. What must one contribute to their field in order to be a "superstar academic"?

[Anonymous No.10871533]

>>10871524
This is my second year of searching while I finish writing. I'll be done in 2 months and then shit will start getting real.

[Anonymous No.10871543]

>>10871533
>second year
I only will have one year after my thesis compeltion, after that they will kick me out.
I'll wojakpost my way to suicide

[Anonymous No.10871556]

>>10871448
I'm not familiar with Zizek's work, but that analysis seems spot on. I'm not the war hero anon btw.
What country are you from?
Also sorry for your friends

[Anonymous No.10871732]

>>10871396
>STEM has already become a meme.

Please don't remind me.

>>10871448
>most of it arriving from the fact they weren't actually interested in physics

I realized the same after I got my engineering degree.

[Anonymous No.10871907]

>>10871732
I dodged a bullet on that one, kinda. Got into electrical engineering, but noticed what I felt towards it was curiosity, not obsession, and I would lose any good jobs to those actually obsessed with it. I also got really depressed because I went into it ignoring that I wanted to be a musician since I was a kid, something I'm actually obsessed about. Dropped out of E.E. and now preparing for an audition to a music college (something I abhor, but there is virtually no marketplace in my country) in the US. Now I'm constantly desperate BUT I'm doing something I love, which means I don't mind living cheap or whatever to focus on it. On the long run I don't want to live in the city anyway, all I need is some money to buy a cheap piece of land and then recover it by myself. When I see friends getting their souls crushed on the daily because they chose a """safe""" path, I feel reassured. At least I can say I didn't trade my life for shekels.
It's sad though how everyone thinks I dropped E.E. because "le dumb musician", whereas I could easily outperform most of my classmates if I wanted to. They weren't the ones who would steal my job, but there are plenty of asians who made their first circuits at 8.

[Anonymous No.10872258]

>>10871345
>It's a bit like asking "I want to be a war hero. Should I join the Army or the Marines?
Damn fine analogy. I have similar thoughts when people talk about 'becoming a full-time writer'- it's a bit like saying 'my career plan is to win the lottery'.

[Anonymous No.10872754]

>>10871037
NO. Just stay where you are, for Christ's sake. I know it's hard, but you have a full-time job, and if you do what you plan to I promise you will never have one again. I've been an adjunct PT starving four-degree sucker for many years, begging for courses.

[Anonymous No.10872910]

>>10872754
>you will never have one again
Eh, seems a bit extreme. I got a PhD, decided along the way that I wasn't nearly into academia enough to put up with the job hunt, and got a non-academic job. Waste of time, but I'm hardly going to blow my brains out over it.

[Anonymous No.10873122]

>>10871556

I am from Brazil. We have plenty of international collaborations as far as physics topics are concerned, putting us under actually good light when it comes to quality of research, and there are quite some islands of excellence spread throughout the country. Naturally, this comes with all the first world problems described in this topic, tenure vs adjunct contracts included. The number of PhDs and post-docs is way higher than the number of positions available, older tenured professors suck the blood out of their students, etc.

In light of posts like >>10872910, I should emphasize that, when you live in a country like Brazil, and I'd wager the same goes down in India and other shitty countries that still manage to be non-negligible in academic terms, there is NO other choice after you choose to go down the academia path. In Brazil government and worker's syndicates tightly control the job market, such that I am strictly forbidden to get any developer/engineering/general problem solving industry job as soon as I step into a physics undergraduate course. Since there is no desire for our "entrepreneurs" to innovate and catch up, as they'd rather buy the pre-packaged solutions from overseas, consultant jobs are also out of the picture, unless I (ironically) work consulting from inside university as a professor. Teaching high school requires special licenses that are similar to doing another college, and the job prospects for teachers are so miserable I might as well pull my pants down for my PhD advisor.

My friends committed suicide because they made the wrong choices in a game that offered no second rounds, as they were already too old, tired and wasted to start anew with some other job. Of course this is added to the other stresses that come from simply being in a country with high rates of crime, poverty, etc. I definitely have no intentions of blowing my brains out and, in spite of my situation, enjoy things very much when I'm actually writing papers and working (I do coding on simulations, mostly), but I can kinda see where someone who does that is coming from. I wouldn't say it is that much better even if you're in a good country either, because you're still fueling prime years of your life and rivers of money just to find out you'll be sucking the proverbial dick of some old geezer for life.

[Anonymous No.10873523]

How saturated is Linguistics within the context of academia?

[Anonymous No.10873557]

>>10872910
I meant an academic full-time college/university teaching position, to be precise. You could get an unrelated job, or maybe go back to the public schools (or not--in our area, they have to pay you a lot more if you have grad degrees, so they won't hire you, as it wastes their school budget).

[Anonymous No.10873590]

engineering student considering suicide here: is a humanities undergrad worth it?

[Anonymous No.10873600]

>>10872754
This is a bitter pill to swallow: it's my dream was to become a professor and lecture at a university -ANY university. I feel like I could do it, but discouragement and doubt have been steadily preying on my mind as I continue to approach graduation. I don't want to let myself or my family down.

[Anonymous No.10873650]

>>10871345
>>10871334
>>10871037
>tfw highschool student that wants to get a PhD in Marine Sciences
>at least I'll be fulfilling myself and not getting a real job for free since my dad is the CEO of a successful tech company

[Anonymous No.10873684]

>>10873650
>future PhD highschool students
lmao
you will never work an honest day in your life

[Anonymous No.10873697]

>>10873684
yeah that'd be shitty for somebody who doesn't have a family worth millions

once I get my PhD and can't get a job they'll understand I can't get a job in todays economy and blame the dumb liberals or whatever boomers do these days

[Anonymous No.10873714]

>>10873697
just letting you know that when civil order comes tumbling down I'll come for your family first

[Anonymous No.10873726]

>>10873714
ok bud

[Anonymous No.10873764]

>>10873726
your days are numbered corpocuck

[Anonymous No.10873789]

>>10873764
>he wasn't born to modern nobility
why did you even try

[Anonymous No.10873813]

>>10871037
Serious question about PhD's for Comparative Literature. I might be able to go to an ivy for it -still on the wait list-, are job prospects that bad?

[Anonymous No.10873828]

>>10873813
Probably desu

[Anonymous No.10874197]

At least you're not me, Anon.

I'm a white male who's wrapping up a doctoral program in India. I majored in a STEM-field subject, realizing halfway through university that I had no intention or interest in pursuing scientific research or medicine. Wound up reevaluating my major, switching to global history, and doing a two-year stint in the Peace Corps.

Tried transforming my passion for issues related to socioeconomic development into an academic career. I've always been intrigued by the politics of power, wealth, and caste in South Asia, and opted to apply for graduate programs where I'd be able to do field research regularly.

Actually have had a great time but am very unsure of what my job prospects will be like. Sort of hoping that that my non-conventional route will appeal to a particular subset of academia but whatever.

I got into this telling myself that making money wasn't my priority. I don't think that's changed, but I've also accepted that I may end up working for an NGO or acting as a consultant rather than being an academic.

[Anonymous No.10875747]

>>10874197
How is it living in Asia?

[Anonymous No.10875750]

>>10873813
Job prospects will pretty much all be shit while this depression isn't solved desu. Pretty much all career paths are shit right now. Your best bet is truly doing something you're obsessed about, so you put in the hours regardless of how the market currently is.

[Anonymous No.10875771]

>>10871296
This is always the dumbest response.

[Anonymous No.10875807]

>>10871429
At least you could get into grad school.

[Anonymous No.10875845]

>>10875747

Not as bad as you'd expect, provided you're fine with crowds and a token amount of discomfort. Our student dormitories can be horrifically hot in the summer, though. One of my writing contracts decreased pay through May to cope with the aftermath of a lawsuit -- once my salary returns to normal, I'll probably try finding an apartment or room off-campus.

Since my university is among the best in the country, I don't find the educational system to be terribly different from what we have in the United States. However, many lower-ranked programs skew toward rote memorization and mindless, silent subservience to professors.

My favorite aspect of studying overseas is that I always have something to do -- I live in a massive city that encompasses thousands of years of history and is compromised of the poorest of the poor and the richest of the rich. Some of my classmates grew up reading photocopied, bootleg textbooks in straw huts, while others attended expensive private schools in America or the United Kingdom.

[Anonymous No.10875852]

>>10875845
Details on lawsuit? Why would they lower YOUR pay to cope with it?

[Anonymous No.10875882]

>>10875845
What about the poo?

[Anonymous No.10875900]

>>10875852

Because I work for a noncommercial website which receives funding from an out-of-state firm.

Our editor's budget covers digital maintenance, his pay, and my salary. After the sponsor settled the suit, he instructed content control to deduct the damages from the website's annual budget. Since there's little wiggle-room for unexpected legal catastrophes, the only source to pull from was authors' income.

Not really a big deal, IMO. I'm busy enough that writing a little less until summer doesn't bother me.

>>10875882

The only time I see that happening is when I'm on interstate trains. Poor people living in congested urban areas -- slums, basically -- usually shit along the tracks before heading off for work.

Day-to-day, I don't see anyone defecating in public. Random urination is far more frequent and seems to be limited less by affluence than education.

[Anonymous No.10876035]

>>10873122
So, correct me if I'm wrong, in Brazil the situation is similar to the US if you do a phd or similar, as in not having positions etc, but the reality reverts back to third world if you have only an undergrad or try to switch your field of work?

[Anonymous No.10876057]

>>10876035

Yes, that would be a good summary. the 'physics scene' if you would call it that, is so globalized that I would face the same competition in here or in the US or even in China, with the number of positions unfortunately not increasing proportionally. The nature of the jobs are also similar with only particularities related to lecturing and bureaucratic involvement. Should I leave my phd program and do something else though, I might as well give up because I am looking at an average wage that is already half of my current scholarship (which is pretty shitty to begin with) across every sector of the economy.

[Anonymous No.10876125]

>>10873590
You're better off starting a business. Of course that's a whole other journey, but at the very least you won't be at the behest of others. Most good paying jobs in humanities/languages are in academia, and academia is fucked. Everyone is getting fucked m8

[Anonymous No.10876504]

>>10876057
Brazilian here as well. I don't know what state you're from, but here in RS cursinho teachers have great wages. If you've a qualified background you probably wouldn't find it hard to get that gig. Teachers in the elite ones, that is, the pre med ones, get paid up to 50k/month(I know established teachers in Mottola and Fleming normally get 30k up - plus you get qts throwing themselves at you if you're not fugly). Ironically I think that's one of the best jobs in the current economic climate. You'll grind a bit to get in, but once you're hired in one of those places you're pretty much set for life.