Discussion about this post

User's avatar
John_E's avatar

I often wonder what would need to happen to imitate the intellectual stimulation of a great humanities MA outside of an institutional setting that still leads to the unlocking of doors within a particular industry. Is it a really well organized book club? Is it a job search group of BA holders in a certain area that get together to discuss big ideas, best practices in job seeking, and future plans? I do understand that we've over-credentialed so many fields in our country, so any non-institutional intellectual outlet would not have the weight to lead to improved outcomes to under-employed, smart BA holders, but there has to be a way to chip away at the institutional stranglehold of employment in certain industries. Or, do these folks just need to suck it up and become a cog in the corporate wheel?

Expand full comment
Ali's avatar

I have been following this series with great interest. Amazingly, my college undergrad humanities professors gave me *very* transparent and useful advice when I asked them about grad school options. The history professor whom I really admired told me "I have a moral obligation to tell you that there are no academia jobs and it's not a good investment for you to pursue a history Ph.D. What you should do instead is gain some applied policy and research skills and find ways to work in the history aspects you've liked into a more stable career path. Also you should work for a few years first and then go from there."

I am grateful to this day for his honesty, and that's pretty much exactly what I ended up doing. I worked for several years and am now in a fully funded and very applied policy PhD program - it *still* feels risky but the program's job placement & salary track record outside of academia is extremely good and now I have prior work experience to draw from. I think it helped that he gave me options for things I *could* do rather than only telling me "no, don't do this."

Expand full comment
46 more comments...

No posts