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Jul 28, 2021Liked by Anne Helen Petersen

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?

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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."

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As someone who didn't attend grad school nor ever really have any interest in it, the part that jumped out to me the most was "what I wanted most as an undergrad was to keep thinking about film and literature the same way that my favorite classes allowed." Because I often feel that way when reading your writing and in the communities you've fostered (here and on FB) - thank you AHP!

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I started a master's degree in Occupational Therapy when I was around 6 years out of undergrad. I'd been a history major, and I worked at a few different jobs in NYC. I'd done well but felt like my work was lacking meaning, and in light of the financial crisis (I started thinking about grad school in 2010), I wanted to make sure I was making a responsible choice if I was going to take on debt for an advanced degree. There was a general consensus that healthcare was a secure field with a good ROI. I did research, shadowing, prerequisite courses, and applied.

I hated the experience almost from day 1, and I felt in my gut that I had made a mistake in pursuing this degree/career. But, as an overachiever who hadn't quit anything, I convinced myself that I needed to push through and that eventually, I would like it. So, I completed the two-year degree and the clinical training, and I came out with six figures of debt and a degree for a career I didn't want to do. It felt completely devastating; like I had made this irreparable error. I fell into a deep depression and developed anxiety, and after about six months working in the field, I decided it was finally time to cut my losses.

In the last 5 years, I've transitioned into a new career where I am making a good salary, and it's made me eligible for PSLF, so that has taken some of the loan pressure off. I am incredibly lucky that I was able to make the change I made, and I had support from my family and husband to do it.

Our education system is set up in such a way that most people can't afford to make the kind of "mistake" I made. The debt becomes a trap at a time in your life where you are still figuring so many things out about yourself and the world. I have so much shame and guilt around my experience that I don't generally talk about it, but I am sure there are others like me.

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The problem of professors not knowing anything about careers outside of academic is one that hurts me. I remember feeling so disoriented when I was finishing my bachelor's. I told one of my Arabic teachers I wanted to be a translator and he had no advice at all. No one had advice for me, not even our department advisor. My dad thought I should work for the CIA/NSA/military but that was the last thing I wanted. I know there must have been jobs out there but I had no idea how to find them or even what to look for.

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I went through a similar University of Chicago program that you didn’t cover, and managed to get myself out of the debt hole I found myself in. I think you need to begin the conversation about these issues at an earlier point than undergrad. I’m not going to ever advise my sons to attend university to study the humanities or the social sciences. Options like trade school or community college are much more economical and can lead to actual careers. You can begin an apprenticeship at 16, have your ticket by 20, make very good money and read/write/think on your own time.

I’m trapped in the sort of physical labour career that I wanted to avoid, but it’s okay. I make a good wage and can provide. I do take constant shit for being stupid enough to study the humanities but it’s in good fun. I don’t begrudge the universities, I did it to myself and they taught me a very expensive lesson that I can pass on to the next generation.

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Just noticed the Department of Labor's "Occupational Outlook Handbook" description of the job outlook for librarians: "Employment of librarians and library media specialists is projected to grow 5 percent from 2019 to 2029, faster than the average for all occupations. Communities are increasingly turning to libraries for a variety of services and activities. Therefore, there will be a need for librarians and library media specialists to manage these resources and to help patrons find information." Also, in a "Quick Facts" chart describe the typical entry-level education as

a Bachelor's degree, though further in the entry say "Librarians typically need a master’s degree in library science (MLS). School librarians and library media specialists typically need a bachelor’s or master’s degree in a related field, along with a teaching certificate; requirements vary by state."

Yikes! The Occupational Outlook Handbook is supposed to be the best place to research one's career. I wouldn't be surprised if they got these rosy predictions from the ALA.

How about professors? According to the OOH, "Overall employment of postsecondary teachers is projected to grow 9 percent from 2019 to 2029, much faster than the average for all occupations. Projected employment growth varies by academic field."

Talk about a need for "better, more accessible data!"

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Not all campus career counselors! The Humanities Professional Resource Center at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign proves exactly the kinds of interventions recommended here.

Unlike graduate schools, many colleges are eagerly collecting outcomes data. Unfortunately, the growing pressure on outcomes incentivizes colleges to make the problem worse. Students who go directly on to grad school can make for prettier “first destination” data than those who spend a year or two exploring their options and taking low paid entry level jobs.

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I love this whole series so much. I'm a former academic advisor and former PhD student who can speak to all of these things. So many students want to go to grad school to further their careers, or because someone told them they would do well, or because they don't know what they want to do yet, or because that MFA/film/etc. program would allow them to pursue a passion they couldn't pursue as an undergrad. And as a former grad student who had some support (the university paid for one class per semester) I still have a great deal of debt, and worse, I wasn't able to continue my program (for reasons not of my own doing). Not that I mind so much, as I am doing much better as a writer, drawing on my research and writing experience in my program, than I would have likely done as an older than average PhD holder unwilling to hopscotch across the country taking random adjunct positions, especially with the pandemic.

I chose to pursue a different career after nearly two decades as an advisor in part because of an increasingly mercenary university administration that put profits and administrative salaries ahead of students or faculty (or staff) and in part because I had stopped believing in the "product" I was selling - I could not in good conscience keep pushing grad school on students who were unlikely to reap the benefits, and it was increasingly demoralizing to cheer students on to complete degrees they didn't want or value just so they could "get a good job." Knowing that a lot of the students had poor job prospects due to a lack of experience or internships, and that they would be saddled with heavy debt (which continued to grow year after year as tuition keeps increasing well beyond cost of living/inflation rates), made my job increasingly hard to stomach.

We really need to rethink both the nature/purpose of higher education and how it's funded, and dramatically change the model of student loans. (And it would be nice to see at least some loans waived because that would be a game-changer for a lot of us.)

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This series was so freaking good. It was everything I wanted, and more. There's this cult of academia, where we keep being told that if you just get yet another expensive ass piece of paper you'll "make it". It's all about showing you're trainable, not the learning itself, and I have yet to find companies that really care aside from it being a checkbox to check in applications.

When younger friends start talking about "going back to school" I always end up the canary in the coalmine to them, singing "are you sure", and "what will that get you (other than debt)". I need this series packaged up with a little bow for them! Brills, thanks AHP this was so so good to read.

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I really resonated with your comment about how mentors can accidentally put students in the grad school trap. That was me! A well-meaning professor said "it would be a shame if I didnt do a PhD," even though he was years out of the job market. And here I am, feeling guilty years after a masters for never going back to school. I could just never justify the stress and the cost. The idea of making poverty wages (not that I even make all that much in my career field of choice, but at least the work is engaging) for 6-8 years already seems to trigger my mental health. And now seeing that the other side of that (save for a lucky few willing to sacrifice it all) there isn't even that great of salaries...I think the entire national conversation on jobs need to shift.

Students need honest conversations with mentors and job counselors that can get through to them. What salary number do you need each month to take care of yourself and your family? Based on that, sadly, students should make choices. Going about it the other way is a recipe for failure in this late capitalist world of rising costs and stagnant wages.

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Again, thanks for this series. My perspective as someone who made the choice to do a fully funded MA (I don't need to take out any loans at all, although I have had some supplemental income from contracting work and paid internship work in my field) is that even when people are telling you "find a fully funded program!" it's hard for that message to sink in. I had to really think about what people meant by that, about how much I already made in my full time job in the field (not a lot), about my earning potential after the program, and my ideal lifestyle, and whether I COULD actually budget in any debt or loans at all. I realized I couldn't. But that type of thinking takes, among other things, an understanding of what it is to work in your desired field AND to be financially independent -- something many students coming straight out of undergrad have no measure of. When I was 22 and got offered my first full time job, I thought the 37k I was offered (in NYC) was amazing. It sounded like a huge amount of money. Now some years on and trying to plan for more expensive adult things, like a bigger apartment, or ultimately buying a place, or having kids, it becomes apparent just how little that is. And if I can expect to make 50k after my MA, I don't want a cent of that going to loans. I think that these programs really target students who are just graduating with their BA, or maybe have tried and failed to find full time work for one or more years, and are getting desperate -- while also not truly being equipped to understand these financial elements of funding and the decision. It seems like a no brainer to do the prestigious MA for these people who may think it's their ticket to a great job, but many people I spoke to while applying actually hadn't found full time employment after finishing the programs, which was a big red flag. Unfortunately, I think it all ties into the scarcity of particular types of jobs for new graduates, the competition which keeps pay low, and (as is often joked about on twitter) the ever-increasing qualifications needed for 'entry level.' And these MA programs 100% bank on all this being true and the endless supply of students to whom it LOOKS like a valuable next step, even if it isn't.

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I enjoyed this series very much, though I feel something crucial is missing: mainly, the boring stories of the many many students who earn sensible graduate degrees by paying sensible tuition and graduate to make sensible wages. The continuing debate over the value of graduate education is important, but too often the extremes on either end are put in the spotlight. Some graduate degrees are a relatively straightforward path to a high salary, while others are unwise investments. But I suspect that the vast majority of graduate degree holders have a manageable amount of debt and earn decent, middle class wages. No?

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"What I didn’t understand was that there were so many ways to do so that weren’t grad school." That's the take-away line for me. Interestingly, I was told by one academic only to apply for a PhD if there was absolutely nothing else that you could see yourself doing. I regret not taking that advice more seriously.

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What started out as an interesting series has now devolved into boilerplate humanities quit lit.

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Did you mean to say “Not necessarily“ here?

“Should a program cease to exist because its projected salary is less than its debt? Not necessary. In many fields, the debt-to-salary ratio is too blunt of measuring tool”

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