Stuck in a bog of Graduate Decisions

December 3, 2007 3:11 PM

Help me decide what venue of higher education to pursuit.

Let me give a rough rundown or blueprint of my situation so you all can get a feeling of where I am and why I'm in this quagmire:

-Recent graduate of undergraduate humanities program. Really enjoyed my course load and did well in my respective fields of practice. General affinity towards academia
-completed honors thesis, which was a mix of aesthetics/art history, literature, structuralist theory and philosophy.

-Pragmatic (financial) thinking coupled with a good tenure in my university's student judiciary and intellectually stimulating pre-law classes prompted me to take the LSATs...scored well (mid 160s) but not great (170+). Instead of applying straight, graduated and moved to a job as a legal assistant to get a feel for that field (as well as some needed cash).

-Currently working as a Legal Assistant and am quite miserable with the banality of the job and "office life." Planning on quiting in the next week or so...perhaps fill in the time with a temp job (what to do?) to keep the finances in order.

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Basically, I've ruled out Law School. Although I have seesawed between the idealistic starving artist/academic path and the pragmatic/enjoy a 911 Turbo/Law Career path, I truly believe that the former and not the latter will be right for me because my heart is in the humanities and my sense of cash is in law.

But here's the kicker: What area of graduate studies do I pursuit? I was an English Lit/Lang major but I tended to draw myself towards more theoretical and philosophical endeavors. A PhD in Phil is a huge commitment and it seems like an uphill struggle in a competitive field of academia.

I am quite certain that I will take the GREs in about 6 -9 months, but I don't know what programs I could apply to?
I also have some interest in economics and financial markets, but no real formal undergraduate experience in either (I started off in the business school but left to pursuit education in the humanities).

Basically, I feel like a Renaissance man in that I have interest in such a wide variety of fields, but I can't really hone myself into one that I believe will have a future in terms of stability as well as intellectual and personal gratification.

Any tips? Many thanks...

posted by stratastar to education (21 comments total)

don't go to grad school if you don't know what you want to do, unless you have endless piles of cash and just want to gain knowledge.

instead, try a different job. you have a pretty broad background. why not go work for a nonprofit, a political interest group, or even your local government? 'tis the season...you might even be able to get a job on a political campaign. you may enjoy public affairs if you like getting out and talking to people--larger offices, like at universities or large companies, can be interesting.

make a list of five jobs you think might be neat. find people who do those jobs and schedule informational interviews. that will give you some insight.
posted by thinkingwoman at 3:22 PM on December 3, 2007

Ok, here's my negative speech:

Grad school is the anti-Renaissance man. Don't go to grad school just because you can't think of what else to do.

Don't go to grad school because you like learning and want to stay in school. School is familiar, you know you can do it, but believe me that grad school in the humanities will lack some of the key things you remember so fondly from college (open exploration, broad sweep, etc). Grad school is about narrow, narrow focus. If you are really passionate about an area, this can be great -- but it sounds like you aren't, yet. If you just like humanities-ish stuff and are good at it, that is a bad reason to go to grad school. You should seriously consider getting a real job instead of entering academia. You can always come back to academia later once you have identified your actual passion, and know what you want out of grad school. Don't go to grad school to find yourself, it will only end in tears (and in this same "what jobs can I do?" feeling when you are 30 and have spent your 20s earning no money and getting no work experience).

Library science gets a lot of good press here. Editing is another real job that you can do with humanities-ish skills, and spending your early 20s paying dues so that you can get a desirable editor job in your later 20s is time well spent. (otherwise you may just be starting on the same path later if you leave academia)

As to your specific question: In top philosophy departments in the US, there is little sympathy for structuralism and other continental-ish stuff. The more natural home for that stuff is in literary theory, comp lit, departments.
posted by LobsterMitten at 3:24 PM on December 3, 2007 [2 favorites]

A PhD in Phil is a huge commitment and it seems like an uphill struggle in a competitive field of academia.

I don't think a Ph.D. in Philosophy is necessarily more difficult than a Ph.D. in History or English.

You say you're interested in "academia," but what exactly does that mean? Does that mean you want to teach at the university-level? If so, then you're obviously going to need a Ph.D. If not, then what kind of academic career did you have in mind? The applications of a graduate-level education in humanities (outside of professorship) are less obvious than they are in the sciences. A little more information might facilitate some more targeted advice.
posted by Nelsormensch at 3:25 PM on December 3, 2007

There are fewer jobs in philosophy than in history or English, and there is less of a sense that the degree is useful for anything outside of academia. That is, with a history PhD you have a shot at being a curator etc. With an English PhD you can teach writing at any level with credibility, or you can more-obviously apply it toward becoming an academic editor. A philosophy PhD doesn't have even those rudimentary outs.

But yes - any PhD program will be a huge investment of time and mental/emotional energy.

You can get a master's in some humanities field, but they usually charge tuition and such degrees are not the kind that "pay for themselves" in terms of later increased earning potential (like an MD or JD does), except in rare cases like public school teaching.
posted by LobsterMitten at 3:32 PM on December 3, 2007

Grad school is about narrow, narrow focus. If you are really passionate about an area, this can be great

This is worth highlighting. What I remember fondly from college is the breadth of disciplines all coming together and interacting, in the form of lectures, speakers, exhibits, etc. Grad school is not like this. You go to grad school to become the world's expert in some tiny little corner of the universe.

Some people thrive on this kind of focus. Others see the five years of grad school as an acceptable trade-off for the later benefits of academic life. (hint, it's about the lifestyle, definitely not the money). Many others hate it and drop out.

I'll also agree that some of the most successful grad students are those who have worked real jobs for a few years and come back to grad school. They know exactly what they want out of their graduate career and often work harder to get it.

That's not saying that you can't stumble into a graduate program and end up loving it. It's just that your odds of doing well and being happy are better if you come in with a purpose in mind.
posted by chrisamiller at 3:41 PM on December 3, 2007

Seconding everybody else: figure out what you really want to do before you apply to graduate school. It's not a good place to try to "find yourself".
posted by Quietgal at 3:48 PM on December 3, 2007

Also seconding everyone else. Lots of people start graduate programs in humanities and social sciences because they can't think of anything better to do and they liked college. The lucky ones drop out fast. The unlucky ones drag on through eight or ten years of poverty and end up unable to find employment as a professor, and then drop out of the discipline.

Currently working as a Legal Assistant and am quite miserable with the banality of the job and "office life."

Then for God's sake do not ever enter any PhD program, ever, under any circumstances. Academic jobs, at least outside of the physical sciences, are like office jobs, except more solitary and removed, and often with even worse office politics.

"A PhD in Phil is a huge commitment"

FTFY.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 4:01 PM on December 3, 2007

Lots of people start graduate programs in humanities and social sciences because they can't think of anything better to do and they liked college. The lucky ones drop out fast.

That was me. You sound a lot like I did. "Hey, I liked school a lot, learning is groovy, wouldn't it be great to read books all day for a full-time job?!" I hated grad school with a passion. I didn't fit in, I didn't have the competitive spirit, and I couldn't study the things I wanted to study.

I did end up in Library Science about 6 years after that, which was a lot better.
posted by matildaben at 4:12 PM on December 3, 2007 [1 favorite]

I'm going to second many of the suggestions above (you have to define an interest first, and one that is a bit more narrow). I will say, however, that I really enjoyed aspects of grad school (the classes, lectures, teaching), but I had an interest identified before I went in. Many people are correct, you are expected to narrowly define your area of interest.

I'm going to suggest another work environment and another possibility.

-Since you do well with law and the humanities, have you ever looked into continuing legal education (I don' know if that's the right term). Anyway, the idea behind it is that you write for people in the law field so they can keep up-to-date with the material. It may give you the chance to combine writing, a bit of creativity, and law...although I guarantee the office environment will still be there.

-Find a job - any job - that offers the benefit of tuition for a few courses a year. University jobs tend to offer this benefit, but you could try out courses and perhaps narrow your area of interest/or at least satisfy the 'learning' interest that it sounds like you have.

-If you are interested in economics/finances, find a job in that field now. You may underestimate your undergraduate degree, the degree you have now (along with the interview) should demonstrate you have the ability to learn new info -- and a job in the respective field can give you the training.

-See if you can find a masters that is fully funded? I know there were occasionally masters degrees in the sciences that were funded with an additional research requirement. It would give you a chance to take courses, do a little research, and again, find if you are interested in a particular area - with only a 2 year investment vs several.

Good luck.
posted by Wolfster at 4:56 PM on December 3, 2007

I hate to be the one to say it, but your incorrect usage of "pursuit" as a verb above (you meant "pursue," whereas "pursuit" is a noun) tells me you need to work on your writing skills no matter what you do, but certainly if you hope to go on to funded graduate study.
posted by fourcheesemac at 5:31 PM on December 3, 2007 [1 favorite]

A PhD in Philosophy is a soul crushing experience. You should only do it if you cannot imagine yourself being happy doing anything else. (Seriously, I am one of those people that want to be a philosopher and nothing else. Grad school is hell.)
posted by oddman at 5:53 PM on December 3, 2007

Lots of people start graduate programs in humanities and social sciences because they can't think of anything better to do and they liked college. The lucky ones drop out fast.

Editing is another real job that you can do with humanities-ish skills, and spending your early 20s paying dues so that you can get a desirable editor job in your later 20s is time well spent.

Seconding both these statements. I went to grad school for American/cultural studies because, hey! It seemed like the obvious thing to do at the time (having been a big smarty-pants at a prestigious college who skated through with a double major in English and history, and had interests very similar to yours).

I fled after finishing my MA when I realized that it was really not what I had bargained for. ("Soul-crushing" is, indeed, a good description.) What shocked me the most was that grad school is really nothing like being an undergrad. You are called upon to justify your basic existence -- to your professors, your peers, and yourself -- in a way that is completely unlike the experience of college, where natural smarts, combined with an enjoyment of reading, research, and discussion, is generally enough to allow you to flourish.

So I was one of the lucky ones and got out at 25, and wound up embarking on a kind of weird, not-at-all-typical route to editing -- a route that involved, basically, taking on a ton of writing/editorial oddjobs as a freelancer and paying the rent by working in business communications for several years -- and eventually landed my current job producing exhibition catalogues at a major museum.

I have researched and edited texts for such topics as central European avant-garde movements before WWII, contemporary Chicano performance art, the collections of William Randolph Hearst, Magritte and his relation to contemporary art, ballet and opera costume design, and underground artist collectives in East Germany before the fall of the Berlin wall -- a range of topics, periods, and ideas that I would likely never have encountered had I stayed on an increasingly narrow academic track.

I have friends and family members who stayed in academics (some of them very successful and prestigious within their fields), and I totally respect the work they do, but honestly? I have zero regrets that I jumped ship -- my job beats academics hands-down. There's no pressure to publish or perish, I didn't have to go through tenure, and my nights/weekends are (generally) my own. That's not to say that I don't work really hard (book deadlines are insane, and when I'm on deadline it is the Center.Of.My.Life, as my boyfriend has had to learn to deal with), or that editing doesn't come with its own shares of frustrations and limitations (because god knows, it does).

But at the end of the day, it's a stimulating and satisfying career that synchs well with my skills and interests (and, after having been at it so long, the pay's not bad, either). If you're smart, detail-oriented, care about the written word, and enjoy research, editing could seriously be up your alley.
posted by scody at 6:25 PM on December 3, 2007 [4 favorites]

As somebody who went to library school and has taught in library school, I suggest not considering library school until you have explored all other venues and decided that library school is the path to your career goals.

Liking books and reading are bad reasons to go to library school. You'll hate it and won't end up taking full advantage of the opportunities. And then you'll blame the school when you have a hard time finding a job (it's not rare for new library school graduates these days to spend over a year looking for a full-time position) and the student loans come due.

Seconding everybody else, don't go to graduate school just because you don't know what else to do. Only go to graduate school if it's part of an overall plan and that graduate degree is a stepping stone to your ultimate goal.
posted by needled at 6:42 PM on December 3, 2007

Thanks for all of the helpful info. It has given me food for thought
posted by stratastar at 7:12 PM on December 3, 2007

I'd follow your heart, which seems to indicate a stronger interest in the arts and literature. Now you need to get more specific. Put together a list of what you enjoy, and then narrow down from there. The begin researching schools that seem to match your field of interest. Good luck!
posted by DudeAsInCool at 11:43 PM on December 3, 2007

Here's what my undergrad philosophy department website says about graduate study:

Is it a good idea to go to graduate school in philosophy?

With rare exceptions, we don't think so; at any rate, we don't encourage it. It is not that we don't think that graduate study in philosophy is inherently of value, we do. It is just that employment prospects in the discipline, primarily in academic posts, are currently quite dim and unlikely to improve in the near future. We especially discourage students from incurring debt as they further their studies in graduate school.


What should I do if I decide I want to pursue further study in philosophy in graduate school?

First, talk to members of the Philosophy Department faculty. Second, do some research on graduate programs in philosophy. Here we are very fortunate because of the existence of the Philosophical Gourmet Report, an invaluable resource which gives detailed descriptons and assessments of graduate programs in philosophy throughout the English-speaking world. Third, then go lie down and re-think the entire matter.

posted by philomathoholic at 12:22 AM on December 4, 2007

I forgot to echo this very true statement, from LobsterMitten:

In top philosophy departments in the US, there is little sympathy for structuralism and other continental-ish stuff. The more natural home for that stuff is in literary theory, comp lit, departments.

The type of philosophy that philosophy departments mainly do is analytic.
posted by philomathoholic at 12:32 AM on December 4, 2007

I was an English Lit/Lang major but I tended to draw myself towards more theoretical and philosophical endeavors.

There's a lot of theory involved in any English graduate program. Digging deep into those areas will be a big part of your graduate work. If you're already interested in theory, that's a plus.

Graduate school is more tightly focussed, but there is crosstalk between certain disciplines. My own work drew on literary theory, philosophy, and the historiography.

A PhD in Phil is a huge commitment and it seems like an uphill struggle in a competitive field of academia.

True. This is why I got a master's a bailed. (I actually went back for a second master's in a different field, but I never pursued the Ph.D., which was my original goal.) My degrees have opened doors for me and I value them for that and for what I learned while I was pursuing them.

Currently working as a Legal Assistant and am quite miserable with the banality of the job and "office life."

Know this: a lot of most any kind of work is banal. Work, even in a field you enjoy, is not some magical escape from banality. But I greatly prefer the sort of work I'm able to do now than the sort I was able to do when I only had an undergraduate degree.
posted by wheat at 6:26 AM on December 4, 2007

I second all of the posters (like LobsterMitten) who have suggested that you hold off on grad school until you find what you are most interested in and would enjoy as a career.

My story is somewhat similar. I skated through undergrad and then went straight to law school. After a year and a half of law school, I was miserable. I left with a large amount of loans. Panic set in because I felt my B.A. in history would get me nowhere. So what did I do? Immediately jumped into a grad program for history without thinking. I did it partly because I have no interest in business, finance, accounting - degrees that would allow me to go after higher paying jobs in my region.

I worked my tail off, graduated, and had two job offers when I left. One was in government, the other for a state historical society. Ultimately, for many, many reasons, I chose the state job. It does not pay very much, but like Scody, I think my quality of life makes up for it. I also enjoy working with the wide variety of people who come through the door every day and the chance to learn neat facts while working.

There are days, though, when I wish I had taken my time and either not burned out at law school or taken my time in selecting a grad program.

Take your time, think it over, find out what you enjoy doing, but be realistic. Good luck!
posted by Coyote at the Dog Show at 6:53 AM on December 4, 2007

I take it by "recent grad" that you graduated last May, and you've been working about 6 months (yes?).

You say that you're currently working as a Legal Assistant and am quite miserable with the banality of the job and "office life."

I should just point out that I, along with nearly every single one of my friends, had a really hard adjustment to office life in the first year out of undergrad. For me, the absolute *worst* of it was about 6 months in. (I think this is similar for a lot of people, because for your whole academic life until now, you've only ever had to tough it out for a semester of boring work, at which point you could generally switch or drop classes. Realizing you can't--that there's no break coming after 6 months--is profoundly depressing at first.) My unhappiness in my job was completely unexpected, because no one had ever mentioned how difficult the transition between college and a 9-5 office job would be, even if you are totally suited for your job.

I loved the broad sweep of college and writing papers and doing research, and I was lucky enough to land a job at a firm that does (academic-type) research but actually pays you for it, which should have been everything I asked for... and yet I was totally, totally miserable. I'd never had to sit in once place for 8 hours a day, no sunlight, not able to really take off and do something else for a couple hours if I was bored or unable to get into my work. You don't really realize how amazing flexible your schedule is being in school until you don't have it anymore.

I'm not sure what you should take from the above--I've adjusted and now mostly love my job; most of my friends also adjusted and really like their jobs; and a few left and went back to graduate school. I guess I'm just putting this out there because I'm worried that you're confusing the general initial miserableness of working an office job with the particular field you're in, particularly if you really were intellectually stimulated by your pre-law classes in undergrad.

If that's not the case--if it's that you hate the actual work, and you look at what people higher up the firm do and you think that seems boring or awful as well--then by all means do something different. But if the part that is making you miserable is the drudgery of getting up every morning to go in and sit at a desk for 8 hours, and having to start at the bottom with the crap work rather than focusing on the big-picture, interesting stuff you did in school--well, that gets better. You adjust to the different time schedule, and you realize that there's a certain amount of crap you have to slog through to get to the good stuff. College, particularly if you went to a good college, doesn't really prepare you for the fact that everyone starts at the bottom, and the fact that most people have to do work well below their skill level for a year or two before proving themselves and getting better stuff. If you'd actually be happy in law, it'd be a shame to not at least give it a year to see if the problem is this job in particular or just an adjustment to the working world in general.
posted by iminurmefi at 9:56 AM on December 4, 2007 [2 favorites]

I have mentioned this a couple of times in the past, but whenever people tell me that they have an interest in academia, I always tell them to look into pursuing a PhD in business. I agree with all of the advice above, that you shouldn't just start some program because you are bored. The reason I mention getting a PhD in business is b/c a lot of people with an interest in academics have never thought about it, and this career has a lot of positives.

The demand outstrips the supply for Ph.D.s in all concentrations of business (Finance, Accounting, Marketing, Management, Information Systems). This is especially true at the top end of the market (the best research schools). However, unlike other academic disciplines, people with Business Ph.D.'s basically never worry about getting an academic job, they just worry about how good of an academic job they will get. Also, the pay is much better than most other academic disciplines.

I love what I am doing and I have lots of information about the subject. If you are really interested, send me an email (in my profile). I will be happy to give you real numbers, etc.
posted by bove at 10:09 AM on December 4, 2007