I recently ran across yet another Gloom and Doom article detailing, in more or less positive/nihilistic/action-driven terms, all the reasons why pursuing a career in Humanities academia is the dumbest decision an otherwise intelligent person can make. I have a masochistic tendency to find this kind of apocalyptic journalism on my own, so combining this article with what I've already read and with the literature that questionably-intentioned adults have sent me, I've read enough Anti-English Academia material that I will not be at all surprised if, when I approach the mailbox on the day I drop off my grad school applications, a buzzing, neon sign drops down from the heavens, glaring, SERIOUSLY. ARE YOU SURE??
I'm getting a little indignant about the whole thing, to be honest. And not merely out of the gut-instinct poutiness over the Bullies of Logic and Statistical Trends beating up the weak, pale skeleton of My Ideal Profession... although there is the part of me who feels a little embittered that what I like to do happens to be the least practical and likely career on earth next to miming, while my quantitatively-minded roommate will be heartily recompensed straight out of college for her natural and oddly fervent love for accounting.
But what I find myself becoming more indignant over is the vast, empty gulf that exists between what Mr. Gloom-and-Doom tells me to do and what my professors and confidantes recommend. (The job market as a whole is shrinking, and it's even worse in the humanities. But Baby Boomers will be retiring right when you finish grad school! But more and more people are getting English PhD's. Job competition is incredibly fierce; only the best of the best get tenure-track positions. Don't worry; you'll be one of the prized few. No, seriously, it's actually really unlikely that you'll have a job. No, seriously, you'll be fine.) The opinions are so polarized and so seemingly authoritative--statistics vs. professors in the field who know me--that there doesn't even appear to be a way to make a logical choice. Mr. Spock himself would be at a loss.
I've managed to tightrope myself to a passable middle ground; if I get accepted into any of the high-profile PhD programs to which I apply, I'll spend the next 5-8 years getting paid to do something I love, and if I come out the other end finding that I can't find a job, well, at least then I'll have a PhD. The world can always use a few more overqualified private school teachers.
Potentially more enlightening is the realization that the spirit of caution-to-the-wind exploration is completely lost on me. Not being able to make an analytical judgment, even after consulting outside data and opinions on which I would normally rely to incline me to one direction or the other, I find myself frustrated and petulant, eager to defer my energy to blaming society for its skewed priorities or my parents for allowing me to idealistically pursue my linguaphilian dreams in such a cold, utilitarian world. Un-displaced, I'm really just frustrated that Life hasn't provided me with a roadmap. While pursuing an English PhD sounds fun, flinging myself into an uncertain future does not.
Stick-in-the-mud, party of one.
"The irresistible proliferation of graphomania shows me that everyone without exception bears a potential writer within him, so that the entire human species has good reason to go down into the streets and shout: we are all writers! for everyone is pained by the thought of disappearing, unheard and unseen, into an indifferent universe, and because of that everyone wants, while there is still time, to turn himself into a universe of words. one morning (and it will be soon), when everyone wakes up as a writer, the age of universal deafness and incomprehension will have arrived."
- Milan Kundera
I'm getting a little indignant about the whole thing, to be honest. And not merely out of the gut-instinct poutiness over the Bullies of Logic and Statistical Trends beating up the weak, pale skeleton of My Ideal Profession... although there is the part of me who feels a little embittered that what I like to do happens to be the least practical and likely career on earth next to miming, while my quantitatively-minded roommate will be heartily recompensed straight out of college for her natural and oddly fervent love for accounting.
But what I find myself becoming more indignant over is the vast, empty gulf that exists between what Mr. Gloom-and-Doom tells me to do and what my professors and confidantes recommend. (The job market as a whole is shrinking, and it's even worse in the humanities. But Baby Boomers will be retiring right when you finish grad school! But more and more people are getting English PhD's. Job competition is incredibly fierce; only the best of the best get tenure-track positions. Don't worry; you'll be one of the prized few. No, seriously, it's actually really unlikely that you'll have a job. No, seriously, you'll be fine.) The opinions are so polarized and so seemingly authoritative--statistics vs. professors in the field who know me--that there doesn't even appear to be a way to make a logical choice. Mr. Spock himself would be at a loss.
I've managed to tightrope myself to a passable middle ground; if I get accepted into any of the high-profile PhD programs to which I apply, I'll spend the next 5-8 years getting paid to do something I love, and if I come out the other end finding that I can't find a job, well, at least then I'll have a PhD. The world can always use a few more overqualified private school teachers.
Potentially more enlightening is the realization that the spirit of caution-to-the-wind exploration is completely lost on me. Not being able to make an analytical judgment, even after consulting outside data and opinions on which I would normally rely to incline me to one direction or the other, I find myself frustrated and petulant, eager to defer my energy to blaming society for its skewed priorities or my parents for allowing me to idealistically pursue my linguaphilian dreams in such a cold, utilitarian world. Un-displaced, I'm really just frustrated that Life hasn't provided me with a roadmap. While pursuing an English PhD sounds fun, flinging myself into an uncertain future does not.
Stick-in-the-mud, party of one.
"The irresistible proliferation of graphomania shows me that everyone without exception bears a potential writer within him, so that the entire human species has good reason to go down into the streets and shout: we are all writers! for everyone is pained by the thought of disappearing, unheard and unseen, into an indifferent universe, and because of that everyone wants, while there is still time, to turn himself into a universe of words. one morning (and it will be soon), when everyone wakes up as a writer, the age of universal deafness and incomprehension will have arrived."
- Milan Kundera
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