Open Letter to My Students: No, You Cannot be a Professor (2011)

http://northwesthistory.blogspot.se/2011/11/open-letter-to-my-students-no-you.html

by msvan • 13 years ago

114 109 13 years ago

northwesthistory.blogspot.se

leephillips2• 13 years ago

With the exception of a professional school (medicine, law), do not pay to go to graduate school. If they're not paying you, something's wrong.

bradleyjg2• 13 years ago

The rule for law school is don't go at all, even for free. There are de minimis* exceptions, but for the vast majority of people at this point in time, it's a terrible move.

*E.g. your grandfather is Joe Jamail

geebee2• 13 years ago

Does this apply to truly elite law schools (like, Harvard, Stanford, Yale, maybe Columbia?)

jnbiche• 13 years ago

Would you apply this advice to even a master's degree? In my experience, it is exceedingly rare for universities to offer tuition reduction for a master's degree, unless it's a pure research master's degree. Some offer a limited number of scholarships, but other financial aid is rare.

And I actually think paying for certain masters degrees, for example in computer science or engineering, is a better financial investment than paying for most law schools, particularly in the present environment.

I do agree that one should not pay anything for a PhD.

ronaldx• 13 years ago

A master's degree is almost certainly worth less than than a year of full-time work experience on your resume.

So, the master's is potentially costing you triple - you're paying for it, you're not getting paid, your value as an employee isn't going up as much as someone who is working.

If you can't find a sponsor to pay for a master's degree, then I would assume that nobody values you having that master's degree.

geebee2• 13 years ago

"And I actually think paying for certain masters degrees, for example in computer science or engineering, is a better financial investment than paying for most law schools, particularly in the present environment."

Maybe. You can't just compare the outcomes of people with these degrees, though, you have to consider their prospects going in. Typically, someone who applies to cs or engineering already has a closely related undergraduate degree.

A history major who attends an elite law school probably does see a pretty dramatic jump in salary prospects. A computer science major who gets an MS? Probably a bump, but the undergraduate degree is pretty employable already.

mratzloff3• 13 years ago

I actually think paying for certain masters degrees, for example in computer science or engineering, is a better financial investment than paying for most law schools.

Considering putting cash under your mattress is a better investment than paying for law school, yes, you are technically correct.

However, I don't know how "worth it" financially even a master's degree in Computer Science is. At best, I feel like it's break even in most cases: the year or two you spend getting the degree might be better spent on the job, especially if you have a decent mentor.

In one case, a guy I mentored directly out of undergraduate ended up going back and getting his master's. I think he'd say that it made him feel more confident with certain concepts, but then, I picked up the equivalent information in the course of my 10-year career with only an undergraduate degree. Any reasonably curious programmer would. It certainly did not make a difference in his income.

As for PhDs, I have never hired one. They seem to universally have an inability to think concretely or in a step-by-step manner. They have the skill set of a junior developer but expect the salary of a senior developer (at least). Ultimately, I can only imagine hiring one if they had significant experience in a very specific area that is difficult to hire for.

jlgreco8• 13 years ago

Most people with Masters in engineering degrees got them as part of a BS/MS program in 5 years. If you're doing that then it seems reasonable to pay for the MS part as you would normally pay for the BS part.

leephillips2• 13 years ago

A master's in a science or most scholarly fields is just a signal that you crashed out of a Ph.D. program - it's better not to admit to having one.[1] But you remind me that I left out another reason you might want to pay for graduate school: to get an MBA or other specialized business-type degree (international finance, accounting, etc.), that can be a good strategic move for some people - and can actually be rewarding and interesting if you get it at a good institution.

[1] Some Ph.D. programs routinely award Master's on the way to the doctorate; I'm talking about terminal Master's.

mediumdave2• 13 years ago

"you will find yourself...banking on the thin chance of landing a job in some part of the country usually only seen on American Pickers"

Because those of us who live in rural areas are worthless degenerates, right?

bernardom• 13 years ago

Almost by definition fewer people want to live in rural areas.

sp332• 13 years ago

Well, any given rural area of the same size. America only recently crossed the 50% urban threshold.

phaus2• 13 years ago

It's not that people don't want to live in rural areas, on the contrary most people would probably like to. It's just that there aren't any jobs in rural areas, and ultimately putting food on the table is what matters.

Dewie• 13 years ago

Rural/urban is a function of density, not quantity. In a lot of places, the distribution of people that live in urban and rural areas has been about 50/50. If the distribution tips more towards urban, than that might be an argument.

dkkarthik2• 13 years ago

That's a pretty flippant statement, just like the one in the main article. When did having fewer people make it junk/worthless?

tomrod2• 13 years ago

I don't know about the intent of the author here, but there are huge salary gaps between rural and urban locations; even after controlling for cost of living a gap can remain.

mediumdave2• 13 years ago

True, but there are also significant cost of living differences between urban and rural areas. More generally, there are valid reasons why some people enjoy living outside of large urban areas, and I don't think dismissing them as undesirable bolsters the author's argument.

phaus2• 13 years ago

I agree. My salary at my IT job pays about 20k less than I would get if I lived 3 hours east of where I'm at. While it's considerably more expensive to live there, I am still losing about 10k / year.

dabent• 13 years ago

The idea of landing a job in some bucolic university town actually has an appeal for some folks. I have relatives that are professors in a relatively small US city and they seem to love it.

short_circut2• 13 years ago

I am currently about a year away from my PhD in computational physics and chemistry and looking out towards the future I have very similar sentiments to this professor. Finding a decent job in academia is very very difficult. Even when you do get one it really won't be worth the work and time you have to put into it. At least in my field it is much better to develop your skills elsewhere and use that to enter into industry. I just wish someone had told me this 4 years ago.

acadien2• 13 years ago

The world for a graduating History PhD is totally different than for most STEM majors. Very very few History PhD's get their tuition paid for and are typically hugely in debt upon graduation. At least in the sciences its /possible/ to graduate debt free. Also in the sciences its entirely possible that your specific domain expertise will land you a job.

Not to say a history PhD is useless for finding work, but its likely more difficult to find work than say a Physics PhD (which has a 96% employment rate 1st year after graduation, according to the APS[1]).

[1]http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/reports/phdinitial.pdf

nnntrn3• 13 years ago

"Very very few History PhD's get their tuition paid for and are typically hugely in debt upon graduation."

This is incorrect. It's absolutely possible to earn a humanities doctorate without going into debt (at least for the postgraduate degree(s)).

jamesaguilar2• 13 years ago

This is what's hard to hear for me. The knowledge that academia is more or less impossible to get a job in has been out there for much more than four years. It's obvious if you take even the most cursory look at job openings, career advice comments on sites like these, the news, etc. But somehow, students continue to finish up their degrees only finding out toward the end.

How is it that so many students are unaware of this until the end of their education? Is it just the quintessential American "you can be anything you put your mind to" wishful thinking? This question goes doubly for humanities PhDs, because at least you can get a job elsewhere.

short_circut2• 13 years ago

For me I was always reassured by everyone who mattered to me that with a degree in physics I could go just about anywhere because my analytically skills would open doors. Hearing that day in and day out breed in a sense of brainwashedness. Perhaps I am the one who is wrong. I certainly hope so.

mathattack2• 13 years ago

You can at least apply your skills elsewhere. It might take some self-learning beyond coursework, but lots of data scientists and financial researchers have your background.

But that Phd in history....

rorrr2• 13 years ago

At least computational physics and chemistry has practical applications.

History - not so much.

Our society doesn't need so many history graduates. History should be a hobby, not something a million kids each year dedicate their life to.

allochthon• 13 years ago

I don't know. I think in a society that valued education more, there would be a place for more history professors. This would bring down class size, for one. I also believe a well-rounded education better prepares someone to give back to society and avoid over-simplified political messaging.

Universities, in pursuing profits, are cutting costs. This no doubt good for their bottom line, but it might be bad for society as a whole. With the downplaying of the value of history and the humanities, perhaps people are less prepared to think outside of their narrow technical specializations.

alexholehouse• 13 years ago

Sounds like you're doing a very similar PhD to me - good to see other computational researchers here (despite the circumstances, so to speak...)!

I'm also acutely aware that while staying in academia would be great (despite all the bad things like crazy hours, crazy people, etc.) there is simply a very good chance it's not going to be possible, or if it is it'll be crazy competitive.

The litmus test I always think about is a colleague [postdoc] I worked with years ago. He was disgustingly smart and capable, and applied for over 100 tenure track positions before getting one. He also had an educational pedigree and publication record most of us can only dream of, and was a great guy to boot. If it takes someone like that 100+ applications what chance do the rest of us have!?

Because of this, I've taken on the rather larger responsibility of running the labs computing resources, both hardware/software. It's a lot of work (I'd estimate I spend maybe 20 hours a week doing sysadmin related tasks) but it does also give me a totally inappropriate level of responsibility which I hope will be valuable either inside academia, or in industry. I also really enjoy it, which is a nice bonus.

mratzloff3• 13 years ago

I guess it would depend on the kinds of tasks you are doing. Depending on the work involved, you might simply be preparing yourself for a junior sys admin position. There's nothing wrong with that if that's what you want to do, but it certainly doesn't require a PhD (or any degree, really).

asabjorn2• 13 years ago

As a soon-to-be-graduating CS PhD I agree with the author that a PhD is probably not worth the opportunity cost. I have a standing post-doc offer, but the pay is much lower than what I am offered in industry for skills I gained in my spare time. I made the calculation and the PhD cost me about the same as a house in the bay area in lost income and if the job I get does not align well with my research it will cost me even more in opportunity cost.

glesica3• 13 years ago

I think one of the core problems is that people, for whatever reason, enter PhD programs for the wrong reasons. Something I have been told several times is that you should only do a PhD if the opportunity to work on the research it involves is worth it. If you find yourself worrying about opportunity cost, you shouldn't be considering it in the first place. I found that to be wise advice.

dalai• 13 years ago

I sometimes wonder whether there is indeed less need for professors or whether it is easier and cheaper to use postdocs, adjuncts, "research professors", etc. for the work that professors are supposed to do. It appears that universities are trying to avoid offering tenured positions at all costs. Florida polytechnic for example adopted a non-tenure faculty model which according to its Board of Trustees will help recruit and maintain top talent[1]. I wonder if they actually believe that.

When I was a phd student I did an informal check on the professors in my department. Even though it was no ivy league school, on average it took them 2.8 years from entry into the phd program to getting a tenure-track position. Now 2.8 is probably the average number of years as a postdoc you need to have.

1: http://floridapolytechnic.org/news/non-tenure-faculty-model-...

timr• 13 years ago

"The thing about grad school is that everyone else is at least as special as you, and most of them are more so. They all had 4.0 GPAs, they all have gone through life in the same insulating cocoon of praise, they all really, really love history. Hell, some of them shoot rainbows out of their butts and smell like a pine forest after a spring rain--and they mostly aren't going to get jobs either."

Oh man, does this ring true. If I had a nickel for every snotty remark by an arrogant first-year grad student about how they're not going to have trouble finding a professorship, I think I'd have enhanced my earning power more than the actual degree. In academia, everyone is a unique snowflake.

If you ever interview for a PhD program, you may notice that the people at the recruiting party are all first or second year students. There are many reasons for this, but a big one is that there are very few students past the second year of a PhD program who are under any illusions about their specialness in the order of the academic world. These are not the people you want recruiting new grist for the research mill.

pekk• 13 years ago

In academia, everyone is a unique snowflake.

and in startups, everyone is a 10x ninja. Guess that's an invariant.

Domenic_S• 13 years ago

Same for corporate life.

"But I'm super smart and work really hard!"

Congrats, you're not fired.

wisty• 13 years ago

You know what happens to the programmers who aren't 10X ninjas? They get paid a good salary. Unless they are totally incompetent, and even then they don't all do too badly.

fancyketchup• 13 years ago

If you ever interview for a PhD program, you may notice that the people at the recruiting party are all first or second year students.

When I read this, it struck me that I had a very different experience. In my department, the SOP was to wine and dine both the recruits and the graduate students (free steak and all the booze you can drink in one night goes a long way when you're earning 20k/year). But the trick was that not everyone was invited, and, of course, it wasn't very hard to figure out that the best way to be invited back for another round was to forget to mention all things you didn't like about the university (and how long you'd been there).

rayiner3• 13 years ago

Replace "history professor" with "any traditionally stable white collar job" and you can re-post this same article on websites for bright, aspiring young people in many different fields. Certainly, I've said more or less these words to aspiring lawyers.

There is an underlying phenomenon affecting an entire generation of kids of educated middle class parents, and that's this: the future of our society is one of fewer jobs and more competition. It's just the structural dynamics of a society that transitions from a long phase of fast growth to an indefinite phase of maintenance.

It's not anybody's fault, not really, and there isn't much you can do about it. A big generation that has a lot of kids creates a high demand for liberal arts education. A smaller generation that doesn't have many kids creates a lesser demand. When that big older generation continues to hold onto jobs, you have a recipe for a job crunch for younger people.

More broadly, as capital shifts and is put to work in Asia, there is less demand for ancillary jobs here in the U.S. That phenomenon affects nearly everyone. Say you're an architect. Where do you think all the jobs are designing big corporate high rises?

calibraxis3• 13 years ago

People defeated slavery, feudalism, marxism-leninism, etc. There's a lot we can do against capitalism and managerialism.

If climate change and nukes don't get us first. :)

WalterSear5• 13 years ago

Except we have currently have a vastly more effective system of bread and circuses than ever before. One that not only placates, but actively confuses and distracts people to the root causes of their unhappiness.

jes4• 13 years ago

May I ask you why people should be against capitalism?

I'm against cronyism, but an advocate of pure capitalism.

chez172• 13 years ago

It's not anybody's fault, not really, and there isn't much you can do about it.

It's plenty of people's fault and there is plenty we can do about it. Instead of investing in education, infrastructure, the social safety net, and everything that helps the majority of people, we invest in the military industrial complex, farm subsidies, and rush to cut taxes to the richest people in the country. There is a massive wealth distribution going on right now, I predict history will show the biggest ever, and it's easy to see the repercussions. The rich are getting richer and the rate at which they are accumulating wealth is accelerating. There is plenty we could do, we, as a society, are just to lazy, comfortable, and scared to do it. Let's be honest about it. This is all our fault.

jlgreco8• 13 years ago

The military industrial complex is a problem and all, but I don't think it has much to do with Creative Writing majors struggling to find jobs. The days of "college educated at all is the most important factor" are over, and I don't think anybody deserves blame for that.

Or to take rayiner's example of lawyers, you can't pin that on a failure to invest in infrastructure, or sending to much money to Iraq, or farm subsidies... or anything else that "Occupiers" like to complain about.

tptacek• 13 years ago

How is any of this responsive to the dynamics of the academic job market? What does it have to do with colleges recognizing that lower-paid adjuncts can deliver comparable services to tenured professors? What does it say about the ability of smaller numbers of professors to teach larger numbers of students?

twoodfin• 13 years ago

It's just the structural dynamics of a society that transitions from a long phase of fast growth to an indefinite phase of maintenance.

...

More broadly, as capital shifts and is put to work in Asia, there is less demand for ancillary jobs here in the U.S.

Why is this kind of pessimism justified now, but wasn't justified when much the same was said in the '80's and early '90's about the decline of U.S. competitiveness and Japan, Inc.? Or was it justified then, too?

My political biases incline me toward believing that there's nothing fundamentally "structural" about the lousy, slow recovery we're currently enjoying, and that better fiscal and other policies would have lead and can (Secretary Clinton willing) lead to better outcomes. But I am happy to have my biases challenged.

rayiner3• 13 years ago

Tell all the steel workers and auto workers that lost their jobs to Japanese industry that those concerns weren't justified then. The exodus of those jobs happened, and Detroit and Pittsburgh were never the same again (both cities are less than half the size of their peaks). Those jobs never came back, and the ones that replaced them were never as numerous nor did they pay as well.

All that's happening now is that the phenomenon is creeping it's way up the ladder. New York and London are healthy, but it's the capital markets in Hong Kong, Beijing, and Sao Paulo that are really booming. If you're an aspiring banker and you want the kind of access to jobs your parents had, you'd better brush up on your Portuguese. There will still be jobs in Chicago and Boston and New York, but with capital being put to work in developing economies where there is a higher potential for return along with less competition, the opportunities are elsewhere. And if you're not in Chicago or Boston or New York, those opportunities will dwindle as increased domestic competition results in consolidation and more of a winner-take-all market. Did you know Johns Hopkins was founded by a bequest from a prominent Baltimore banker. Today you'd ask: Baltimore has bankers?

Finally, with regards to Japan specifically, Japan was and is a relatively closed society that didn't accept much foreign capital investment. That's totally different with China, India, and Brazil.

jlgreco8• 13 years ago

What you say is very true. However I think there is a problem in America of young people rejecting what you are saying not because they think it is wrong, but because they don't like it.

You could call this 'delusion', or even a manifestation of 'entitlement culture'... but whatever it is, I think it is a problem. It isn't all just fun and games when young people are getting expensive degrees that cannot be financially justified; their actions don't just effect themselves. A generation of broke disillusioned college educated kids without decent employment prospects isn't exactly something that benefits society. Just for starters, what the hell are they going to teach their kids to strive for? "Don't bother pursuing education kiddo, you'll just end up broke."?

WalterSear5• 13 years ago

If you bring up someone by telling them "they can be anything they want," they aren't going to change that opinion because they hear something else for a year or four.

And, people can't stand not being able to tell their children that they can be anything they want, because that would involve admitting that they are part of a failing system.

It's easier to blame the victim, even if you are the victim.

derleth• 13 years ago

However I think there is a problem in America of young people rejecting what you are saying not because they think it is wrong, but because they don't like it.

Like how they expect Social Security to still be there even if they cut taxes, and how 'Socialized Medicine' is evil but Medicaid is utterly sacrosanct and untouchable, and ...

Oh, wait, that's what old people are on about now.

nicholas73• 13 years ago

Data point: my architect uncle now works in China.

seanmcdirmid• 13 years ago

Its not a bad place to be right now.

nnntrn3• 13 years ago

"It's just the structural dynamics of a society that transitions from a long phase of fast growth to an indefinite phase of maintenance. It's not anybody's fault, not really, and there isn't much you can do about it."

In the case of academia specifically, it is a very intentional strategy: full-time tenure-earning faculty constituted about 45% of the workforce in 1975 compared with less than 30% now; the gap has been made up by adjunct and other part-time lecturers, typically earning about $2500 per course.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/04/the-ever...

ssharp• 13 years ago

For the past four years my wife was in law school (it was a four year part-time evening program). All the while, I kept reading about the doom and gloom in the job market. Everyone, apparently, decided to go to law school after the economy crashed in 2007 and demand for jobs was rising while the supply was decreasing. Coupled with growing debt, I was really becoming concerned on whether or not the endeavor would actually pay off and if all her hard work and sacrifice was for naught. We never had the ambition (or delusion) of a 6-figure associate job at a top firm, but from all the reports, we were in an almost hopeless situation. Four years of time sacrificed, more than half of it financed with debt, the rest with savings, and good luck finding a job.

In the end: a job was in place before graduation. The same thing was true for most of her friends. In fact, she never mentioned one friend who wasn't able to find employment before taking the bar exam.

I don't doubt any job squeeze, but the horror stories I heard about the job market for law school grads were far from realized for anyone we knew. And this was not an Ivy League school churning out highly credentialed grads. It was a state school that didn't have particularly stringent entrance requirements.

irishcoffee• 13 years ago

My anecdotal experience is almost opposite yours. My girlfriend graduated last year, and her and most of her friends cannot find jobs in the law space. Most of her friends who did find jobs are getting paid less than I got paid as a lifeguard before I received my undergrad degree, in comp. sci.

Which, as it happens, was enough of a salary to graduate with zero debt and make a considerable amount right out of college. I do not know may law grads who can say that.

pc86• 13 years ago

If you don't mind sharing, what school did she go to? Is she working for a firm practicing law or doing something related (but still requiring the degree)? I'm assuming she would not have accepted a job not requiring the degree before even graduating.

mistercow• 13 years ago

It's kind of some people's fault though. I mean, people who should have known better (many of whom who stood to profit from people not knowing better) worked hard to sell the people who are now in their twenties and early thirties on the idea that a college degree would be a necessary and sufficient condition for steady, gainful employment.

I managed to get out of that situation without any student debt, and I wish I could say that was because I saw through the lie, but the truth is that luck was a big factor as well. My confidence in my conclusion that we were being sold a bill of goods was weak enough that under other circumstances, I could have easily gotten burned badly. I know a lot of people who didn't get so lucky.

johnmaxwellx2• 13 years ago

I work at a private intelligence firm in London. We provide intelligence and risk analysis to oil companies, banks, insurance firms etc.

In the office next to me there is a PhD in classics, a MA in maths, and a PhD in ancient history. They all make over £150k (that's like $240k).

I don't earn that much as I work in a different part of the firm, so I'm not boasting.

mathattack2• 13 years ago

I was originally going to comment that it was more accurate to say they shouldn't try, but he's right. In history, they just can't. The academia machine has screwed up incentives. Schools and professors are individually incented to produce more candidates than the market needs. It's up to people to say "No, I won't do it." or "No, I don't expect to get a job after 5 years of service and learning."

I do wish I had the guts to follow up with his Hell, some of them shoot rainbows out of their butts and smell like a pine forest after a spring rain--and they mostly aren't going to get jobs either.

jerryhuang100• 13 years ago

It would be the time to discuss or even revamp the tenure system of the professorship at universities, just like what happens to the NYC public school teachers. The tenure system of the job protections for the past 200+ years of the Western higher education system is based on the low supply of advanced degree holders, which is just the opposite to today's situation. There are a lot of very good tenured professors doing amazing academic works and teachings even at their old ages. But I believe everyone knows one or two such tenured professors just doing sloppy works or not publishing for a long while. You want to complaint about those kind of professors? Try ratemyprofessor or FB and that would be it. The only winners of such university tenure system are the tenure holders who view their professorships as entitlements, rather than try to advance the human knowledge or educate the next generation. The losers? The schools, the students and the new crops of PhD graduates with mountain high of passions.

glesica3• 13 years ago

It isn't that simple. One of the key reasons for the tenure system is to insulate "thinkers" from political or social pressure. Tenure allows researchers to be more objective because they don't have to worry (as much) about being fired for unpopular teaching or research findings.

This system has already been polluted by the prevalence of corporate funding for research, but destroying it entirely would be a terrible thing for society as a whole. There is certainly waste (and we should try to minimize it), but some waste is worth the benefits in my mind.

Siecje• 13 years ago

What else can you do with a History Degree?

johnmaxwellx2• 13 years ago

My brother studied history at Oxford, and is now a captain in the British Army.

wotzotz2• 13 years ago

I think there is an important missing caveat. Yes, everyone might be really bright and have 4.0 GPAs, but there are signs that you might have a real chance. Are you not just bright and have a 4.0, but did you also get into more than one of the top 5 departments in your field, giving you the pick of the litter and some negotiating power when you enter? Is your prospective advisor high profile and genuinely excited about you? Are you entering the program with an NSF GRFP fellowship or a Javits? If you are answering yes to these kinds of questions, you will most likely be able to get an academic job at a research university or a major liberal arts college. Seriously. I fit into this profile, defended in 2012, and have a tenure track job. I was in a small cohort--three people--but two of us have tenure track jobs and the other is in a high profile post-doc. I looked at all the PhDs from the last 5 years of my program. 8 people have TT jobs, 1 has a post-doc, and 3 have industry jobs, but 1 of those 3 really wanted an industry jobs when he entered. No one is unemployed, and we're talking about the roughest years from 2008 on.

Yes, it is not the case that a PhD guarantees you an academic job without reference to your department, thesis topic, and advisor. Do people actually believe otherwise, though?

Can you be a professor? Yes, but not based on your undergraduate performance alone. You need to do an honest assessment to see if you are on a trajectory to be one of the top people in your field when you graduate. You can see this, in part, by looking at what the current graduate students in your prospective program are doing and where the recent alumni are. If not, then you should absolutely not go into grad school thinking otherwise.

sfeats• 13 years ago

I would just like to highlight one of your criteria: Is your prospective advisor... genuinely excited about you?

This is more important for future academic prospects than I would have anticipated going into my PhD program. I fit your list of attributes for all other criteria save this one. And without my supervisors enthusiasm for my work or my future prospects I've started losing confidence in myself and in my abilities. More than confidence, I'm missing out on networking opportunities due to his lack of interest.

wotzotz2• 13 years ago

That is so rough. I don't know exactly what your situation is, but there might still be options. If you're at the dissertating stage, you might have a committee member that is more stoked with stuff you're doing. You might be able to use them as your unofficial mentor to cover for deficiencies in the relationship with your primary advisor.

dkkarthik2• 13 years ago

The article is funny, and the cynicism adds to the humor. But as someone who was on the faculty market last year, I have to say it is not at all representative of Computer Science.

CS depts are still growing, and are helped by the growing number of students wanting to major in CS. This is requiring many/most departments to grow further. And the reason why students are wanting to major in CS, is that there is plenty of work to be found. If you are well grounded in basics, and can program well, there is ample opportunity in both big companies, as well as startups.

bonemachine• 13 years ago

What's really heartbreaking about this is growing up in high school, the most respected older adults in my life -- indeed, the ones most responsible for steering me out of the abyss -- where high school history teachers, and local university history professors.

Every long-term educational trend points towards the end of the professoriate. States continue to slash funding for higher education. Retiring professors are not replaced, or replaced with part-time faculty. Technology promises to provide education with far fewer teachers--and whether you buy into this vision of the future or not, state legislators and university administrators believe.

comrade_ogilvy• 13 years ago

Keep in mind that even if the tenured faculty of yesteryear do not disappear, the numbers are likely to not do better than flat.

Consider the numbers...

A successful professor, who brings in the grant money, can supervise 10-30 graduate students towards their PhDs over the course of their career. Others will supervise fewer, but that is because the money is scant.

The bottom line is that if you are not obviously one of the top 10% students of your program, you are second string. Half the first string players are having trouble finding a professorship. What are your odds?

paul_f• 13 years ago

The only growth profession is entrepreneurism.

hacknat• 13 years ago

I've never understood the argument that getting a PhD is worth it because education is worth it on its own. The premise is correct, but the conclusion doesn't follow. A PhD used to mean a qualification you had to get for a specific set of jobs or careers, now a lot of people argue for it as some culturally enriching experience. If you look carefully at this assumption it masks a pretty insidious elitism, which is that you can only truly appreciate culture and art via qualification. This is bogus. As Will Hunting said,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZI1vgJwUP0&t=2m25s

dinkumthinkum• 13 years ago

The problem with this kind of advice and the fairly overly confident advice over here at HN is the individual, in my view, should not pay a terrible amount big attention, sure read and think about but this kind of thing applies in aggregate. For you, things could be very different because of various situations, opportunities, etc. You could sit and ready stories of upset adjuncts or you could just be tenacious keep jabbing and find a way.

Sure, in aggregate, let's mourn the professoriate.

But for you, don't buy into the hype too much .., you don't need every job, just one that makes you happy.

This applies to most of lamentations of job markets.

kaonashi• 13 years ago

http://s.mlkshk.com/r/NF6J

moocowduckquack• 13 years ago

If you still really want to be a professor, find a load of other unemployed PhD's and a bored billionare or two and go and found a University.

Open Letter to My Students: No, You Cannot be a Professor (2011)

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