NYT features op ed by art history grad student worried about her future in a bad economy
[Melody Rod-Ari, University of California, Los Angeles, Ph.D. candidate, 2010, art history]
Getting through each day is a battle: a battle of mental stamina, emotional ups and downs, moments of self-perceived brilliance and confirmed scholastic inadequacy. Those who can identify with me are probably graduate students, too. I belong to your academic sorority. I am a doctoral candidate in U.C.L.A.’s department of art history.
What this means is that I have finished all my coursework, taken all of the requisite exams and am now writing and completing my dissertation. Truth be told, when I first started graduate school I never thought I would get this far. But now that I am here, I am terrified. My horror does not stem from the actual process of researching or writing the dissertation. I love this part. Instead, I am afraid that what I am passionate about, what I write about and what I teach will have no value to the greater academic community, and even worse to humanity.
My “deer in the headlights” moment, as I call it, occurred earlier this academic year. It started with the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the near-ruin of A.I.G. and other financial institutions, the Dow dipping below 7,000 and now the foreclosed homes throughout my once-impervious west Los Angeles neighborhood (disclaimer: I am a renter in a rent-controlled building).
At first things seemed O.K.; media reports stated that certain industries and sectors, including education, would be unaffected. I was optimistic but then reality set in. Many universities, public and private, rely on the largess of others as well as on the investments made from previous donations. As stock values fell, so did the value of university endowments. Similarly, donations of all sizes decreased.
I began to feel the effects. Institutions once known for their generous fellowships cut the number of recipients by sometimes as much as 40 percent. University and museum jobs that I had applied to or intended to apply to were no longer available; the position had been eliminated or frozen.
I know that pursuing a graduate degree, especially in the humanities, does not guarantee a job. I also know that many believe a degree in the humanities is a luxury, irrelevant. Still, I pursued my dream of being an art historian because I believe that art matters and the past matters.
And at the time I was accepted into my graduate program, I believed that I would become a professor or a museum curator. Now almost finished with my degree, I am faced with the reality that there may be no place for me....
Read entire article at Melody Rod-Ari in the NYT
Getting through each day is a battle: a battle of mental stamina, emotional ups and downs, moments of self-perceived brilliance and confirmed scholastic inadequacy. Those who can identify with me are probably graduate students, too. I belong to your academic sorority. I am a doctoral candidate in U.C.L.A.’s department of art history.
What this means is that I have finished all my coursework, taken all of the requisite exams and am now writing and completing my dissertation. Truth be told, when I first started graduate school I never thought I would get this far. But now that I am here, I am terrified. My horror does not stem from the actual process of researching or writing the dissertation. I love this part. Instead, I am afraid that what I am passionate about, what I write about and what I teach will have no value to the greater academic community, and even worse to humanity.
My “deer in the headlights” moment, as I call it, occurred earlier this academic year. It started with the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the near-ruin of A.I.G. and other financial institutions, the Dow dipping below 7,000 and now the foreclosed homes throughout my once-impervious west Los Angeles neighborhood (disclaimer: I am a renter in a rent-controlled building).
At first things seemed O.K.; media reports stated that certain industries and sectors, including education, would be unaffected. I was optimistic but then reality set in. Many universities, public and private, rely on the largess of others as well as on the investments made from previous donations. As stock values fell, so did the value of university endowments. Similarly, donations of all sizes decreased.
I began to feel the effects. Institutions once known for their generous fellowships cut the number of recipients by sometimes as much as 40 percent. University and museum jobs that I had applied to or intended to apply to were no longer available; the position had been eliminated or frozen.
I know that pursuing a graduate degree, especially in the humanities, does not guarantee a job. I also know that many believe a degree in the humanities is a luxury, irrelevant. Still, I pursued my dream of being an art historian because I believe that art matters and the past matters.
And at the time I was accepted into my graduate program, I believed that I would become a professor or a museum curator. Now almost finished with my degree, I am faced with the reality that there may be no place for me....