Show me the Money.

by Cliopatria

There has been a lot of rumination as of late about whether anybody should ever go to grad school in History (or the Humanities, for that matter). See here, here, and here.

At my own dear school, I have the unofficial role as the"Scary Grad School Guy." I give a number of talks each year on how hard it is to get into a good grad school, how hard it is to survive grad school, and how hard it is then to get a real job.

Why is this necessary? At the root is that most of my students, even the best ones, only have the vaguest idea what is going to happen in grad school. They don't know what a graduate syllabus looks like. They don't know how a real seminar is run. And they haven't the foggiest notion of what is expected of you for your comprehensive exams. Despite this, fully half of my undergraduate history majors say they want to go on to grad school. By the end of my talks, I can usually cut this number down to about 5%. Just passing around a few sample graduate syllabi probably takes care of half the job. Tim Burke's outstanding essay"Should I Go to Grad School?" also helps.

A critical component of my whole spiel is this: Don't go to grad school unless they pay you to do it. And by that I mean a full ride: tuition, fees, and stipend. Students should look upon grad school as a job... and you don't want to pay your employer for the honor of working long hours. If you are just going for an MA which is demanded for your existing job, that's fine... cough up the dough. But, really, nobody should self-fund grad school as a means of getting into academia.

comments powered by Disqus

More Comments:

Eric Hobsbawm - 8/15/2010

As a former student of Dr. Reynolds (not one of the best), I can verify both his status as the "scary grad school guy" and that he is an encouraging but truthful member of the faculty here. As an undergraduate interested in the actual experience of graduate school, Dr. Reynolds' candor serves me better than the reassuring but ultimately disarming flattery of sympathetic educators; some of whom might be suspected of wishing to relive past experiences vicariously through their students.

On a more philosophical plane, it seems that the underpreparedness of undergraduates is a phenomena as to which there is general agreement. What is the cause of this? Is it that the relative number of students that will, in fact, end up in graduate school are so low that the information doesn't warrant mass dissimination; and that we must rely instead upon the subjective conditions of faculty mentorship in individual departments?

Larry Cebula - 1/20/2010

I serve the same function at my institution. We can never be scary enough.

Jonathan T. Reynolds - 1/19/2010

Yes, I definately agree. "Top Ten" is more about status than quality, anyway. I figure that as long as students are getting a full ride, even a top-100 program is not a bad deal, so long that the students are willing to take community-college or "Whowhere?" Liberal Arts jobs once they finish.

Won Dum Joo - 1/17/2010

The Academic Job Search: A Love Story

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNwWrdZkiTU

Patricia Taylor - 1/14/2010

I disagree with Haydon Leslie Cherry about going only if you get into a top 10 school, with the caveat that I'm in English rather than History. My university--a top 50 school rather than a top 10--had a 90% job placement rate (with the exception of last year, where it was still 70%). This is significantly higher than even many of the top 10 schools. I suspect that part of this success is because our funding is teaching based, while students at top 10 schools tend to receive fellowships, which means our graduates leave our program with much more extensive teaching experience. The other major factor is that our program has been very conscientious about "professionalizing" our graduate students and giving them a lot of support in going on the market. We make sure they have publications, that their job application materials are vetted by faculty, and we give mock interviews, etc. Our graduates also are usually much more willing to take a TT job that isn't a research based job--whether it be a liberal arts college, a four year state school, or even a tenure track line at a community college. Coming from a top 10 school can actually be a serious disadvantage for the latter two job categories.

Haydon Leslie Cherry - 1/14/2010

I whole heartedly agree. And while I will doubtless be accused of elitism or some similar vice, I think that most students shouldn't go to graduate school unless they get into a top ten department in their field. The competition is just too stiff. With students from Harvard, Princeton, and Yale struggling to find jobs in history departments, it can only be that much harder for students at Directional State University, however good they are.