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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
TinaS1
Published Letters: 780 Editor's Choice: 21
As a couple of other people have commented, having a PhD puts you in the bracket of more highly qualified candidates and in a crowded field that translates into "over qualified".
Many companies have automatic pay scales, and PhDs automatically get X amount more than MA or MS holders.
So if they can get the same work more cheaply out of an MA, who will they hire?
That's right.
BTW and I found this out the hard way--this can even hurt you applying for teaching work in universities and colleges. Many schools do not require instructors to have PhDs and they prefer to hire MAs who have had work experience in their fields; it's more worthwhile to them.
An MA is a must, I would say; it is worth a lot more than a BA. But a PhD is very questionable. Especially in the humanities I would think it over carefully.
And as for being able to market your writing and critical thinking skills by doing a PhD; that is total BS--anyone will be able to tell by looking at your job application if you can write.
A PhD is not for everyone; it's a fine thing but as far as jobs are concerned you have to ask yourself why. In Texas I knew a lot of housewives who were getting PhDs just as a pure status symbol and as part of the prestige of being able to do whatever they wanted with their money and time. They had their oil industry husbands, so why not? Some of them were actually quite stupid people. Meanwhile the ones who were there on merit did not have that luxury.
But like I said if you were worth a lick you had your TA job, minumum, so it didn't bother me then.
Hope that helps. Go for graduate school definitely, but think long and hard about the extra years and money spent on PhD work.
If you do go for a PhD, don't go to any piddly school but one of the top 10 in your field. If you can't get in to one of the top 10 in your field and get your tuition remitted through an RA or TA, it won't be worth it even if you make it.
You're telling to stop stripping to be a prostitute?
WHY?
Oh, is sex surrogates what we are calling hookers these days?
I got words for you, Tom, but I'm going to save them. But trust me they are all bad.
Today I saw the Tom I know from the New Yorker. It was nice. As a comic strip, it wasn't much, but it was still nice.
I bet this is just the calm before the storm, though.
BTW, sorry to bring up a bad memory, but WTF was the deal with Beni last week? That whole phone convo didn't mean anything and this week it didn't go anywhere. We got a cliffhanger (choking noises on the phone) that consequently weren't explained.
Gahhhhh, I'm ashamed of myself that I even paid that much attention.
Dear Give Up: Is it possible to preorder one of the T-shirts?
Any grad student showing promise should have no problem working as a TA or RA for the duration of their grad studies. If they lose their funding (basically their teaching job), there has to be a pretty good reason.
That said, yes, of course the money sucks and this is at an age when some people are thinking of starting families, and have already lived the macaroni and cheese student life for years and are tired of it.
A rather expensive way to engage in intellectual pursuit, n'est pas?
And a bit disengenuous to compare PhDs to Bachelor's students--yes of course PhDs earn more than BAs but is the degree worth much more than an MA? That was the question posited. You don't say that, preferring to say, well, they earn more than BAs--and we know why you make this little shift, oder?
And as for all the orginal and significant contributions to research that doctoral students do....well, I had a good laugh over that one. Really, please. I am not bitter about anything and I did fine after I left school. But this is malarkey.
You seem to cling to the idea that a PhD is somehow magically different from an MA. Well, that's probably because you hawk PHDs to grad students for a living.
Do you really tell them they are paying, what, $12,000 a year at least to learn "to think critically"? Really? And they buy that?
So much for the theory that they're a lot brighter than other people. Oh, and your answer smacks hugely of a very typical type of academic snobbery; plenty of people with lower college degrees and even--imagine it!--people who have not gone to college can think critically, you know. I know PHDs even in humanities who voted for George Bush (the number one indicator of stupidity and thoughtlessness in my view), and high school dropouts who were extremely independent and original thinkers.
Actually doing all the hula hoops involved in getting a doctorate and prostrating yourself before your committee and licking the dust off their shoes for them is what turns a person into a blinkered, fearful sheep. That's why we see so many academics who cannot shake a certain narrow politically correct line that hasn't really changed since the 60s. You think putting up with the BS in the work world is bad? Maybe you should try it so you can compare.
I am glad that you finally found some specious excuse to hurl an insult at me. I hope that it brightened your day. Got anythng else to live for?
Touche!
For a brief, fleeting second I had a fear that the first panel (Man, I hate this comic!) was going to lead us into some kind of comment about KOF.
I thought, oh no, it's infected the Keefe! But then, whew.
Apparently, it's about the Boondocks.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
