Alright you college professor people. I need advice.

Getting a good college teaching job is very hard.

Most programs, at least in philosophy (I assume the same for English), are either 1. terminal masters programs or 2. phd programs in which the masters is granted after the coursework done prior to dissertating. There are not any programs of note that will let you come in just to do your dissertation. So if you get a masters from your undergrad, and then enter a phd program elsewhere, you will be in school for at least 7 years (2 for terminal masters, 5 for phd program). If you can get straight into a good phd program, I'd do that. Also, nearly every decent phd program will waive tuition while you are there and give you either fellowships or ta'ships while pursuing your degree (to a certain limit, say 5 or 6 years). All my years of grad school were paid for, with a stipend, by the universities.

At the end of this process, your chances of getting a tenure track job straightaway are slim, and even slimmer if you do not go to a top grad school or study with an advisor with connections. The market is oversaturated and you have to stand out. I remember faculty members on a search committee throwing away applications based solely on where the job candidate got his phd. It's very important.

Anyway, why do you want to teach college? There is a lot of money to be made in public/private high schools if you get a masters and look in rich communties. Some high school gigs pay as much if not more -- starting, even -- than a lot of colleges/universities. And you don't have to publish - which is a committment you take on in academia.

I'm a little buzzed and a lot exhausted so I hope I made some sense. I don't mean to be too discouraging, but I wouldn't get a phd in something unless you love the subject, since there might be no pay-off apart from the time spent with it. What's more, the people, I think, who have the most success in pursuing it are the people who love their subject.

discaimer - I teach at Northwestern in their cont. studies department. I didn't go on the "big" job market, for a couple of reasons. Mostly because my wife likes her lawyer job and she wants to be a lawyer far more than I want to be employed at anything. I stay at home with the toddler during the days and teach a class or two a term in the evenings (I might quit that soon, though, as I have tired of Plato and Aristotle, who seem not to be releasing anything new any time soon).

 

this is all very interesting information. thanks everybody.

my husband's currently getting his MFA and is applying for gigs for next year. It's kind of a different animal because it's the arts and not your standard type of teaching gig (as opposed to the more straight academics of math, science, english, etc). I understand it's still pretty tough to get a job, although we are literally keeping ALL of our options open (geographic location, type of school) and so that helps a lot.

from the research we have done though, which is a little contrary to that posted above, at least in this field, we've found that private religious universities pay the top salaries, especially the larger ones. granted, you have a more rigid teaching code because most times you have to incorporate, or at least not teach in oppposition to the school's mission statement. so i guess that would be a moral choice on your end as to whether you would want to be confined to certain rules/regulations.

i think what the people above were saying about the PHD programs is that a lot of them would pay for your tuition and give you a stipend to teach. so, you saying you would have to save up double to go to JH would not necessarily be an issue, except to pay for your existing bills.

luckily my husband doesn't have to get a PHD, as the MFA is terminal in his field. and sometimes the MFA is not even necessary if you have enough professional experience.

good luck to you in all your decision making. hope it all goes well.

 

he's getting an MFA in acting... it seems to be a slightly better outlook than english/writing.. at least we're hoping.

i hear ya about the struggle. we just barely keep afloat and i work full time. i couldn't imagine doing it by yourself. that's a lot of student loans.

 

I guess if I were you I'd get the free masters and save up so you can afford to be in a phd program -- if you really cannot swing going straight to a phd program. The stipend is usually around 1500/month (on top of not having to pay for school), so with heavy loan payments, it could be tough. Is it possible to get the loans deferred while in school, though? I know my wife deferred her undergrad loans while in law school.

 

They've been saying that for decades.

The reality is as follows:

Tidal Wave II (Baby Boomers and ethnic America's kids) is due to peak in 2010 (??). Literally, right now is the best time to be coming up on entering the job market.

There are always financial constraints that bind departments. The good thing for English is that there's a ton of jobs. The bad thing is that it's uber competitive.

My suggestions:
1. You absolutely MUST MUST MUST graduate from the top university possible.

2. For your thesis advisor, go for somebody that is young(ish) and up and coming. Cutting edge. And easy to work with. (My mistake was going for a prof that was a big name but soooo not w/ the times intellectually. He's great to work w/, though; better than some hip big guns.) And get used to working on your own, to turning in chapters and getting a response, "Sounds great! Keep up the good work!" as if that'll help ya.

3. Don't be afraid to go to 'Merica/ Red State/ non-cities on the coasts, both for PhD and for your eventual job.

But even b4 consider this, I feel that you need to understand a few things about academia and your competition.

You're going up vs. ppl who were the top in the country in high school, totally challenged and rewarded by the system. Many of them come from elite private schools K-PhD and never had to have a "real" job. At UC Berkeley, a sickening tiny amount of PhD students that I come across have to put themselves through school w/o their parents' help. The TA salary at UCB is roughly $1400/10 months after taxes. Average student pays $850 PLUS!! in rent. So that leaves $550 for the rest of the month. working class students tutor or teach community college. The majority just study and think and write all day every day.

This, my friend, is the competition.

You've got to be extremely focused on your coursework while doing your PhD. It's a whole 'nuther game that doesn't jive well w/ our working class mentality. Your biggest challenge, and I mean this sincerely so please don't take offense, is overcoming this mentality (working through your graduate work). That was my biggest mistake in grad school. I didn't make the transition from being a typical US undergrad and working my way through school to being a doctoral candidate at one of the top institutions in the US surrounded by colleagues and profs who never have known what it's like to work while studying.

Other practical stuff:

1. Do a collateral in something that nobody likes to do or is hot on the job market, like incorporating film, gender studies, ethnic studies, minorities. And you MUST be a fvcking bad ass at theory. Start boning up on your literary theory. To gage this, take a look at the Chronicle of Higher Education (chronicle.com/jobs) and skim through some job descriptions.

2. Step 1 in your project (MA at Towson) is critical that you ace the program and get your profs behind you. They'll go to bat for you and try to get you in to the best program. Once you're in your program of choice, know that it's a political game, don't bug your professors, be yourself, be true to yourself, work out!! (it's an investment in time as you'll sleep less) and don't ever burn any bridges.

good luck!!

 

You know, the funny thing about this thread is that I've been pondering taking advantage of the six free credits a semester offer for employees of my university and banging out an MED. I have a pretty good gig now but want to open some additional possibilities.

Careers in higher ed aren't a panacea. Some fields are obviously better than others, but many social scientists I know recongize that a year or more gap between earning the PhD and finding employment is likely. Even those at higher end schools (not the Ivy Leagues or Berkeley et al) like Wisconsin, much less places such as where I earned my PhD (Washington State).
And I hate to be so specific with your field, but a historian friend and I were lamenting our state today and laughed, saying that we hadn't taken the ultimate leap of faith: at least we didn't go for the PhD in English!

The good news about an MA in English: lots of money to pay stipends, since someone has to teach all of those English 101 courses. And the good news about MA degrees, even if you stay in the HS arena: a salary bump for having an advanced degree.

I suggest taking this one step at a time: get the MA from Townson, and evaluate thereafter (during etc.).

 

Interesting; but I didn't get that feeling at all from my admittedly limited interaction with the history PhD candidates.
Of course, I went to a professional school at UCB, which is quite different.

 

My advice? Aside from "start drinking heavily"? Go to law school. It'll make your other debts seem trivial.

 

Hello. This is more a supporting post than anything else, since I got my phd from a french university (Phd in french literature) and don't know the US system that much. Being a doctor in Literature (and Philo, and liberal arts...) have few good points and many bad ones.

- Bad point : there are far less jobs available than in other fields. It means such studies are in fact much more selective. In other words : no second prize. It's a do-or-die gamble.

- Bad point : don't expect money. You'll be poor, so learn to reduce your expenses drastically. Forget all ideas like "vacation", "have fun", "go to concerts", "buying stuff" and so on. You'll have to live like a monk. No joke here.

- Bad point : don't make career plans. Don't say : i'll go there, do that, go to this school... If you choose a field like literature, you must accept a nomadic style of life. You go where you find a seat. Make a list of all universities, all foundations, all research groups in your field, worldwide, and jump on every opportunity that will pass in front of you. They won't be many.

- Good point : don't worry too much about your CV. If your thesis is good (and I mean extremely good, on a worldwide scale, see above), BA, and even MA, will be off records.

- Good point : they are more "open" than other fields. ie : the reputation of the university where you got your phd is relatively less important than in other fields. The quality of your works, your ability to write and express your ideas, at the very end, will make the difference. If you write really well, it's possible to start a career even from a small university, provided you can publish and get some fame. Extreme case : some universities recruit people without academic background, but with excellent writer experience.

In other words, it's better to be an excellent scholar from, let's say, University of Saskatchewan, rather than a unimaginative bureaucrat from Princeton. This is true only in literature and liberal arts, not in other fields, so consider this as a chance.

- Bad point : personally, i'd suggest against teaching in highschool. First, because the job is too demanding. Second, because level is far too low, and will drag you down. If you're planning an academic career, you'll have to be much much much better than this. Of course, it's better not to work, but If you really have to, do it for a publisher, a local newspaper, or somewhere in the field of culture.

 

I couldn't disagree more with uclacarlos about your dissertation advisor. You need someone who has a proven record as an advocate and placer of graduates.

 

Carlos and Chad pretty much cover the range of things to look for when you pick a dissertation advisor. Young up and coming scholars might have an energy that the older scholars lack... but they also might get a new job and leave you stranded and needing to start over... happened to me twice, and that is largely why I'm not a Dr. in real life.

As to some of Jacen's questions 1) If you get into Hopkins for a Ph.D., you'll get pretty generous support. Not the equivalent of a salary, but enough to get by. And if you go to, say Maryland for a Ph.D., you'll get a teaching assistantship to cover your basic needs: you won't get ahead, but if you live low on the hog, you won't need to go way into debt, either. Like Carlos says, the money won't go far, and like Pierre says, forget about vacations, but I managed to get by in Chicago on a middle-of-the-road assistantship AND gain a fair bit of weight, so you won't starve.

So, anyway, if you can get an MA from Towson, do so. While getting the MA, figure out an area that you will actually enjoy researching: that entails not just digging the primary material, but the scholarship surrounding (if not burying) it. That latter point is important, because that's what your Ph.D. will be training you go do: contribute to the scholarship. Thus, during your MA, try to find a field where you can really do a saturation job for 4-6 years without burning out, then find out where the scholarship that you like the most is getting done, then come up with a rough idea of the research you'd like to pursue and apply.

Basically, once you apply for a Ph.D., you'll need to look at it the way you would if you were applying for a job: what can you add to the program? What research can you do that will be of interest to the scholars already there? If you approach a Ph.D. application as a semi-pro scholar, you'll have a better chance of getting in.

 

Just to quickly add a point (it's that point in the semester) about Jacen's concerns about loan payments, any government loans should be deferred w/o interest as long as you maintain a reasonable course/dissertation load.

 

Well, I started a long, pompous post that would make any academic proud, but I deleted it so that I can try to help you answer your questions.

First, an important way for you to evaluate how valuable an M.A. from Towson will be is to find out where graduates from that department have gone on to do doctoral work. As has been noted previously, the academic world tends to be very insular. Thus, your M.A. adviser's recommendation will be very important in your Ph.D. application--that, and your GRE scores; grades don't matter because everyone who will be applying for a Ph.D. will have high grades--as your Ph.D. adviser's recommendation will be important for your first job.

I quickly looked at the English department faculty at Towson (I didn't see an M.A. in English?). As you would expect from a regional university, they heavily represent other geographically close research universities and second-tier universities. Even though none of them went to JHU or Georgetown, maybe they have good contacts at those departments (maybe not).

So I would schedule a meeting with the DGS of the department at Towson you are considering and ask where recent graduates have been accepted and where they are currently studying. Then contact one or more of them and find out where they applied and where they were accepted.

Second, when you are looking at Ph.D. programs, it's better to look at the individual department rather than the general reputation of the school. Some schools are set up to make it as hard as possible to graduate.

Example: my M.A. adviser graduated from Madison. He started with 9 others (entering class of 10). He is the only one who stayed and completed his Ph.D. at Wisconsin--a couple transferred while most just quit. That was how his department was set up.

So you want to weigh in your decision not just the reputation of the school but also of the department. Some departments are living off of their reputations from 20 years ago. You want to go somewhere you have the best chance to succeed, and where you will have the best opportunity to get a job later.

Finally, there is no doubt that finding a tenure-track job is difficult. There are always more candidates than jobs to be filled, and increasingly, universities are using as many part-time instructors as possible. Nevertheless, if you finish your Ph.D., I'm confident you'll be able to find a full-time job as a professor. When you scratch beneath the surface, a lot of the people who can't find jobs in academia are ABDs, who are hoping to finish their degrees once they get hired.

Anyway, best of luck.

 

That's a good point: I seem to remember that Madison doesn't support it's English folks very well (very few T.A.s, going back to an early attempt by the grad students to unionize resulting in the University just doing away with the Freshman Comp requirement, thereby making English T.A.s next to unnecessary), which leads to a higher washout rate. Similarily, there's Virginia's english department, which supports very, very few entering students, and which supports only about half of their second year students: that creates an atmosphere bordering on venemous, I've been told, because getting money is so hyper-competitive. It's worth looking into things like this: even though the schools are respectable, and the particular programs noteworthy, there are certain details that make them unappealing.

Similarly, lesser known programs might have certain things going for them that you might overlook. Some places let you teach a lot of courses, and give you freedom to develop your courses yourself. This looks very good when it comes to applying for certain colleges that might expect you to be dedicated more to your teaching than to research (which doesn't change a thing I said about scholarly pursuits in G-school: even at places that make you teach a lot, and expect you to do it well, you can't get a Ph.D. without finishing the dissertation, which means you can't get a good teaching job at a place that values teaching over research without doing the research first.

 

I missed this on the first read through. Honestly, you don't need a Ph.D. from JHU or Georgetown to teach at those colleges. In fact, you will find a distinct bias against teaching colleges at most (not a stretch to say all) top tier schools.

That's because top schools have the pick of the litter in graduate students, and they want and expect their newly minted Ph.Ds to go off and burnish the reputations of their departments by getting academic appointments at other top institutions and by their future publications.

That's not to say you shouldn't go to JHU or Georgetown if you can get in, mind you. It's just that I can tell you straight out that neither of these universities sees it as their mission to supply professors for anything other than top tier universities.

 

LOL I'm sensing some backstory here, chad.

 

Werd. My advisor was a superstar with super-connections, but he is a complete wimpy idiot when it comes to using them. For me this wasn't a big deal, since I didn't care that much. But some of my friends who studied with him got fvcked.

 

Then this wasn't the person who taught me to hate Plato?

 

Nope. Different school.

 

Sounds like you've had a great time in academia.

 

Sad reality is that some faculty are peripatetics, always traveling, switching schools, etc. My first advisor left right before I qualified to write my dissertation at OSU - a risk you run. At the time, I could follow him or transfer. "Luckily" I could pretty much choose where to go at the time, since people liked me. I chose poorly based on bad advice. Oofs. To make matters worse not only did the advice steer me to someone who was kind of a dipsh!t, but the same advice also steered me away from someone whom it would have been much better for me to work with. Oofs, again.

In the end, for me, it matters little. I'm sort of bored of teaching. And my interest in my subject has waned. Oh yeah, and my wife does financial and securities litigation.