To PhD or not to PhD?

[BillyRay]

A resounding yes if you can live with :

a) Constant departemental squabbling and back-biting
b) Your life being on halt because you aren't sure you'll get that grant to continue research
c) Living in the publish or perish world and often paying out of pocket to attend seminars
d) Long stretches of uncertainty and the need to relocate
e) Teaching jobs that are bundled with administrative duties
f) Low percentage of actually getting tenure unless you play your cards right for half a decade or more

And I'm not even talking about writing your dissertation here...

Most people's perception of university work outside of hard sciences is that it is laid back. You teach maybe two undergrad courses and a gradutate courses every autumn and winter if you're unlucky, what's the pressure ?

But once you factor in all the work that goes into writing grant proposals, formal meetings between teaching staff and administration, student counseling duties, your own research, keeping up with the cutting edge of your field and comittee duties, you come to realize that it is a hard and very often cruel career. A very fullfilling one for sure, but the road to tenure is one full of broken dreams, talent wasted and political play that would put politicians to shame. Some have the right attitude and tolerance for stress to pull it off, but you really have to ask yourself those questions before making your decision. It is far more complicated than "there'll be no job for me in my field if I don't get a PhD" since you could always take another BA in a more lucrative field in the same time* (or less), where your masters in linguistics will command respect (and money) or "it'll be cool to be a PhD".

* The time of successful and well received dissertations being written under 4 years is pretty much gone. Writing yours and not getting critical acclaim all around can spell disaster for your future career, so you need to put the time in.

 

[LiquidMidnight]

Sorry about the terminology, the thing you write at the end of your master is called a 'Master scription' here, in the past it was called 'thesis'.

Haha, I was just going on about how anytime someone from Europe starts talking about their educational system, I'm like, "*** does all that mean?"

A resounding yes if you can live with :

a) Constant departemental squabbling and back-biting
b) Your life being on halt because you aren't sure you'll get that grant to continue research
c) Living in the publish or perish world and often paying out of pocket to attend seminars
d) Long stretches of uncertainty and the need to relocate
e) Teaching jobs that are bundled with administrative duties
f) Low percentage of actually getting tenure unless you play your cards right for half a decade or more

A lot of that depends on the university and your career aspirations. A research-oriented institution is going to place a much higher emphasis on publishing than a teaching-oriented institution. At the former institution, your classes may actually be taught by grad assistants, because you're too busy doing research. Not all departments are full of people who hate each other, though in my experience, any type of sizable organization is going to have its share of politics.

 

[Dr. Cheese]

This september I graduated as a master in Linguistics magna cum lauda.

I wrote my masterscription/dissertation on the use of language in Flemish and Dutch rap music. I got a 17/20 for that, and my readers were very excited about it, partly because the subject was something that was never studied before in Flanders or the Netherlands.

Several professors asked me to write a PhD...

I turned this offer down because

1) it was difficult enough to keep my mind on one subject for 6 months, let alone 4 years...

2) I think being in an office 8 hours/day working on my PhD will make me depressed.

3) it would mean that I'd have to write on a subject not chosen by myself.


Now, today I got a letter in the mail from the university. It's sent to all Masters who graduated summa/magna cum lauda. It's about a research funding organisation, offering you the possibility to get a grant (?) for a project on a free subject, as long as it's relevant, innovative, etc.

This got me thinking...why not?

Research is something that interests me, I've tried becoming a scientific researcher at the University but that's not possible without writing a PhD.

Right now I've applied for a job at an institute that develops language education to do research. Turned down.

What interests me a lot is the use of language by teenagers in multicultural environments. All around me I hear teenagers speak like they are Maroccan immigrants while in fact they are not. It's a phenomenon that has been studied in France (Verlan), The Netherlands (Straattaal), Germany (Kanaksprache), Sweden (Rynkeby Swedish) and beyond. But here in Flanders, no one has looked in to it so far. I could be the first.

Second, there's the pay. You make roughly 1500 Euro tax free every month, for four years. In these days of economic hardship that's pretty neat. Especially considering that no-one out there is really waiting for a linguist. Plenty of demand for IT, nurses, engineers, etc, but linguists? Nope sorry.

It's a lot of work, but I guess that if you look at it as your job, and work from 9 to 5 every day, and live your life besides that, why not?




So, any experience here, suggestions, ideas?

You probably know that I have a Ph.D. although I got mine in the American system. If you want the degree, and have a passion for the subject, you seem to have a golden opportunity. Having a supportive and interested committee is half of the battle. If you are willing to do the work, I think you will be very successful. Good luck, whatever you chose!

 

[smperry]

It's a marathon, but if you can stick with it, having the degree is worth the investment. I'm glad I pursued my Ph.D. and now I'm teaching graduate students, pursuing my own research, and earning a pretty good income without being a 9 to 5er. It's certainly not "laid back" (I agree with BillyRay) but the autonomy rocks.

 

[BillyRay]

True, some departments are more peaceful than others, but you have to remind yourself that competition is fierce for the handful of jobs available, especially now when many institutions will only distribute the course/research load of a retired professor between department members, instead of hiring. With the ecnonomy in the shape that it is, a lot more people stay in grad school for their PhD or enroll afer losing their job. One of my friend is finishing his masters in photo-something (I'm not a sciency type, at all) and when he enrolled for his MA, there were 3 other students. This year, 15 students enrolled, many who had went to work and came back due to job stability not being there.

That's almost a 400% increase in two years. Needless to say, for these new guys, not much chance of scoring some grad student work outside of clerking duties and reading material collection. No teaching.

Plus, you have to take into account that relocation is the norm. Not many study and then go on to work at the same institution. You have to move around before finally getting on tenure track in most cases.

And finally, statistics show that one in five PhDs will finally get tenure. That's 20% and unless you have your mind completly to it (and put a lot of thought on what you'll specialize in), this can mean a "career" as an assistant to a professor, even with your PhD (and even postgraduate education, wich is slowly becoming the norm). A lot of very intelligent and talented people end up just not making it due to their dissertation subject and their publishing record, while others score big time even before they finish their dissertation because they were a hot commodity.

Two of my friends plunged headfrst into the whole PhD shebang and I can see them being very, very, very successful. Their interests range in more contemporary subjects, while mine were more centered around rhetorics and enunciation theory, hardly marketable in today's market (at least were I live). They are also single, ready to relocate at the drop of a hat if needed, and to them, waiting to see if they get scholarships while living in relative poverty is nothing to them. They don't value job security as much as I do. Meanwhile, my girlriend is already on the job market and we're thinking about maybe buying a house in the next few years.

This translates to me going back to scool and getting a BA that will get me job skills out of academia, instead of pursuing my PhD like I always wanted.

 

[Dale D Dilly]

I really don't see your cons as cons. You're going to have a more open schedule than that involved in many other professions and types of professional training.

You get to even come up with your own research proposition for that grant (if I understood correctly) which means you can focus on the exact topics that you enjoy.

Anyone else thing the need for linguists is going to skyrocket in a few years? The developed world is moving from literate to electronically literate and quite a few businesses, educational institutions, and a ton of other entities are going to need the expertise of linguists as part of restructuring themselves to accommodate these changes. Maybe I'm just daydreaming, but I don't think it'd be a bad field to be in at all.

 

[LiquidMidnight]

True, some departments are more peaceful than others, but you have to remind yourself that competition is fierce for the handful of jobs available, especially now when many institutions will only distribute the course/research load of a retired professor between department members, instead of hiring. With the ecnonomy in the shape that it is, a lot more people stay in grad school for their PhD or enroll afer losing their job. One of my friend is finishing his masters in photo-something (I'm not a sciency type, at all) and when he enrolled for his MA, there were 3 other students. This year, 15 students enrolled, many who had went to work and came back due to job stability not being there.

That's almost a 400% increase in two years. Needless to say, for these new guys, not much chance of scoring some grad student work outside of clerking duties and reading material collection. No teaching.

Plus, you have to take into account that relocation is the norm. Not many study and then go on to work at the same institution. You have to move around before finally getting on tenure track in most cases.

And finally, statistics show that one in five PhDs will finally get tenure. That's 20% and unless you have your mind completly to it (and put a lot of thought on what you'll specialize in), this can mean a "career" as an assistant to a professor, even with your PhD (and even postgraduate education, wich is slowly becoming the norm). A lot of very intelligent and talented people end up just not making it due to their dissertation subject and their publishing record, while others score big time even before they finish their dissertation because they were a hot commodity.

Two of my friends plunged headfrst into the whole PhD shebang and I can see them being very, very, very successful. Their interests range in more contemporary subjects, while mine were more centered around rhetorics and enunciation theory, hardly marketable in today's market (at least were I live). They are also single, ready to relocate at the drop of a hat if needed, and to them, waiting to see if they get scholarships while living in relative poverty is nothing to them. They don't value job security as much as I do. Meanwhile, my girlriend is already on the job market and we're thinking about maybe buying a house in the next few years.

This translates to me going back to scool and getting a BA that will get me job skills out of academia, instead of pursuing my PhD like I always wanted.

I definitely wasn't discounting a lot of the crap that goes with academia. However, it's also not all bad. My girlfriend's pretty close to getting tenure. It wasn't handed to her, but she didn't have to crawl through feces for it either. Well, maybe a little if you count her thesis chair who sounds like a very evil woman from the stories she's told me. Her dissertation chair was much better. She does bust her ass, though. However, you can expect to bust your ass more than normal for many salaried positions, whether in academia or the "Real World."

Her union contract helps protect the availability of tenured track positions from becoming a bunch of adjunct positions. Unfortunately, all instructors now have to have their doctorates in hand (JDs are also considered terminal degrees for full professorship in that particular college system even though it's not a terminal law degree). Before, tenured track professors could enter with Master's and stay tenured track as long as they earned their doctorates within a certain amount of time. One of my grad school profs just earned his Ph.D. last semester. Unfortunately, that's no longer the case.

I definitely do notice the trendiness that goes with certain research topics. I think that's why I've never really wanted to get into academia. I guess it comes down to what performance appraisal system you enjoy being under.