(Advance warning: this post is far longer than I originally intended.)
Photo: Me and Wendy Maxian, Ph.D., my first doctoral advisee. Often overworked, I hope she never felt like a “disposable academic.”
Setting aside family, my doctoral program represents the single greatest experience in my life.
No experience before Indiana allowed me to singleminded, obsessive stalk that which I loved most, and although I adore being a professor, it’s just not the same.
For four years I chased intellectual pursuits with abandon. I worked with mentors who may have peers but have no superiors.
This experience allowed me to become who I am. I miss it often, and if I won the lottery tomorrow, there’s better than even odds that I’d show up in Bloomington tomorrow looking for another Ph.D.
lt is about the journey
If the fascists win out and higher education were abolished tomorrow, I’d have to find a nonacademic job. Even if that occurs, I’ll never regret my doctoral program.
A former colleague this week asked me about the value of a Ph.D. after reading this article, titled, “The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time,” in The Economist.
OK, so the author, whose name I am not clever enough to find does say “often.” And sensations headlines garner clicks. But this piece fundamentally misses so many points.
Uniquely your program
Although a vast variety of fields offer the degree titled doctor of philosophy, no two are equal. That’s for two reasons. First the practical reason.
As a faculty member, I attend commencement exercises frequently. As much of the “warm up” speeches by university officials rarely change, my mind often drifts to the commencement program. I enjoy reading titles of graduating doctoral students’ dissertations.
Being quite the outsider, some titles amuse me. Many — especially those in the “hard” sciences and engineering — I cannot even pronounce or decipher the titles. The technical jargon doesn’t make sense.
Some background reading
Common denominators exist. At Texas Tech, for instance, all doctoral students must pass qualifying exams following their coursework and before the dissertation. The content obviously varies, but even the format varies fundamentally.
Some departments, such as my own, require in camera (closed-book) exams. As a doctoral student, the process slightly terrified me. However, some of us believe that to qualify to write a doctoral dissertation, one should be able to demonstrate both breadth and depth of the subject matter without resources.
Others disagree, focusing primarily upon the quality of work that can be accomplished with time. Some programs, for instance, provide students two weeks to respond to each question (there are often four, but I have no data to support that this is the most frequent). Clearly faculty hold much higher expectations in these instances, and they are looking for a different skill set.
So various faculties even administer a common structural feature differently.
From here, the process differs wildly. In truth, although I hold a joint doctoral degree in mass communication and cognitive science, I have no idea what a dissertation requires in the humanities or, say, physics.
Everyone says that humanities dissertations can stretch more than 1,000 pages. I also have heard accounts of a mathematics dissertation containing fewer than 40 pages. For reference, I just looked. Mine was 200 pages on the nose (plus 17 pages of front matter and 6 pages of academic resume that are not numbered).
Comparing academic disciplines, then, truly does represent comparing apples and oranges.
The facts of academic life
According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Statistical Abstract of the United States, 19.1% of the population held a bachelor’s degree, and 10.% had an advanced degree in 2008. Although I cannot find the exact data, according to this table, earned master’s degrees outnumber earned doctoral degrees in 2007 by about 10:1 (i.e., 604,607 earned master’s degrees in 2007 compared to 60,616 earned doctoral degrees).
This coincides with the general wisdom that I’ve always heard, about 1% of the U.S. population holds a doctorate (i.e., if approximately 10% of the population holds a master’s degree, and 10 master’s are granted for every doctoral degree, it follows that about 1% hold a doctorate).
But is 1% too many? The Economist claims:
There is an oversupply of PhDs. Although a doctorate is designed as training for a job in academia, the number of PhD positions is unrelated to the number of job openings. Meanwhile, business leaders complain about shortages of high-level skills, suggesting PhDs are not teaching the right things. The fiercest critics compare research doctorates to Ponzi or pyramid schemes.
But is this true? As you may have guessed by now, it varies widely by discipline.
Public relations case study
Within my broader field of mass communication, this quotation is unequivocally false.
Interest in the Watergate scandal and other social unrest of the 1960s and 1970s drove undergraduates toward journalism in great numbers. Over time, especially recently, these undergraduate have shifted toward advertising (my own department) and public relations. Yet mass communication undergraduate enrollment remains strong.
In particular, public relations enrollments exploded during the past 15 years. Yet few students earning those bachelor’s degrees in public relations went on to graduate school. Demand to teach these courses surged, but supply simply didn’t exist. In that timeframe, the number of universities and colleges seeking to hire public relations faculty grossly outnumbered the number of people receiving doctoral degrees in that branch of mass communication.
During my first academic year at Tech, 2006-2007, one practically could not hire a public relations professor at any price.
Myriad causes underly the shortage. As an academic discipline, public relations is nascent. Thus the establishment simply has not existed to grind out the numbers. Before the current recession, the best graduates picked from top jobs, which all pay far more than graduate student stipends. And the ugly truth about many (but by no means all) mass communication students is that they’re running from math.
Advertising and public relations typically require fewer math courses than marketing, so we pick up too many “majors” this way. When I talk to otherwise outstanding undergraduates about graduate school, this “bad at math” problem frequently surfaces. Most graduate programs require some quantitative method coursework, and the Graduate Record Exam includes an intense quantitative section.
The field evolves, the recession nixed many positions with hiring freezes, and supply comes closer each year to meeting demand. But if you’re a dynamite doctoral student in public relations, you’re in a great place. Advertising remains only a half step behind as a seller’s market.
So why the difference?
You get what you pay for
Pardon the cliché, but it applies here. For most professions, the truism holds: the more “fun” a job is, the less it pays.
Which would you rather do with your time? Do someone’s corporate income tax or write stories about sporting events. Most people pick the latter, and that’s why accountants make much more than sports reporters.
Many of my students want to go into sports marketing or promotion. Although it is my job to help them achieve their dreams, I always try to point out that these types of positions typically pay far less than corporate equivalents. Simply put, it’s a lot more fun promoting the Dallas Cowboys than BP.
And the same is clearly true for doctoral programs.
Supply and demand
Want to teach military history? Good luck. That’s fun stuff. There’s a reason I have the History Channel, History International, and the Military Channel on my not-top-of-the-line cable package. People love that stuff.
Seriously, I think that there is something about Nazis on at all times on my AT&T U-verse.
And it sounds amazing to get paid to learn more about it.
But guess what? Lots of people have that idea. And although I do not have the data, the ratio of history doctoral graduates to tenure-track history faculty positions (without going into it, just assume this means “traditional” if you’re not an academic type).
The same is true in English. Who wouldn’t love to get paid to read Shakespeare or Chaucer? You may not love it, but way too many people do.
The American Medical Association carefully polices the number of people receiving M.D.’s each year. The same is not true for doctoral degrees in English and history.
In fact the system encourages the kind of “abuse” decried by The Economist.
It’s hard to imagine a college or university without required courses in English and history. All undergraduates must take them. That’s a lot of volume. And given states continually shirking their duties to fund higher education, relatively inexpensive doctoral students fill these teaching loads.
And that part of the system is very much broken.
It’s not personal, just business
Doctoral students in overpopulated fields compete for their slots. Even though countless sections of freshman composition and U.S. history since 1865 must be filled, those slots are not endless.
And even inexpensive doctoral students often cost more than part-time adjuncts, the true slave labor of higher education.
But here supply and demand is the enemy. Undergraduates end up with degrees in history and English, and for whatever reason they don’t put those skills to use in the marketplace.
The reasons are many, but I still believe in a “liberal arts” undergraduate education, and it saddens me that business is the most popular undergraduate major in the nation. We need thinkers (I think we’d have a better world if more students earned undergraduate degrees in social sciences and then pursued at M.B.A.)
But far too few traditional faculty positions exist for the current number of undergraduates to opt into grad school and then professordom. Many choose this path for the right reasons, but many choose it because it’s the “natural” thing for someone with their training.
And as long as they line up for slots, they’ll be underpaid and overworked.
The road less taken
At some point this has to fall upon the student’s shoulders. When I considered graduate school, I asked questions. Although I have a dual love of the mind and mediated messages, it was instantly clear that one path was for more difficult. Psychology faculty positions are plentiful compared to English and history, but it’s a much tougher market than mass communication.
So my research (and some of my teaching) combines my two loves, but I am in an advertising department, where supply was far more friendly. So many of my courses are more practical.
And that was my deliberate choice. Would some part of me be happier teaching computational modeling at one of the world’s few “big” cognitive science programs? Sure.
But I love my job, love my students, and I can provide well for my family without having to drive all across a region scraping together adjunct positions at three or more institutions.
In this case, buyers must be wary. Before you consider a doctoral program, ask the important questions. When a department begins a search for a new faculty position, if its most pressing questions is, “Where can we get an extra conference room to store all of the applications?” then you should think long and hard before diving into that pond, small fish.
To an extent, we all suffer from Lake Wobgon Syndrome. You know, “where all the children are above average.” I can imagine the scores of would be doctoral students in hyper-competitive fields who just knew that they’d be the ones to land a tenure-track appointment at Harvard only to be crushed by mathematical reality.
Yet that’s not the point
And all of these already-too-many words focus too heavily upon the business of higher education, which remains broken. A would be graduate student simply cannot afford to ignore the economic realities entirely.
As I blended mind and message (inspiring the very title of this blog), perhaps students need to blend their interests in order to be competitive. For instance, we have an associate dean who recently spoke to me about a piece he was writing about journalists during the Spanish Civil War. Like me, he’s borrowing the method of another discipline to apply in a slightly more applied one.
As a side note, journalism is not a safe landing point today as newspapers struggle to find a business model. Yet the point remains. A would be public relations professor could reasonably study Nazi propaganda as a means of better understanding theories of persuasion. This would be both unconventional and uncommon, but I’d still bet this hypothetical individual lands a tenure-track position far faster than a traditional World War II era historian.
All of this still misses the point.
What the Ph.D. is really about
I have often said that my doctoral diploma should read “Annie Lang,” my adviser, rather than “Indiana University.” Her guiding hand meant much more to my doctoral development than the institution at large. The same is true for my cognitive science mentor, Mike Gasser.
These two shaped my program of study with the perfect amount of guidance. I was steered to see things that I otherwise I would not have seen, yet I was encouraged to grapple with my particular interests.
At its core, I believe that the doctoral degree must be about mentorship. And it must be about contribution of knowledge.
You see, it really is an epistemological thing.
And I’ve often heard that there’s no surer route to standing alone at a cocktail party than to utter the word “epistemology.”
But I strongly believe that this is precisely where most misconceptions about the doctorate of philosophy lie, and I’m saddened by how many smart people earn Ph.D.’s from good institutions without understanding this, and more importantly, where they fit.
How do you know what you know?
As a brief aside, please allow Mr. Preacher Man to restate that a doctor of philosophy is a research degree. If you have no interest in doing research (admittedly broadly defined), then you have no business pursuing a Ph.D. That does not mean that you are not suited for advanced study, but this should not be the degree for you. Back to our story.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, epistemology is, “The theory or science of the method or grounds of knowledge.”
So what does that mean?
I’m not a philosopher, but to the average doctoral student, it means that you should openly confront the question of, “What, to you, is the nature of evidence?”
This may sound trivial, but it is crucially important. Research is about asking questions — and — ultimately answering them. How can you possibly expect to provide new knowledge — that is, provide an answer to a question that has never before been answered — if you do not have a solid grasp on what evidence might look like.
This still may seem slightly trivial to you; however, allow me to assure you that once you begin to confront this at the deepest level, you will almost inevitably experience many Alice in Wonderland moments. That is, you should be disoriented.
You made it this far
For most non-philosophers, a substantial body of knowledge can be acquired without confronting the nature of evidence. Certainly elementary, middle, and high schools fit this model. Someone stands in front of the class and teaches you things. The only difference is that she or he has read more books than you. Most likely no knowledge has been created.
And in many instances, this also is true of most bachelor’s degrees. Although there is a good chance that the person in front of the lectern does create knowledge, there is far less chance that this knowledge will make it into the course in any large part. In the instances where it does happen, it is far less likely that the knowledge generator will have time or reason to discuss with you her or his personal beliefs about how she or he knows that.
Thus you march onward acquiring ever more knowledge and skill, but rare is the occasion where your foundation is shaken. You’re just piling facts in the filing cabinet.
As a human being, you’ve learned to survive in this world, and you haven’t needed to question the pillars of knowledge. You merely need to survive, and practical biological survival is at best tangentially related to the nature of evidence.
If something hurts when you touch it, you simply don’t touch it again. Rarely do you question the “purpose” or pain, where it came from, and whether it was appropriate in this instance.
Simple, rough-and-ready stimulus-response suffices quite nicely. And I’m not trying to suggest that you have lived a life without deep philosophical thoughts. Indeed you have those. But far less likely is the probability that you confronted the question of how you’d assess the validity of an answer provided to that deep question.
Anyone seen my lab coat?
I’m a scientist. Science is my way of knowing. That’s what science is, after all, a way of knowing. The disconnect between “world” and “epistemology “could be no clearer than the fact that most people cannot define “science.” To most, it’s simply “biology, chemistry, and physics.”
And although it is true that almost all researchers within those disciplines employ the scientific method, those disciplines are merely a subset rather than a defining characteristic.
Again, from OED, “The state or fact of knowing; knowledge or cognizance of something specified or implied; also, with wider reference, knowledge (more or less extensive) as a personal attribute. Now only Theol. in the rendering of scholastic terms (see quot. 1728), and occas. Philos. in the sense of ‘knowledge’ as opposed to ‘belief’ or ‘opinion’.”
If the average person — even a highly educated person with a master’s degree in anything other than philosophy — gave a definition even remotely close to that for science, I’d be astounded.
But knowing how you know the world is key to creating knowledge. Otherwise, how would you know it’s knowledge?
Is any of this real?
This discussion of epistemology relates to, although is not causally bound to, ontology, which OED calls, “The science or study of being; that branch of metaphysics concerned with the nature or essence of being or existence.”
This is perhaps the even headier question of “what is reality?” Is there a reality out there, or do we all live in our own Matrix? Ontology represents an equally important foundational question that the doctoral program of study and outside research should confront.
Today I know who I am, what I believe to be real, and what I trust as evidence.
I didn’t flip a coin to decide these things, and in many ways my answers were always inside of me. So it’s no surprise that I predominantly employ laboratory experiments and computational modeling.
Control is important to me. In the lab (and in computer simulations), we control everything we can. We systematically manipulate variables and measure responses. The variables we measure, known as dependent variables, have been vetted at both the broader conceptual level and the precise ways in which we measure them.
Mixing the brain with mediated messages entails great complexity, and unexpected results occur not uncommonly. Science is not about being right all the time. It’s about having a framework with which to interpret the evidence. It dictates our next step when counterintuitive data arise. We scrutinize the data, the method, and the theory. Then we make reasoned predictions — hypotheses — that when tested should either confirm or discount our new explanations. We follow the data in a systematic nature.
New foundation
During the first year at Indiana, Annie (that’s what she’s always had us call her despite the fact that such familiarity would be sacrilege in some places) forced me to deal with these issues.
And it tears apart your understanding of the world. On the other side, however, awaits a knowledge foundation built on bedrock.
You reinterpret the world. Data are no more or less valid, but the way that one interprets them changes.
The intellectual journey stimulates the mind in a way that no other journey can.
At its core, this is what the Ph.D. should be all about.
Economic realities exist. One must be practical. But in this materialistic, multinational corporate world, one last refuge of pure intellectual pursuit must persist.
In some places, for some people, the doctor of philosophy embodies this knowledge safe haven.
Individual tailored study
Before anyone embarks on a doctoral program, that person should have identified a handful of scholars that appear to be the only ones in the world capable of serving as a sherpa for that personal journey.
Institution quality matters, of course, as most coursework will not be with one’s advisor (under our system). So due diligence is required here. Only Will Hunting got excellent mentorship from a community college teacher. But mentor quality breaks all ties.
And despite my liberal use of cliché in this post, purpose guided the word choice “sherpa,” as the traveller-guide metaphor best captures my view of learning.
That’s the second point (from far above) why no two doctoral degrees are equal. Each Ph.D. is an unduplicated journey of mentor and student.
Find potential mentors. Learn about them. Read their stuff. Talk to their former students. Unless honorifics in that discipline preclude it (find out) , talk to the potential mentor. Here’s the first paragraph that Annie ever wrote me,
Will you be at ICA or AEJMC this summer? It would be nice to meet with you and talk about your interests and what you want to do etc. Also – you can interview some of my X-students – as well as those of the other professors you are interested in studying with – to see what the different styles of training/teaching/working etc. are.
That was May, 18, 2000, more than 6 months before doctoral applications were due. Her students also reached out.
I’m biased, of course, but I could not give a program a higher recommendation. I feel as if I owe the current trajectory of my academic career to Annie. She not only taught me how to conduct research, she taught me a lot about the ins-and-outs of the life of a professor.
This kind of communication predicted the success I enjoyed.
At long last, a conclusion
Here’s how The Economist concluded:
Many of those who embark on a PhD are the smartest in their class and will have been the best at everything they have done. They will have amassed awards and prizes. As this year’s new crop of graduate students bounce into their research, few will be willing to accept that the system they are entering could be designed for the benefit of others, that even hard work and brilliance may well not be enough to succeed, and that they would be better off doing something else. They might use their research skills to look harder at the lot of the disposable academic. Someone should write a thesis about that.
I shall conclude on a slightly higher note. The doctor of philosophy offers the promise to transform the very way you know the world in which you live. If you prepare, investigate, and choose wisely, it should be the defining experience of your professional life.
If you do these things poorly, then perhaps you shall become the “disposable academic.” But in this era of information technology, there’s no excuse to be ill-informed. I e-mailed with my eventual mentor and her former students (then both successful assistant professors at respected programs) more than a decade ago. There’s no reason not to know.
In the end, I’ll quote one of the many wise things offered by Annie over the years.
“The Ph.D. is a license to teach yourself,” she said.
As a terminal degree, a committee of (hopefully) experts in your field sign off on your ability as an independent scholar when they approve your dissertation. That means no further degree awaits you. Instead, you’re certified as able to create knowledge. You can teach yourself.
Tagged as:
education,
graduate school
It’s been a busy month, and I’ve neglected the Weblog.
Late one night last week, I sleepily watched some nonfiction program that alluded to “codes” in the ancient biblical texts.
Admittedly I love the moon, but it was insomnia that kept me up for the eclipse more than curioisity.
I'm a cognitive scientist and communication scholar who manages a psychophysiology lab at Texas Tech. I teach courses about the cognitive processing of media messages and research methods.