Previous installments of The Toast’s newly-renamed (thanks, Adrienne!) advice column from two disparate and imperfect persons can be found here. Last time: Flirting, Deodorant, and Presents for Boys.
This is a typical Ph.D angst question! I’ve always known I’d get a graduate degree and classics was all I ever wanted to do, and now I’m here and I’m ok at it, but am also miserable and have anxiety and hate everyone and there are no jobs, but am I a failure at life if I quit?
Nicole: Get out now. I almost mean it! I do mean it, but with an awareness of the importance of the academy and your own agency and so on and so forth. But I have to believe that you need to have a CALLING to be in grad school. Grad school, or, well, academia, is something that you must believe you are drawn towards with all of your soul and heart and being, like a NUN towards the CLOISTERED LIFE, or you’ll be miserable. It can never be the default, like “well, I guess I’ll just keep going to school forever, then” because the sacrifices and torments will not seem worthwhile when they happen. And there are paths out which do not only include grimly finishing your dissertation, which I think is difficult to see when you are in the middle of it. I would try to talk candidly to your friends in academia about their lives and happiness and regrets. I know blissfully happy academics and I know blissfully happy people who bailed out of academia halfway through their PhD OR immediately after and are living full and rich lives.
You may, too, realize that you are better than okay at it. I read a few chapters of a friend’s dissertation–which had become, to her, like a word you’ve looked at for too long that no longer makes any sense–because she had become concerned that she had written the worst dissertation in the history of the world, and it was BRILLIANT and now I know everything about Bruegel’s The Triumph of Death. It made me wistful for four seconds about the path not taken.
Also, I would consciously try to figure out how strongly your miserableness is correlated with your job/field of study. Not to answer every query with: “are you depressed, possibly?” but if you are, you will still be depressed if you leave your program, so let’s do our best to find out now.
Second, and more important also: When in Academia, the finest academia-related Tumblr.
Mallory: This is a difficult sort of question, I think. Give anyone enough time after they’ve made a decision and they’ll generally find a way to justify it; if not in a deeply specific way, then at least in a generic sort of “well-my-choices-have-made-me-who-I-am-today-so-non-je-regrette-rien” way. It’s the rare person who’s objective or bitter enough to say “I shouldn’t have done that and I hope you don’t either.” Neither Nicole nor I are in grad school (obviously) and both of us are, I think, fairly pleased with our current careers (I hope! Nicole, how are you doing over there?) (Right as rain –Ed.), so it’s relatively easy for me to sort of reflexively glance at your question and say “Yeah, get out of there, you crazy kid.”
One thing you should do if you are a classicist (if you have not already) is read Tam Lin by Pamela Dean. I don’t know if it will help you make a decision, but you should absolutely read it.
“But I’d be a year behind in my major, if I decided I didn’t want to switch to Classics,” said Janet. She thought it over. Something about Melinda Wolfe put her back up; she hoped it wasn’t just that Wolfe made her feel grubby. She asked, “When’s beginning Greek offered?”
“Winter term.”
“Well, that might work. Because I want English 11 from Evans, too, and he only does that in the spring.”
“I really hate to see you kids limiting your choices so soon,” said Melinda Wolfe.
Janet discovered in herself a desire not to disappoint her advisor. She wanted to seem intelligent, not stubborn. She took a deep breath and said, “But if I can start an English major my sophomore year, why can’t I start a Classics one then, if I decide I don’t want the English?”
“True, O King,” said her advisor, with perfect mildness.
All of which is to say: being miserable and anxious may be a condition of your present academic state, or they may be a condition of being 27, or living in the last stages of a decadent capitalist society, or you may have unintentionally angered a powerful wizard who lives in the ash tree outside of your apartment. You might quit your program and after the initial rush of relief find yourself still miserable, still anxious, still jobless, and qualified for nothing. That is a theory you can test!
But if you’re fresh out of graduate school and a bit adrift and not sure what you’re qualified for, the first big chunk of post-graduate school life is probably going to be full of unemployment and underemployment and shitty jobs with too little training and too much supervision, and it will take a few years, not months, to figure out the Venn diagram of what you’re good at and what you enjoy and what you are capable of learning and what will make you money. And these jobs probably will not be about something you love as much as you loved Herodotus when you first start Classics-ing. But you will slowly find something that sucks less, and do it more and do it better, and eventually you may develop a career that surprises and pleases you.
A last thought. I have friends who stayed in academia, and I have friends who have quit academia. And some of my friends who stayed are happy, and some of them are miserable and know it, and some of them are miserable and don’t know it. Everyone who left, though, they only wish they had left sooner. I don’t know anyone who’s left it and regretted it.
Anyhow, you should definitely read Tam Lin and you should maybe leave graduate school.
I have two jobs, one at a tiny arts non-profit, and one riding and grooming horses at the boarding/training stable where I keep my horse (poniieeeees). I got both jobs right around the time I moved back to this area two years ago and was originally part-time at both, then eventually full-time at the office job and part time with the ponies. Then I turned 26 in June and it became clear my full-time office job was not going to be able to offer me health insurance, and after a month of stressful scrambling and 5 gray hairs I ended up in this situation: part time at the office, full time at the barn (with a very generous raise that allows me to afford an individual insurance plan) both riding and teaching beginner riding lessons.
I am hitting the point of total frustration with my office job. I don’t agree with the way the organization is being run, I am annoyed that I have been here for 2 years and still make a tiny wage and have ZERO benefits, and generally find myself arguing with my boss every step of the way. Meanwhile, I LOOOOOVE working at the barn. I can set my own schedule, love getting to ride and be active all day, I really like teaching (which I did not expect at all), and I have on more than one occasion spent a 12 hour day there and been sad to leave at the end of it. BUT: I can’t help but think it would be irresponsible of me to quit my office job. Working with horses is lovely, but I have worked at barns on and off since I was 16 and know how easy it is for a great barnwork situation to fall apart. Also there’s the whole Any Day Now One Of These 1200 Pound Beasts Could Horribly Injure Me And Then What Would I Do factor.
Nicole: Oh, wow, a question I can help answer by being marginally more informed than the general population! HORSES! I edited out the part of your question which involved rejecting Option C: finding a better office job, but I think you already know that you will likely have to pursue that option and will not further hammer the point.
People who spend their lives working with horses are not like the rest of us. One of my dearest friends is a horse trainer (she trained my own mare) and she is very clearly different from other people, in a way which has been emphasized further by literally every woman (and the two dudes) I have ever encountered in a training capacity. It’s a hard, physical job. It’s a dangerous job. It pays almost nothing, unless you are working with Olympians or spend 40% of your time taking commissions for selling one client’s horse to another client. The clients are rich (usually), the trainers are poor (most of the time). I know a trainer who came off and broke her leg, had no insurance and no money, and a client’s orthopedic surgeon dad essentially jury-rigged a cast for her because she couldn’t afford surgery, and now she’s fine and only limps a little bit. She is one of the most emotionally fulfilled people you will ever meet.
I spoke to a very talented young rider and trainer a few years ago who said to me: “What you have to understand about people who train horses is that we are not psychologically capable of working in an office around people every day. If we could do something else, we would.” Is that universally true? No. It’s not. You seem like you can do something else, even if it’s frustrating. You love horses and teaching, but you’re not all-in yet.
Should you be? Well, you’re very young. You could do full-time at the barn for a few years. But the long-term prospects, as you know, are rocky. Barns get new owners. Barns get drama. Middle school? Hah. EVERYONE, if you miss middle-school dramatics, please go hang out at a lesson barn for an afternoon, it is a telenovela. You’ll get hurt. I feel comfortable saying that, not as a BEWARE! but as a simple fact: I am sure there is someone who has had a full-time horse job for more than ten years without a major injury, but I’ve yet to meet one. Then your insurance premiums go up, and you can’t afford them anymore. It is a job which cannot offer you security, but it is also a perfect job for those who have actually been granted the extraordinary gift of being able to do it well and can throw caution to the winds. Is that you? If it is, godspeed, and if it is not, I strongly strongly urge you to aggressively seek out a better office job. Or not in an office, there are many kinds of jobs a person can do.
To work with horses full-time is, like academia (see what I did there!) more like choosing a whole life than taking a job. What life do you want? If you think you can be satisfied spending a few hours a day at the barn and having the meat of your time elsewhere, do that. If you can’t, you have your answer.
Mallory: There’s a scene in Party Down–which was maybe the best show on television about self-delusion and bitterness and giving up that has ever existed–where Ron asks for life advice from two of his co-workers.
Ron: “Constance, you’ve experienced a lot. What in life matters?”
Constance: “Oh, Ron, that question is as vast and wondrous as life itself–”
Lydia: “I’ve experienced a fair amount.”
Constance: “Ron, in all of life, the one thing that matters is that you follow your heart.”
Lydia: “I’d say three things. Paid rent, some form of insurance, and TV. Preferably cable with DVR.”
Constance: “No, you’re wrong, it’s love.”
Lydia: “Oh. Well, being practical is my experience.”
Constance: “Well, your experience is probably wrong. Follow your heart, Ron.”
Lydia: “Right. And the next thing you know, you’re sleeping on your friend Peg’s couch, drinking vermouth all day, and crying until you pull a muscle in your face.”
Get a better job (LOL “just get a better job!”). But get a better job where you don’t fight with your boss every day. I can’t imagine having a job where I fight with my boss every day. That sounds exhausting! Are you exhausted? I would be exhausted.
The thing about horses is, you can go do barn stuff once in a while if you want to, no matter what job you have. You can’t work in a barn all day and then occasionally pick up a full-time career with a bright future and a pension plan on the side. Horse People terrify me. I used to ride when I was a kid and I remember feeling relentlessly intimidated by these wide-stanced women who had samplers in the front office that said things like “I can only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow is not looking good either” and meant it. That’s a very specific way to live your life, my friend.
This is turning into a very conventional advice column! “Be practical. Don’t work in non-profits or barns or a graduate school. Get health insurance. Slowly become great at something, like medical billing.” But not having health insurance and needing it is horrific. The bills terrify you. The numb, cold feeling in the pit of your stomach when you think about having your same shitty job on your next birthday is awful.
But if to do anything else would break your heart, then take yourself and your heart and get a job at the Marlboro Ranch. They’re always hiring.
Tags: advice, advice from two disparate persons, she said she said
I like the new name! I don’t have much advice for these career type people.
Also, don’t feel bad, Mallory! Women are very practical. Even Ingrid Bergman, which is why she gets on the plane at the end of the movie. and that is why I will never be a full-time freelancer, because I like getting a paycheck every two weeks and being reasonably certain of making our mortgage payments.
There is a LOT to be said for being practical. This was a big conflict I had with an ex-boyfriend – he found the idea of being tied down with a lease, a steady job with benefits, a long-term relationship, all of that stuff to be just overwhelming. For him, freedom was no responsibilities, nothing tying him down. Whereas I…was terrified by the prospect of not being able to support myself. The worst year of my life was when I was financially dependent on an abusive ex with whom I lived and getting a decently paying, steady full-time job was my ticket out from a bad situation. It’s just not in me to take that risk again, you know? Maybe my life is more boring now but my peace of mind is dependent on knowing how my rent is getting paid, and that if I need to go to the doctor, I can.
There is a lot of freedom in having that peace of mind, I think, and in knowing you can pay for a place to live and for medicine if you get sick. In knowing that you regularly have a paycheck coming to do those important important things.
Ahhh! I had to comment on this post just to say how excited I was that someone else had read Tam Lin!
That book was amazing and I read it so many times when I was about 16-17 and I very nearly did Classics because of it myself. And every time I read something that lets me understand another reference or quote in it I get very excited. (I need an annotated copy, I think.) I still read it about once a year very happily.
Oh man, an annotated version would be the best thing ever. I almost stole my library’s copy of the book because it was out of print for a while.
There used to be a comprehensively annotated edition online – I think it was a sort of renegade project – and the fact that it is no longer available is one of the single great tragedies of my life.
Also: Tam Lin is definitely the good twin to The Secret History’s evil twin when it comes to books about people/academics with a passion for Classics.
Tam Lin may have been a factor in my decision to major in Classics.
I am so bad at English lit, and I don’t understand classic literature at all, and Tam Lin made me want to go to a fancy campus university to do an English degree. (Practicality won out and I did science, but the dream was there…)
I think Tam Lin made me do Classics. And now every year I steal that part about how Classics is so great because you get to read real stuff right away, and I give it as a speech to my Greek students. (I hope you all have a Calling, Greek students! I hope I’m not tempting you into the evil fairyland of Classics where you will be imprisoned forever!)
Seriously, has there ever been and can there ever be any better TV series than Party Down?
To me, there surely has not been. Which is why the accuracy of the description “best show on television about self-delusion and bitterness and giving up” is giving me a bit of pause for self-reflection.
LW1, are you my friend who spent all summer agonizing to me about whether to go back to school in the fall? Are you SURE? *squints*
Even if you’re not: it is very, very hard to make that decision when everyone in academia is set up to tell you to stay. That’s how the whole thing works! But you absolutely will not be a failure at life if you leave the field. I bailed after my master’s, and after years and years of thinking classics was all I wanted and ever would do… it was hard. It was absolutely hard, and worse when compounded with other mental health issues. But now, five years – yikes! – after leaving grad school, I have a job I mostly like and I have a life I really love and I’m much happier and healthier than I was. I am not telling you to leave, but I’m telling you that if you do it’ll be okay.
Also, I always recommend “So What Are You Going to Do With That?”: Finding Careers Outside Academia to people considering bailing on grad school; I found it tremendously helpful as I figured out what the hell I was going to do if it wasn’t classics. (And nobody will be surprised to hear that Tam Lin is my favorite book ever.)
Seconding that wonderful book, So What Are You Going to Do With That. Reading it was like, for the first time, someone KNEW me, and understood.
LW1, I’m still straggling through my degree but I also have a comfortable day job as a scholarly book marketer and a sideline of writing for money. I am not always happy but I am happier. Part of how I came to this decision is through some of the exercises in the abovementioned book, which helped me spell out many of my fears and discomforts in academia versus what I actually liked about it. And, after a not insignificant period of job hunting, I found some pursuits that supply more of what I liked and less of what I didn’t. So, you’ve got to find out those things for yourself. Good luck, I feel for you so hard.
This is something I know about, being in academia.
So, the thing is, Classics PhD candidate, that even if you finish the long slog to get your PhD, are there going to be any jobs for you out there afterward?
I’d like to tell you my story: when I was getting my MA at a state school (not particularly well-regarded) around 2000, there was an opening in the department for a tenure-track position. There were 250 *kick-ass* CVs submitted, from places like Harvard, Yale, etc, etc. That sort of told me that if I continued on to get my PhD, I’d be competing with people who were way beyond me capability-wise, and, more importantly, ambition-wise. I was only getting my MA because I had no idea what to do with my life, see. I didn’t have a burning passion for . . . . anything, really!
Fast-forward to now: I have been toiling as an adjunct these long years with little pay but amazing insurance. And I can still go get my PhD if I want. You don’t have to do it now. I’m passionate about my areas of expertise, but the politics of the tenure-track system gross me out, and I don’t feel like a slacker for not following that path.
So, that’s a viewpoint. I hope it helps with perspective. Having good health insurance was extremely important to me, so I made it happen. Look at the basics of what you need and you’ll be able to make it happen while you consider your next move.
Good luck!
I agree with Nicole and Mallory about graduate school. I had an undergraduate professor who said, “Don’t pursue a Ph.D [in English] unless you KNOW that on your deathbed, had you not gotten a Ph.D, you would be full of regret.” I thought to myself, “When I’m on my deathbed after having gotten my Ph.D, I will think ‘Oh, it’s totally awesome that I have my Ph.D,’ so I am going to pursue a Ph.D.” For an English major, this was a piss-poor close reading of my professor’s advice and it led to several tens of thousands of dollars in debt for a MA degree that is effectively useless.
The point being: Nicole’s point is correct. Unless you eat-sleep-breathe Classics AND academia, give yourself permission to stop. Academia is HARD and HARD TO LOVE. It’s ok not to love it and it’s also ok to leave it.
Yes! And it’s okay to love the subject matter but not love the academic lifestyle. Being unhappy about the crushing weight of the grad school workload and constant isolation does not mean that you are not passionate about the material. It took me a long time (and a lot of tears) to realize and accept this.
I CAN’T BELIEVE you didn’t go with In A Jam.
We already have Toast Points, man, there’s a limit to how many cutesy Toast puns I’m willing to make every week.
Oh, bless you. (I thought Toast puns were the point?)
Ugh, the graduate school letter hits so close to home. Get out! Leave and don’t look back or feel guilty (unless your misery is due to an underlying depression, in which case sort that out and then reassess your situation). My husband and I are both in medical school, and while I’m in it because I love medicine and it’s all I have ever wanted to do, he is in it because it’s kind of what smart dudes who are good at science and like to learn go into. And he is MISERABLE. If he could drop out and not be saddled with $200K+ of loans, he would do it so fast. We graduate this year, and even though we are both going into the happiest, most well-adjusted specialty for residency, he is still really dreading it.
And that’s in a profession where we will basically have guaranteed employment! His sister and brother-in-law are both Ph.Ds and one is tenure track (in classics!) and the other has kind of switched over to admin/non tenure track teaching and while they are happy NOW, it was a very long, painful process rife with anxiety. There is STILL a lot of instability and stress about the future.
Basically, to echo Nicole and Mallory, if you aren’t doing this because it’s all you could ever imagine doing with your life and you couldn’t stand doing anything else, stay in school! If not, peace out and don’t look back.
“well-my-choices-have-made-me-who-I-am-today-so-non-je-regrette-rien”
I am guilty of this cliché.
Man, what’s the alternative though? I mean, sure you can be like, I wish I hadn’t made x decision, but, you did, so..? I don’t want to walk around REGRETTING THINGS all the damn time, so non, je ne regrette rien.
Oh, LW1, I feel you. Full disclosure- I have my PhD in an area that I love deeply and does not have many TT faculty positions, and now I work in the academy in an administrative capacity doing a job that I love.
Here are suggestions that I would encourage you to consider:
-Be open to leaving with a MA and coming back for a PhD later if you still want it. Life is long and grad schools will never die.
-Identify a couple of on-campus groups/certificate programs/fellowships that you could engage with in order to a) expand your skillset and b) allow you to identify the aspects of working in academia that hit your sweet spot on the ratio of fulfilling:challenging.
-Build/maintain relationships with people who aren’t in school. The conversations and bike rides and movie dates you have with them will help you to keep your time and your perspective more balanced than you can all on your own.
-Grad school isn’t a way to dodge real life- it’s a thing you do with a chunk of your real life, just like anything else.
-Remind yourself that leaving/not leaving is something that everybody grapples with to some measure, whether they’re in grad school or a relationship or a town.
also (original comment was too long):
You’ll find your way toward a choice that generally works for you and you will be okay, because you are thinking hard about this and trying to be intentional and conscientious with how you conduct your professional self and live your life. That’s a good way to go about the inevitable grappling.
For the record, one can definitely major in BOTH English and Classics, but you will always secretly love one more than the other, and one will be far more fun.
Horse People! That is a _very_ specific life. Very, very specific.
I gave up being a Horse People after my back and knees started to hurt and I was scared I’d never have any other career but shovelling and turnout. I was too tired, but it was fantastic when it lasted, and I remain a tech person to the horse people. You should possibly – maybe? – be able to take short enough shifts at the stable to learn something independently useful while still working there, and you can for real keep being a part-time or slightly more Horse Person without giving up so much. This is easier if you become an IT person, too, and those terrifying samplers go equally well in both careers.
Nicole is absolutely on the nose about major injuries. I assume this is worse in the US, but they aren’t fake, agriculture is dangerous, get a new not-terrible office gig. It will be warm in the winter, and that is something key.
Love the new name!
I have a meta question and I apologize if it has already been covered. When you two answer these questions, do you consult each other? Do you each draft your responses without having seen the other’s? Do you discuss first? Is there a process by which you choose which questions to answer? Do you argue over which questions to choose?
Just straight up curiosity.
We do not! We both edit the post at various times, so sometimes we might see part or all of each other’s advice, but it generally doesn’t affect what we write. Nicole picks the questions!
Awesome, thanks for answering. I like that, because it can be easy to be subconsciously influenced by another response. It’s even more disparate this way.
Ugh, careers. I need to get a better job, and I am taking a programming class this fall. I alternate between feeling hopeful that I will like programming, and that having a useful skill will insulate me from the horrendous labor market, and crushing anxiety that, because I’m already in my late twenties, I am too old, and if I were going to have a successful career I would have done it by now.
You’re going to do great! YOU REALLY ARE. Programming qua programming as computer science is different than being a job programmer or someone who can figure out what’s wrong with the batch transfer script and fix it. Think about it like being a mechanic or a Creative Practictioner whichever is your bag and it will go a lot easier; it’s a series of problems to solve automatically. It will turn _you_ into the wizard _with_ an ash tree. Related cheerleading goes here.
Ah, I want to be the wizard with an ash tree! Are you a programmer?
I created an account just so I could comment for LW1, because my goodness do I see myself in that question! I have a different viewpoint from most of the commenters before me, though, in that I quit a PhD in English and I regret it hugely. Mallory’s “You might quit your program and after the initial rush of relief find yourself still miserable, still anxious, still jobless, and qualified for nothing” hits a little to close for comfort!
I don’t know that I regret the moment of quitting — things went badly for me for several years, and quitting stopped the waking up unable to breathe and the fits of screaming anxiety. As someone, though, who is really, really good at one thing in this world (reading and analyzing literature), and who now has very little opportunity to do that one thing, what I regret is that I didn’t do more to try to head off the crisis before I quit.
I wish I had taken a medical leave of absence, gotten intensive treatment for my anxiety, joined a dissertation writing group, and changed my committee (and maybe my project). I think it’s possible those things would have allowed me to finish, and although I still might not have a job, I’d at least have a degree to show for those five years of intense and often agonizing effort.
My spouse is a working academic, and although he works very, very hard and is sometimes stressed, he is not consumed by misery each and every day. Academia doesn’t have to be like that. All the pressure doesn’t have to be on you all of the time. It’s okay to treat it as work, rather than art, and to treat it as dispassionately and strategically as you would, say, gardening or cooking. Those are lessons I wish I’d had the chance to learn before I quit. If you do stay in grad school, I hope you find a way to take care of yourself and let things go a little.
And if you do quit, I hope you’re one of the happy, relieved many. Lots of my friends are in this camp, and it’s a good one to be in!
LW1, I quit graduate school, and it was the best decision I have ever made.
But, if you do stay, try to get involved in SOMETHING ANYTHING that gives you experience that could land you some admin job somewhere.
LW1, go to your campus’s psych services.
University psychologists deal with grad student angst all the time. They know how isolating and miserable the PhD process can be. They empathize. They also know your school and know what resources are available to you. If it turns out you want to take a leave, or get an extension, or find a support group, or whatever else, they know who to talk to. They also are some of the few people you will meet who intimately know the grad school process, but aren’t subconsciously justifying their own decisions about whether to finish or not with advice for you to do the same. (I mean, if they are psychologists, I guess they decided to go through with the PhD, but they not only have their own experiences to draw on, but those of the other grad students they’ve counseled, and that gives them a more balanced perspective.)
tl;dr I <3 my therapist.
-PhD student on leave, figuring stuff out.
I think I’m one of those people who would always regret not getting a PhD. But I constantly remind myself that when I write the last two chapters of my dissertation, defend it, and put it to bed, I could leave academia. I won’t leave without finishing, but I have nothing but respect for PhDs who find other careers. My back-up career option has always been “bestselling novelist” (ahaha … oh I made myself sad).
Also, I really like teaching. I love putting together syllabi and having intense conversations with people who are always just figuring out what they find completely thrilling! I adjunct at a small school, teach classes in folklore and fairy tales, and even though I’m broke and cannot do this forever, it’s good for now.
My advice: stop reading everything about the job market, and every depressing blog about the slow implosion of tenure. Stop. Reading. Them. Don’t click on that facebook post. You know what it says already.
God, you are so right about the blogs and the articles! Why are we so sure that an essential component of “professionalization” is dwelling on how bad we have it? You work insanely hard, you produce what you produce, and then you get a job or you don’t. The dismal market and the overall state of universities obviously have an effect, but it’s not as if you would have been going to write a crap dissertation before, and now that you know how bad things are you’ll just go ahead and write a good one!
LW2, I say quit your office job! I am the same age as you, and I have a job in an office that I like quite a bit, but I have also begun to realise that it’s early enough in my career/life that no one really cares what you do right now if you want to take a break from office work. If you quit, and you like your pony-job and can get enough hours there to live comfortably, you should do that and restore your mental energy for a few months before you look for another officey job, one that you like better. But taking some time off from a lifeforce-draining non-profit job (I’ve had one of those too!) will be good for you, and all the better if you are earning money doing something you actually enjoy instead.
In regards to the first letter, I feel like this question comes up a lot, and so does the advice to get out while you can. I was heavily discouraged from getting my MFA (all for very good reasons), but I’ve had an enjoyable and successful experience that is just now coming to a close. I am so so glad that I did it rather than bailing. I also feel very drawn to getting a PhD. But because I read/hear so many people talking about how terrible academia is, I often feel guilty or self-indulgent for enjoying it or for not getting a “real job.” I guess my point is, I’m sure it can be terrible in the wrong circumstances and nobody should do it out of obligation, but it can also be great in the right circumstances, and I wonder why nobody ever seems to have anything positive to say about it.
LW1, how far into your program are you? It doesn’t look like anyone is recommending you stick it out and hope to land one of the increasingly rare TT faculty jobs that are out there. But there are lots of jobs for which it’s good to have a PhD (think tanks, academic administration or research, etc), and the letters after your name are far more important than the field in which you got the degree. So if you’re pretty far along and remaining in the program is mentally, financially tenable, it might be worth sticking it out.
You might also want to check out the blog Confessions of a Community College Dean (http://suburbdad.blogspot.com/) to learn more about options for alternative academic jobs, and for a look at the inner workings of academia in general.
On the grad student question: I think Nicole is right that you have to like what you’re doing – and feel at least deeply engaged if not passionate about it. I have a PhD, and I’m glad I went to grad school, and I’m glad I finished my degree. It was – on the whole, though not every day – a great experience.
If I had to do it again, I probably would, though I might have pursued a different field of study. That’s actually my only regret, that maybe I should have looked more widely about me before choosing my discipline. I have a history PhD in U.S. foreign relations – I wish I’d done cutlural history, maybe, or an English PhD, or an MFA.
I chose not to use my PhD directly. I got married? Which always feels so weird to say, but is in fact the truth of it. We became an insoluable two-body problem. I didn’t quite love my field enough to stake my personal life on it.
So. Definitely reach out to support groups on campus. And, think hard about what you don’t love about what you’re doing. Is ithe workload? The subject? Your advisor? Your committee? What about the thing is giving you nightmares?
And also, think hard about what you like about it: What would you miss if you left right now?
If you wouldnt’ miss any of it, then I think you have your answer. Certainly don’t stay because you believe you won’t find anything else. You will.
Hi LW2! I have two very strong reactions to your letter and they both lead me to the same conclusion: quit the office job!
Reaction 1: I haaaaaaated my first job out of grad school, but I at least had a steady paycheck and health insurance and couldn’t bring myself to leave. Until it got to the point where the job was making me so miserable I had to use the health insurance to go for therapy and get on anti-depressants to control my anxiety (ok, I was already anxiety-prone, but circumstances in my life pushed me past the point where I could manage it and I went to go get help). I finally quit the job, moved to a new city, and found a new job that I LOVE–after a totally stressful stretch of unemployment. But I’m happy (and off the meds, hooray!). So life lesson learned: don’t stay in scenarios that make you miserable if you don’t have to.
Reaction 2: I work in health policy, and let me tell you, the Affordable Care Act is about to be your best friend. I’m not trying to get political, but for this particular person, the law is going to help. As you may know, each state–or the federal government, on behalf of the state–will be opening insurance marketplaces in just a few weeks, for policies beginning January 1. You can choose from multiple insurance plans, with varying levels of coverage, but all will have to adhere to a basic set of standards. These basic standards include not denying you coverage for a preexisting condition, not being able to drop you from your plan except in instances of fraud, having annual caps on out-of-pocket expenses, setting the same premiums for everyone in the market (with variance based on age and whether or not you’re a smoker) and not having lifetime limits on coverage.
This means if, G-d forbid, you do have a terrible injury, your insurance company won’t be able to drop you, your costs and premiums won’t skyrocket, and they won’t be able to stop paying after a certain point.
And of course, if you make less than 400% of the poverty level–roughly $45,000 for a single–you’ll qualify for subsidies to reduce your premiums.
Ok health policy lecture over. Anyway, bottom line, you’re still so young and presumably unmarried and childless. Go do what makes you happy. If it turns out working at a barn full-time isn’t what you thought, go do something else. I promise it’s not as scary as it sounds.
I say quit everything all of the time. We are so conditioned to think that A) if you’ve put anytime in an area that you should continue to pour your energy into it or you’ve wasted your time and B) anything worthwhile is going to be a struggle, so continue to slog through every choice regardless of how miserable it may make you every day; poppycock. Work of any kind will have a component that is less than ideal, but if you have consistent anxiety about what you are doing/studying/spending money on, then it is probably not right for you at this time. Quit, quit, quit!
LW1, PhD Candidate in classics, here. You are not a failure if you quit. Everyone thinks about quitting, some more than others. I have no specific advice, perhaps only some perspective. Some people are able to make it through graduate school as confident and happy people. Or at least they seemed so to me. I was miserable a fair amount of the time, and my problem could be attributed at the time to a combination of these factors: other students constantly trying to one-up each other (especially in social situations. Shut up, already); other students and myself complaining about everything; my own, deep and very personal anxieties about my academic performance and socioeconomic background; the feeling that I had no idea what I was doing; a lack of money.
It took time, but for me what worked is treating graduate school like a job. Grow up, stop acting like a graduate student. This gets easier when you’ve completed coursework and are only working on your dissertation. If the people around you are not helping, then remove yourself if you can (this is what I did and for me, it was the best decision). Think about why you’re in this business. For me, it sucks less than it used to, but the anxiety never quite goes away. Some days I am better at it than others. There is one part of my job, okay maybe two, that I absolutely love, and it’s worth putting up with all the crap for this. The best part, is that for me, it did get better; though it could get worse since I’m newly on the market this year.
The advice asking you if you will regret not getting your PhD is on point. I would regret it. Yet I have no qualms about finding a job in another field if I can’t get one in academe. Try to be flexible about your life plans and know that it’s not the end of the world if you’re 30+ and can’t get a job. There are many others in your situation. And yes, the job market is dismal and changing, and the traditional lifestyle that you expected (TT job) is disappearing. Are you ok with that? I have no idea what to expect, but I’m willing to take any job, anywhere and see what happens. But, that is my approach to life in general. I make no solid plans, cast my net wide and wait and see. The result could be so-called failure, but hey, that happens.
A final point: the only person that would consider you a failure in quitting is yourself. People leave all the time, and no one cares. It might provide grist for the gossip mill for 2 minutes, but that’s about it. And if people do actually call you a failure? Fuck ’em and walk away.
Good luck!
I just left a PhD program in Theatre, which (like Classics, I imagine) really only leads to further academia after the 5 (7) years that it takes to finish. I did three years and passed my qualifying exams and realized that I had roughly four years left and was completely unexcited about them, and I left. And now I feel mostly lost and I have no idea how to do what I want I want to do (which is write) in any sort of sustainable way, and it’s been a pretty rough transition into a world of temping and 9-5 jobs and commutes during rush hour, and I mostly just want to run away to a small island and live as a hermit, BUT, the one thing I AM sure of right now is that leaving was the right decision. I don’t regret going to grad school; I learned a lot both academically and about how I function in a self-disciplined environment, but watching all of my friends go back this semester, I realize that I don’t miss it at all; that I am glad to be out despite life being hard.
I don’t know. I don’t know if it helps to hear about other people’s decisions in cases like this, and my best friend is entering her fourth year in a Renaissance Lit program and loves it, but I thought I would just share the perspective of someone who recently went through the same (long, anxiety-ridden) decision process. Good luck with it. Truly.
And definitely read Tam Lin
Fellow Horse Person ahoy! I did it during my gap year – I did my teaching exams and loved it. Totally and unexpectedly found my vocation – I’d only done it because I knew I wanted a gap year as i needed a break, and wanted to make sure it wasn’t a career for me, being pretty sure it wasn’t.
But it’s not a long-term job for many people. I worked at my place for 7 years, over university and then for 3 years afterwards. Eventually I knew I had to get a job that 1) paid properly and 2) was a bit more conducive to growing old – I didn’t want to be slogging round in the mud poo-picking the fields when I was 50.
It gets harder to change career the older you are, and mainstream employers think that working with horses either means that all you’re bright enough to do is shovel shit, or that you spend all your time plaiting manes and kissing noses and you’re not able to hold down a proper job. We Horse People know that it gives you a metric fuckton of transferrable skills, a huge amount of discipline, dedication and all that, but employers don’t. It took me over a year to get a job despite a degree from Oxford and various other professional qualifications that I got while I was jobless.
I’m much happier now with a job that pays the bills and gives me time to ride. I still compete at a professional, national level and teach at weekends to pay for the ponies’ bills. But I’m very glad I’m not doing it full time or being a freelance instructor. Times are hard and the first thing people cut back on are luxuries like riding lessons.
I made a username specifically to comment on LW1’s dilemma, even though this thread is dying down! But LW1, if you’re still here: I, too, am a PhD student who always wanted to go into academia and I, too, had a miserable first year… But now I am happy! As are a few of my friends who’ve dropped out, so it can work out either way. BUT I have thoughts about ever sentence of your letter, so:
“This is a typical Ph.D angst question!”
Like unhappy families, each PhD angst question is unique in its own way.
“I’ve always known I’d get a graduate degree and classics was all I ever wanted to do”
Did you go straight from undergrad to grad school? I would NOT have been able to handle the PhD emotionally if I had not had a real world job (happily, one related to my field) for seven years between undergrad and grad. Remember that you can always take time (years! A decade?) away from grad school. Barring an apocalypse, it will still be there if you discover you are a academic Horse Person (CAN’T do anything else).
“and now I’m here”
By now, do you mean that you JUST started this August or September? Or are you starting your second year? I and many of my colleagues did not start feeling remotely at home, or like we had any idea what we were doing, until the end of our third semester. It might be worth waiting till the end of your second year to assess how you feel about the work.
ANOTHER good reason to stay that long: you can get out with an MA or M.Phil. Many programs allow you to get a terminal MA after just one year in the program. If you don’t know your department/institution’s policies, research them now and see what it would take (in terms of coursework, exams, languages, etc) to leave with a Master’s. That will give you some concrete goals and a time frame in which to consider your decision.
The above, of course, only applies if you are in a FULLY FUNDED program that pays you a livable stipend. If not, take a leave of absence while you figure it out–you don’t want to get further into debt and then leave with no degree.
BUT if they are paying you: free MA! This applies double (triple?) if you go to a school whose name makes strangers say ‘ooo, you must be smart.’ Misery lasts a year or two, but a free degree from Harvard/Princeton/Berkeley/wherever lasts forever. Really. You can put it on your CV/resume until you die.
“and I’m ok at it”
I’m sure you’re more than ok! Go google ‘impostor syndrome graduate school,’ then do some deep breathing, and go for a walk in the woods or somewhere far from your cohort, and say to yourself: THIS SCHOOL CHOSE ME AND I DESERVE TO BE HERE five times at least. This helps even if you end up deciding that the school isn’t right for you. YOU are still right for IT
“but am also miserable and have anxiety”
I second/third/fourth everyone who recommends checking out psych services. Or even find a non-campus shrink for more long-term treatment.
“and hate everyone”
I have lots of friends here who hate the other students in their departments. There really are ‘asshole departments’ out there. Or conservative departments, or strangely impersonal and atomized departments, or creepily happy cultish departments that creep the rest of us out.
The ones who stayed found a second intellectual and social home in another department. Are you interested in gender and the classics? Visual culture? Something else? Are there classes outside your field, reading groups, or events you can attend in an adjacent field? Do it if you can.
Also, attend some grad conferences or talks at other schools; see what the vibe is there. My most cherished colleagues are from other schools; it’s SO much easier to Ignore your program’s bullshittier bits when you have other academic folks to lean on.
(Oh no ran out of space will continue in reply!)
(Continued)
and there are no jobs”
I KNOWWWWWWWWW. 🙁 🙁 Seriously, it sucks.
It’s worth thinking about: are there other jobs you would want? How do you feel about museums (still very competitive, but many current/former academics in that field) or academic publishing? Teaching high school?
EVERYONE I know who left grad school left with a plan. Take a summer (or a semester’s leave) to work a job in a field you find interesting. I know someone who studied Dante and took a leave to work on a political campaign. After it was all over her department would have warmly welcomed her back–but she was happier outside academia and found another job in politics.
Also: do you love academia itself as much as research? BECOME AN ADMINISTRATOR. They are mostly former research academics; they make mad money; they participate in the life of a university in a fun way. If you’re curious, get involved in your grad student assembly if you have one to see if you like that kind of work. And if you meet a friendly dean, ask to schedule an informational meeting and talk to them about their work.
But as someone else said: the only way you can hope for a job is to treat grad school now like its a job. Go to conferences. Think about publishing. Get involved with organizing events. If these things make you miserable–get out at all costs! But if you find them fulfilling, your troubles now may be local to your cohort/city/place in life right now.
“but am I a failure at life if I quit?”
NO NO NO NEVER! Your duty to yourself is to think long and hard about your feelings, needs, and desires, and to stay as true to them as you can be while remaining realistic. Doing that is hard and brave, and if your heart and brain cooperate in telling you to quit, you are the opposite of a failure. A success!
Coming to this super late because grad school has put me so far behind on The Toast but I just wanted to thank you for this: “After it was all over her department would have warmly welcomed her back–but she was happier outside academia and found another job in politics.”
I’m so so so unbelievably happy here in my Literature PhD program (like, it’s actually making me nervous, aren’t I supposed to be miserable? when am I going to BECOME miserable? am I secretly miserable and just don’t know it yet?) but I know that the job market is so comically bad and I’m at a great school but not a Top 10 (and I saw that PoliSci study from last year). I’ve always felt that if (when) the TT dream doesn’t stick, I want to go into politics, not, like, teaching high school English (because ugh I am a researcher not a teacher, ok) and I have some anxiety about getting into working campaigns with a PhD in this particular seemingly-irrelevant field. It’s not one of the alternative paths that gets talked about much in the humanities. Having anecdotal evidence that this is a thing that can be done makes me feel better. Thank you.
I am bummed to be so late to this conversation, but I was unable to reach the computer all weekend because I was at a HORSE RELATED COMPETITION WITH MY HORSE. Hooray for ponies.
I am one of those women who holds a soulless, boring, 8-hours-a-day-sitting-in-front-of-a-computer jobs in order to pay for board and HORSE RELATED COMPETITION entry fees. If I could make a living wage mucking and turning out horses, I would quit my job in a heartbeat. I’m mostly indifferent to human beings and want nothing more than to be left alone to toil outdoors. I worked at a barn part-time in college and though I never really got used to the early mornings, I relished the the work itself and the satisfaction it gave me. Manual labor has sense of purpose about it that is almost entirely absent in the corporate world.
LW2 has been given a great gift – a horse job that pays enough that she can consider quitting her other job. I would cut off my right arm for that opportunity (though it would make both the mucking and the riding more difficult). Even if she decides after 6 months that “full-time horse person” isn’t the job she thought it was going to be, there is still the rest of her life to do something else.
I am in my 30s now and wish that I had used my 20s to explore my actual interests instead of getting so caught up in trying to meet a husband/doing stuff I thought my parents would approve of.
Question… I see so many of these “Get out of grad school” advice columns. I received the warning from my advisor in college about all the sacrifices a PhD would require. I am two years out a Humanities degree. I work full-time in the fine dining industry and it pays my bills, but I feel underemployed, drained by a physical, servile job, no outlet for creativity/intellectualism. My job is fun, very fun, at times. But it’s also crazy. My coworkers are all neurotic noncomformists with coke problems (a good and bad thing) But I’m worried about getting trapped, and I fantasize about grad school.
Can someone talk about how they resisted their strong urge to go to grad school in the first place, based on all these cautionary tales? And how did you then cobble an at least vaguely intellectually stimulating career together?
Do I admin assist? Do I get my teaching certification and teach high school english in an overburdened public school system? Do I try to get a marketing/copywriting job in the tech industry with my writing skills?
Note: I do not have financial help from parents. I already pay $300/month for my undergrad student loans. I make about $40,000 now in the restaurant industry (fine dining is alright).
Because grad school seems a lot more appealing than bussing tables–which is what I do for a living! For people who read that book “What are you going to do with that?”– how do you get a job in that vein without even starting the PhD that you then leave. Please help with my existential angst, thanks.
Oh! I’ve got this one! (I think.) The answer is more questions:
Do you fantasize about graduate school because you want to do work that is less emotionally/physically exhausting and that is more intellectually stimulating? If so, there are other options for you aside from graduate school. Take the time to talk to some people who are older/better-established than you about what they do for a living, what kind of skills it requires, and how they got into it.
BUT if you are nostalgic for undergrad because you miss working on your write a BA thesis, or if you fantasize about the research and writing you’ll do in a PhD program, or if you daydream about dissertation topics, or jot down ideas for courses and syllabi in the margin of your planner… You could explore grad school as an option. That was me, and I did it, and I’m here, and love it, and won’t regret it even if I can’t get a job at the end of it. It’s just who I am. BUT I started out as unsure, and did a very very cheap terminal MA (part-time, while working) in order to make sure that it was what wanted. If you’re unsure and need a break from your job entirely, you could research FULLY FUNDED terminal MA programs. (They are rare, but you MAY have some options depending on your field.)
Undergrad debt is a good reason not to SPEND MONEY on graduate school. Not necessarily a good reason not to GO, however–IF you are going to a program that funds your tuition, pays you a living wage, and gives you health insurance. A well-funded PhD is a pretty good deal in the short run. (Adjusting for cost of living, it often pays just about as much as an entry-level cultural-sector job in New York. Still a step down for you, though, given what you make in fine dining.)
HOWEVER, what you won’t have is any certainty of raises (you get a set salary for five years!), job advancement, or a real future within the academy. You’ll have to work your ass off to even have a shot at those things, and even then there’s a lot of luck involved.
I’m really late but just wanted to throw this in:
LW1: There’s a website/company called The Versatile PhD that serves as a clearinghouse and meeting place for people who are considering leaving academia or are thinking about jobs they could do with an academic degree that aren’t tenure-track research/teaching. Some of the content is free and some of it is “premium” and limited to subscribing institutions, so see if your university has a subscription. You can read about other people’s experiences, think about what you might do with your research skills besides be a professor, and commiserate with folks who have been in your shoes.
LW2: If you’ve found that you like teaching, maybe you like teaching other things besides riding? You might try supplementing the barn income with tutoring, substitute teaching, working in a preschool (depending on how you feel about tiny humans), or some other variant on teaching/training. If the goal is just to earn enough money to pay rent and afford health insurance (which is going to get easier once the ACA kicks in, as someone else in this thread mentioned), then an office job isn’t your only option. Indeed, if it’s paying you poorly and not giving you benefits, I’d say quitting isn’t just the attractive option, it’s the better one–you can probably do better somewhere else.
I'm really late but just wanted to throw this in:
LW1: There's a website/company called The Versatile PhD that serves as a clearinghouse and meeting place for people who are considering leaving academia or are thinking about jobs they could do with an academic degree that aren't tenure-track research/teaching. Some of the content is free and some of it is "premium" and limited to subscribing institutions, so see if your university has a subscription. You can read about other people's experiences, think about what you might do with your research skills besides be a professor, and commiserate with folks who have been in your shoes.
LW2: If you've found that you like teaching, maybe you like teaching other things besides riding? You might try supplementing the barn income with tutoring, substitute teaching, working in a preschool (depending on how you feel about tiny humans), or some other variant on teaching/training. If the goal is just to earn enough money to pay rent and afford health insurance (which is going to get easier once the ACA kicks in, as someone else in this thread mentioned), then an office job isn't your only option. Indeed, if it's paying you poorly and not giving you benefits, I'd say quitting isn't just the attractive option, it's the better one–you can probably do better somewhere else.