Anonymous
12/08/2022 08:56
Subject: Re:Indiana University political science placement director writes scorched earth letter to PhD students
These are the people producing gargabes so called researches
Waste of resources
Waste of resources
Anonymous
12/08/2022 08:40
Subject: Re:Indiana University political science placement director writes scorched earth letter to PhD students
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:“Higher Ed is not what it used to be and it’s in part because so many people no longer value education.”
It is mostly because universities are immorally overproducing PhDs, knowing they will never get professorships, because grad students are a great source of revenue.
So PhD students are victims? They’re old enough and smart enough to make thoughtful, responsible decisions. Some people love to learn. Not everyone is driven by financial ROI. Mocking their career outcome is pathetic. I’d be thrilled to learn my kids have such educated and accomplished teachers in high school. Especially if they chose to work with teenagers.
Potential PhD students need to ask the right questions, and so many of them are poorly advised. They might be told about how wonderful their star students are and how they land prestigious fellowships and jobs, but unless asked, PhD programs will not say how many students don't land tenure-track jobs, how many drop out, and how many never finish their PhDs. You can't make thoughtful, responsible decisions unless you have all the information you need. There are many, many 21 year olds who are still too young and uninformed about the reality of the academic job market when they apply to these graduate programs. They are smart, but not savvy consumers.
Anonymous
12/08/2022 08:37
Subject: Indiana University political science placement director writes scorched earth letter to PhD students
Anonymous wrote:Had a conversation with a professional colleague a few months back. His university produces about 50 PhDs per year in his specialty.
Last year there were 40 full-time jobs in that specialty nationwide. In other words even if his students were so astoundingly wonderful that they got every single job available in the United States last year there would still be 10 of them who are unemployed.
When I asked him why they would keep doing this he had no good answer. It’s clearly just a gravy train.
This is so infuriating. I'm the PP who advises her undergrads NOT to enroll in an MA/PhD program unless they can attend debt-free. Many of the more ethical programs actually severely limit the number of students they take because the job market is so bleak. This is especially true in the humanities, where many of the PhD students have hopes of landing a job in academia. (In some of the STEM fields, the calculus may be different because a student can presumably go into private industry.) It's truly appalling that your colleague had no good answer to your question. He's either spineless, thoughtless, or withholding the truth because he's uncomfortable admitting how unethical his department practices are.
Anonymous
12/08/2022 07:50
Subject: Indiana University political science placement director writes scorched earth letter to PhD students
Had a conversation with a professional colleague a few months back. His university produces about 50 PhDs per year in his specialty.
Last year there were 40 full-time jobs in that specialty nationwide. In other words even if his students were so astoundingly wonderful that they got every single job available in the United States last year there would still be 10 of them who are unemployed.
When I asked him why they would keep doing this he had no good answer. It’s clearly just a gravy train.
Last year there were 40 full-time jobs in that specialty nationwide. In other words even if his students were so astoundingly wonderful that they got every single job available in the United States last year there would still be 10 of them who are unemployed.
When I asked him why they would keep doing this he had no good answer. It’s clearly just a gravy train.
Anonymous
12/08/2022 01:19
Subject: Re:Indiana University political science placement director writes scorched earth letter to PhD students
Anonymous wrote:“Higher Ed is not what it used to be and it’s in part because so many people no longer value education.”
It is mostly because universities are immorally overproducing PhDs, knowing they will never get professorships, because grad students are a great source of revenue.
So PhD students are victims? They’re old enough and smart enough to make thoughtful, responsible decisions. Some people love to learn. Not everyone is driven by financial ROI. Mocking their career outcome is pathetic. I’d be thrilled to learn my kids have such educated and accomplished teachers in high school. Especially if they chose to work with teenagers.
Anonymous
12/07/2022 21:06
Subject: Re:Indiana University political science placement director writes scorched earth letter to PhD students
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Bottom line: We suck.
The bottom line is that 99% of universities suck at placing PhDs into academic jobs. If you aren't studying at somewhere like Harvard or unless you have very interesting research that has resonated enough to get you funding, you aren't getting a tenure track job.
I have at two friends with PhD's from Harvard who are quite underemployed in their respective fields, Art History and Psychology.
I have a friend with an Art History PhD from a similarly regarded university who teaches at a high school.
Does she enjoy it? Is she happy? Did she enjoy her education? Was that degree a dream come true? If so, why does it matter where she’s teaching?
So many shallow finance bros and their mothers on this board who don’t value education for the sake of education and can’t imagine enjoying a life that doesn’t include a platinum card and a Mercedes.
WhY iS tHeRe a MeNTaL HeaLth CriSeS???
Let's be real here. A PhD is 7-10 years of a person's life (and potential income) and can leave a person in 100's of thousands of debt. Anyone who goes through all that just to be a HS art teacher (which you can do with a bachelor's degree) is not going to be satisfied with their career choices. I did something very similar, and although I loved the work, I didn't have the "correct" PhD to advance in my field and could have done the job I had without the huge debt and years of my life spent studying something that is, basically, useless. Education for education's sake is for the wealthy, not for people who need money to live and take care of their families. That's a myth and a ripoff.
Anonymous
12/07/2022 21:01
Subject: Indiana University political science placement director writes scorched earth letter to PhD students
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:fAnonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Even our DD who is doing a post grad work year at HYP school in chemistry says the PHD students have warned her off getting one. She doesn’t plan to go into academia if she gets one.
How will the US stay competitive with this type of system? HYP fully funds these types of PhDs!
+1. It is not just humanities PHDs who have trouble finding jobs in academia. Academia is basically run by the elderly now. Both of my parents are PhDs and professors at a university. They are 78 and 76 and have no plans to retire yet. Most of their colleagues are boomers or older. I"m a gen-xer with a PhD and am a SME at a think tank. I've never been interested in being a professor (I've done adjunct work like lots of folks in DC to pad my resume), but it is brutal out there. I think they should have mandatory retirement ages for professors (not just tenured ones, but any full-time faculty).
PP, what are your thoughts here about your parents still teaching while your immediate peers and even younger ones languish because of no openings? I think the LAC where I attended appealed to professors in the upper end of Baby Boom age range to retire by at least 70, if not earlier, in order to create openings for younger staff. A couple of my classmates who were profs and are not yet 65 retired when they hit 30 years in order to do this.
In my post I said there should be mandatory retirement ages. I have been bugging my parents to retire since they turned 70. My mom has had two colleagues who the department had to appeal to family members because these folks were still working with early dementia. Their research (and teaching) is their life. It is great that they still love it, but, I think it is time for them to move on.
DCUM ageism never fails. I know a woman in her 40s with long Covid memory issues. You think she should be told to retire?
So frustrating to see this generation fight so fiercely for human decency toward “others” yet proudly and with zero self-awareness, discriminate, insult, and devalue older people. Your Tik Tok videos making fun of “boomers” go viral but god forbid we accidentally mess up your preferred pronoun. Hypocrites.
Okay, Joe Biden. Sorry 50+ year of professional power wasn't enough for you.
Ha. Exactly what I would expect. Finance bros also can’t comprehend that power does not appeal to everyone.
Blocking their younger colleagues from ever advancing which in turns blocks their younger colleagues from ever getting onto the bottom rung does seem to appeal to boomer professors though
NP. They're not blocking anyone because colleges aren't hiring TT professors; they're hiring adjuncts who this this is a career path. It's not
I'd argue 70+ year old professors have done the profession wrong by not blocking the administration from hiring adjuncts.
Why didn't they use the freedom granted them by tenure to demand that the university only hire full time tenure track faculty? Because it benefitted those same old professors to have adjuncts do the teaching while they collected higher and higher salaries and had lighter and lighter teaching loads.
Tell me you don’t know anything about professors without telling me you don’t know anything about professors.
NP but I agree with the previous poster, and I was in academia for many years, but never with tenure. I'm sure part of my opinion is just jadedness, but there's also the fact that I watched the admin literally bride the faculty of my department to cut a full-time position in return for hiring more adjuncts to lighten their individual teaching loads. Academia wears a cloak of gentility, but ultimately it's just as mercenary and petty as any business.
Anonymous
12/07/2022 21:00
Subject: Re:Indiana University political science placement director writes scorched earth letter to PhD students
“So many shallow finance bros and their mothers on this board who don’t value education for the sake of education”
Imagine being dumb enough to think you need to get a PhD at all (let alone on art history lmao) to demonstrate you “value education for the sake of education” 🙄🙄🙄
Imagine being dumb enough to think you need to get a PhD at all (let alone on art history lmao) to demonstrate you “value education for the sake of education” 🙄🙄🙄
Anonymous
12/07/2022 20:58
Subject: Indiana University political science placement director writes scorched earth letter to PhD students
I wish someone in my department had had the courage to write a letter like that. It would have saved me a whole lot of money and trouble.
Anonymous
12/07/2022 20:58
Subject: Re:Indiana University political science placement director writes scorched earth letter to PhD students
“Higher Ed is not what it used to be and it’s in part because so many people no longer value education.”
It is mostly because universities are immorally overproducing PhDs, knowing they will never get professorships, because grad students are a great source of revenue.
It is mostly because universities are immorally overproducing PhDs, knowing they will never get professorships, because grad students are a great source of revenue.
Anonymous
12/07/2022 19:54
Subject: Indiana University political science placement director writes scorched earth letter to PhD students
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:fAnonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Even our DD who is doing a post grad work year at HYP school in chemistry says the PHD students have warned her off getting one. She doesn’t plan to go into academia if she gets one.
How will the US stay competitive with this type of system? HYP fully funds these types of PhDs!
+1. It is not just humanities PHDs who have trouble finding jobs in academia. Academia is basically run by the elderly now. Both of my parents are PhDs and professors at a university. They are 78 and 76 and have no plans to retire yet. Most of their colleagues are boomers or older. I"m a gen-xer with a PhD and am a SME at a think tank. I've never been interested in being a professor (I've done adjunct work like lots of folks in DC to pad my resume), but it is brutal out there. I think they should have mandatory retirement ages for professors (not just tenured ones, but any full-time faculty).
PP, what are your thoughts here about your parents still teaching while your immediate peers and even younger ones languish because of no openings? I think the LAC where I attended appealed to professors in the upper end of Baby Boom age range to retire by at least 70, if not earlier, in order to create openings for younger staff. A couple of my classmates who were profs and are not yet 65 retired when they hit 30 years in order to do this.
In my post I said there should be mandatory retirement ages. I have been bugging my parents to retire since they turned 70. My mom has had two colleagues who the department had to appeal to family members because these folks were still working with early dementia. Their research (and teaching) is their life. It is great that they still love it, but, I think it is time for them to move on.
DCUM ageism never fails. I know a woman in her 40s with long Covid memory issues. You think she should be told to retire?
So frustrating to see this generation fight so fiercely for human decency toward “others” yet proudly and with zero self-awareness, discriminate, insult, and devalue older people. Your Tik Tok videos making fun of “boomers” go viral but god forbid we accidentally mess up your preferred pronoun. Hypocrites.
Okay, Joe Biden. Sorry 50+ year of professional power wasn't enough for you.
Ha. Exactly what I would expect. Finance bros also can’t comprehend that power does not appeal to everyone.
Blocking their younger colleagues from ever advancing which in turns blocks their younger colleagues from ever getting onto the bottom rung does seem to appeal to boomer professors though
NP. They're not blocking anyone because colleges aren't hiring TT professors; they're hiring adjuncts who this this is a career path. It's not
I'd argue 70+ year old professors have done the profession wrong by not blocking the administration from hiring adjuncts.
Why didn't they use the freedom granted them by tenure to demand that the university only hire full time tenure track faculty? Because it benefitted those same old professors to have adjuncts do the teaching while they collected higher and higher salaries and had lighter and lighter teaching loads.
Tell me you don’t know anything about professors without telling me you don’t know anything about professors.
Anonymous
12/07/2022 19:52
Subject: Indiana University political science placement director writes scorched earth letter to PhD students
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:fAnonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Even our DD who is doing a post grad work year at HYP school in chemistry says the PHD students have warned her off getting one. She doesn’t plan to go into academia if she gets one.
How will the US stay competitive with this type of system? HYP fully funds these types of PhDs!
+1. It is not just humanities PHDs who have trouble finding jobs in academia. Academia is basically run by the elderly now. Both of my parents are PhDs and professors at a university. They are 78 and 76 and have no plans to retire yet. Most of their colleagues are boomers or older. I"m a gen-xer with a PhD and am a SME at a think tank. I've never been interested in being a professor (I've done adjunct work like lots of folks in DC to pad my resume), but it is brutal out there. I think they should have mandatory retirement ages for professors (not just tenured ones, but any full-time faculty).
PP, what are your thoughts here about your parents still teaching while your immediate peers and even younger ones languish because of no openings? I think the LAC where I attended appealed to professors in the upper end of Baby Boom age range to retire by at least 70, if not earlier, in order to create openings for younger staff. A couple of my classmates who were profs and are not yet 65 retired when they hit 30 years in order to do this.
In my post I said there should be mandatory retirement ages. I have been bugging my parents to retire since they turned 70. My mom has had two colleagues who the department had to appeal to family members because these folks were still working with early dementia. Their research (and teaching) is their life. It is great that they still love it, but, I think it is time for them to move on.
DCUM ageism never fails. I know a woman in her 40s with long Covid memory issues. You think she should be told to retire?
So frustrating to see this generation fight so fiercely for human decency toward “others” yet proudly and with zero self-awareness, discriminate, insult, and devalue older people. Your Tik Tok videos making fun of “boomers” go viral but god forbid we accidentally mess up your preferred pronoun. Hypocrites.
Okay, Joe Biden. Sorry 50+ year of professional power wasn't enough for you.
Ha. Exactly what I would expect. Finance bros also can’t comprehend that power does not appeal to everyone.
Blocking their younger colleagues from ever advancing which in turns blocks their younger colleagues from ever getting onto the bottom rung does seem to appeal to boomer professors though
Yes, everyone should retire at 60 so other people can have their jobs. More ageism. Do you hear yourself?
And PP is right about full professors being replaced with adjuncts. Higher Ed is not what it used to be and it’s in part because so many people no longer value education. They just want money.
Anonymous
12/07/2022 18:51
Subject: Re:Indiana University political science placement director writes scorched earth letter to PhD students
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Bottom line: We suck.
The bottom line is that 99% of universities suck at placing PhDs into academic jobs. If you aren't studying at somewhere like Harvard or unless you have very interesting research that has resonated enough to get you funding, you aren't getting a tenure track job.
I have at two friends with PhD's from Harvard who are quite underemployed in their respective fields, Art History and Psychology.
I have a friend with an Art History PhD from a similarly regarded university who teaches at a high school.
Does she enjoy it? Is she happy? Did she enjoy her education? Was that degree a dream come true? If so, why does it matter where she’s teaching?
So many shallow finance bros and their mothers on this board who don’t value education for the sake of education and can’t imagine enjoying a life that doesn’t include a platinum card and a Mercedes.
WhY iS tHeRe a MeNTaL HeaLth CriSeS???
There is a significant mental health crisis among PhD students and graduates who cannot get jobs in their fields and are saddled with loans, reduced earnings, etc.
Anonymous
12/07/2022 18:46
Subject: Indiana University political science placement director writes scorched earth letter to PhD students
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:fAnonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Even our DD who is doing a post grad work year at HYP school in chemistry says the PHD students have warned her off getting one. She doesn’t plan to go into academia if she gets one.
How will the US stay competitive with this type of system? HYP fully funds these types of PhDs!
+1. It is not just humanities PHDs who have trouble finding jobs in academia. Academia is basically run by the elderly now. Both of my parents are PhDs and professors at a university. They are 78 and 76 and have no plans to retire yet. Most of their colleagues are boomers or older. I"m a gen-xer with a PhD and am a SME at a think tank. I've never been interested in being a professor (I've done adjunct work like lots of folks in DC to pad my resume), but it is brutal out there. I think they should have mandatory retirement ages for professors (not just tenured ones, but any full-time faculty).
PP, what are your thoughts here about your parents still teaching while your immediate peers and even younger ones languish because of no openings? I think the LAC where I attended appealed to professors in the upper end of Baby Boom age range to retire by at least 70, if not earlier, in order to create openings for younger staff. A couple of my classmates who were profs and are not yet 65 retired when they hit 30 years in order to do this.
In my post I said there should be mandatory retirement ages. I have been bugging my parents to retire since they turned 70. My mom has had two colleagues who the department had to appeal to family members because these folks were still working with early dementia. Their research (and teaching) is their life. It is great that they still love it, but, I think it is time for them to move on.
DCUM ageism never fails. I know a woman in her 40s with long Covid memory issues. You think she should be told to retire?
So frustrating to see this generation fight so fiercely for human decency toward “others” yet proudly and with zero self-awareness, discriminate, insult, and devalue older people. Your Tik Tok videos making fun of “boomers” go viral but god forbid we accidentally mess up your preferred pronoun. Hypocrites.
Okay, Joe Biden. Sorry 50+ year of professional power wasn't enough for you.
Ha. Exactly what I would expect. Finance bros also can’t comprehend that power does not appeal to everyone.
Blocking their younger colleagues from ever advancing which in turns blocks their younger colleagues from ever getting onto the bottom rung does seem to appeal to boomer professors though
NP. They're not blocking anyone because colleges aren't hiring TT professors; they're hiring adjuncts who this this is a career path. It's not
I'd argue 70+ year old professors have done the profession wrong by not blocking the administration from hiring adjuncts.
Why didn't they use the freedom granted them by tenure to demand that the university only hire full time tenure track faculty? Because it benefitted those same old professors to have adjuncts do the teaching while they collected higher and higher salaries and had lighter and lighter teaching loads.
Anonymous
12/07/2022 18:36
Subject: Indiana University political science placement director writes scorched earth letter to PhD students
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Even our DD who is doing a post grad work year at HYP school in chemistry says the PHD students have warned her off getting one. She doesn’t plan to go into academia if she gets one.
How will the US stay competitive with this type of system? HYP fully funds these types of PhDs!
The pharmaceutical industry needs medicinal chemists badly. It's a great career with great benefits, lifestyle and salary. Yes, I'm a PhD working in the industry. Come play with me Johnnie.
Compared to software tech, pharmaceuticals does not pay well or give good benefits. You go into big pharm as a scientist with a PhD with the same starting salary as a fresh out of undergrad kid going into software development. (90-120k). Software dev pay scales a lot faster as well. And I’m not sure what good benefits you’re talking about, but companies only give average benefits in my experience.
Source: I am a STEM PhD student and DH has a PhD from an Ivy and 6+ years of experience in pharma. We find our friends with no name college degrees are out earning DH easily.
Sure but our DD has no interest in Comp Sci. DS is studying Comp Sci for money only but with AI advances, salaries may drop!
NP
Let him try to be consultant good money but it involves a lot of travel.