Yet Another Note To Prospective Graduate Students

I’ve been asked by a few students already this semester about graduate studies. A standard piece of advice that I give, which usually seems to take students completely by surprise, is that they should investigate the graduate degree credentials of people who are already working in the kinds of careers that are of the most interest to them. Forewarned is forearmed. And then I follow that piece of advice with my boilerplate statement about there being no reason to get a PhD to become a professor, because that career path effectively won’t exist by the time they complete a PhD.

I’ve written about the latter subject before (here, here, and here). Now I have two more cookies to add to the jar: Salon.com recently published this rant about professors on food stamps. Ms. Mentor wrote a much more extensive and helpful analysis for the Chronicle of Higher Education.