One Reason That My Goal is Not Totally Crazy

I've been reading up on the humanities PhD market recently, primarily motivated by the endless discussions on the getting into grad school forum on LiveJournal, which appears to attract a rather large number of people who want to get a PhD in medieval literature or French poetry or women's studies or whatever sort of a thing. Also, my psychology professor told me that I could get into a psychology PhD program right now and advised me to consider applying to a couple to see if I could get in, and this had me rethinking the job market for psychology PhDs.

A couple of stats from a 1999 article:

- After 10 years, the majority of humanities PhD students have not finished their degrees.

- While 80 percent of the English PhDs [who graduated between 1982 and 1985] surveyed wanted to become professors at the end of their doctoral education, only 53 percent were tenured by 1995 [10-12 years after graduation], the study found.

Elsewhere, average salaries for those fortunate enough to secure new assistant professor positions (i.e. first tenure-track job out of the PhD program) in 2006 - and remember that those in the humanities typically take twice as long to hit the job market as other PhDs, having spent 10 years or more languishing as a very poorly paid teaching assistant, and have limited job prospects outside academia, so there is not a significant portion of the PhDs in those fields that have been attracted to super-lucrative jobs in industry:
- English $47,000
- History $47,000
- Performing arts $47,000
- Foreign languges $48,000
- Philosophy and religion $48,000
- And for comparison: Psychology $50,000; Math $52,000; Engineering $70,000; Law $81,000; Business $82,000

I found some information on the American Marketing Association's website from a survey of 2008 marketing PhD graduates. Some stats on these new assistant professors:

- The average 9 month salary was $115,000; median $118,000; range $65,000 - $151,000

- The average for a consumer behavior hire was $126,500

- Only 3% had already defended their dissertation before they were hired; there were more who had not even defended their dissertation proposal

- Most students had been in their PhD program for 3 or 4 years before they were on the job market; <3% had been in the program for 5 or more years (compare to the poor humanities students still trying to eke it out after 10)

- The median graduate put out 70 applications, did 19 interviews and got 2 assistant professor job offers; the average number of job offers was 2.7

- A 3 course academic year teaching load was the most common - yes, that means teaching 3 classes over 3 semesters (including the summer)

- The typical person had 4 conference presentations and zero peer-reviewed publications at the time of hire (but it takes a long time, often a couple of years, to get a submitted paper into print)

Frankly, based on the strength of placement for marketing PhDs - they seem to basically all get jobs that pay a lot of money and do not have stringent teaching requirements, though there are obviously high expectations for publishing before you can get tenure - compared to psychology PhDs, I would be poorly served by getting a psychology PhD instead. Even if it takes me an extra 2 years, because I do a masters degree first, it quickly pays for itself when you look at the difference in salary. And while it is not impossible to get a marketing placement from a psychology department, it is much less common and often requires doing a 2-year post doc in a marketing department to make that transition.

Basically, this examination re-iterates the conclusions I have already drawn, and has convinced me to keep the marketing PhD -> marketing department job as my number one play.

Further, I have decided that both theory and my own gut imagining of my future self's decision-making process would suggest that were I to actually be accepted to a psychology PhD program, I would find it overwhelmingly attractive to take it, even if it's not in my long run interests. When thinking about a decision in the more distant future, I can consider it from a "big picture" viewpoint and recognize the value of making a decision that most helps me toward my long-term goals; when thinking about a decision close in time, I will place too much weight on concrete details like "never having to apply to graduate school again" and "being able to get started on a PhD right away" and "only having to move once before my first job."

Basically, sitting with a psychology PhD acceptance in hand will resemble too closely standing next to the doughnut box in a meeting at work.

Clearly, the outcome of going to a psychology PhD program will not be self-defeating in the same fashion as eating a high-fat, high-sugar treat -- because getting your PhD is forever. I can eat a doughnut today and then eat salads for the rest of the month and be fine. But you usually only get one shot at a PhD. Going into a psych PhD program will result in either failing or dropping out (which is bad) or getting a psych PhD, which means not getting a marketing PhD (okay, but not optimal).

It's like right now, I'm standing in the train station, and there's a slow train to Marketingland, with a long stop in Mastersville, and an express train to Psychworld, both leaving the station at the same time but reaching their destinations years apart. And there's a ferry from Psychworld to Marketingland, but that takes quite a while too and is not that reliable. I have to resist that desire to get to an okay place sooner rather than a better place later, even though I know that the journey itself will be uncomfortable, even hellish, at times.

I recently read an interesting piece of advice that I had not seen before and that I do not necessarily privilege as being desirable but that brings up something I hadn't thought about before, though I should have. My plan has been to do a masters thesis, both as a "proof of concept" to PhD programs that I can do the kind of research that a PhD student is expected to do and to myself get in a practice run. But this person pointed out that doing a masters thesis can be a time-consuming and emotionally-draining experience that frequently delays one's graduation and leaves the student less interest in doing a PhD from thesis fatigue. From this perspective, you would be better served by getting through your masters degree more quickly and not 'wasting' your fortitude to do a big research project on a thesis when you will have to do more research later.

I really do see the logic of not extending your masters program for an extra semester or year to finish a thesis, but sort of feel that if I don't have it in me to finish a thesis, then turn around and do a solid first-year research project in my PhD program, and possibly another masters thesis (depending on whether the program will accept my previous one in lieu), then perhaps I'm really not cut out to be a professor at a research institution. And I don't want to be an instructor at a teaching-oriented college enough to put this much of my life into it - I would rather go back to the private or government sector than do a full teaching courseload. I mean, almost everybody hates finishing their PhD dissertation, even those who go on to very successful research careers and enjoy it a lot, but having a masters thesis tax a person that much seems like a bad sign. Of course, this person's advice may be much more justified for the future doctoral student who wants primarily to teach rather than do research.

In summary:
- People in the humanities spend forever in school and have trouble getting tenure-track jobs afterwards and may be completely nuts.
- Preferring the superior job placement prospects and salary of a marketing job over that of a psychology job is not crazy. The extra time invested now more than pays for itself very soon.
- I will not be applying this year to any psychology PhD programs that may be too attractive, a la a doughnut, to resist. The psych PhD will remain a backup to marketing PhD programs two years from now.
- I don't want to get a job teaching 4 classes per semester to undergraduates at Directional State University and finding it difficult to find time to do research.
- I am still hoping that Ed McMahon will show up this spring on my doorstep with a giant check from Wake Forest University that says "$8,500 per year plus full tuition waiver" on it.