> > most individuals are not fully made
>> aware of the high rate of attrition from Ph.D. programs, the poor
>> chances of getting tenure-track jobs, the varying rates of tenure
>> denials, etc. _before_ making a choice of going to grad school.
>
>And yet somehow you got the opposite idea; surely you aren't arguing
>that you were hoodwinked? What did you do as an undergrad? Were
>you unaware of this then? What made you start down the path to
>getting a PhD? I must admit that I was asleep or working for most
>of my undergraduate career, but I still knew that the apprenticeship
>toward "career after PhD" looked grim, even in my chosen field.
I knew it wasn't an easy path, but I had no inkling as to _exactly how grim_ the job market was; statistical facts I have been laying out lately were unavailable then. And I was a _Marxist_ who _should have known better_! Just imagine the state of consciousness of apolitical individuals who just _love_ literature, etc.
>I think the real problem is that somehow most people who are getting
>PhDs become convinced that they are worthless and have nothing to
>say and are thus paralized by the process. I have friends who took
>15 years to get their PhD and I have friends who did it in 3
>including required coursework. Do you know what the difference
>is? 12 miserable years. That's it.
>
>I'm with Chuck on this one: write the fucking thesis. It's not
>your life's work; in fact, it's the opposite: it's the _first_
>thing you'll ever do. So get it over with. No one cares except
>you, least of all your advisor.
3 years seem admirably fast. I can't possibly emulate such industrious people, but I will finish my diss this year -- mainly because I want a sense of "closure," to take a buzzword from psychobabble. It's like an obligation to the self.
Yoshie