>SALON | Nov. 6, 1998
>
>Annalee Newitz
>[...]
>It is imperative for graduate students to understand that becoming a
>professor is only one of many careers they might pursue with their
>advanced degrees.
>
>During my less apocalyptic moments, I've become somewhat gleeful
>thinking about Ph.D.s pouring into Hollywood, writing sly sitcom
>scripts and weirdly symbolic movies of the week. I like the idea of
>teachers at Heald Business School who have studied class
>consciousness in American poetry, lawyers who have analyzed the
>humor of sexual transgression in literary obscenity trials and
>technical writers who have explored the way information technologies
>change the way we use language. These are the people whose higher
>education is relevant to their lives, despite the fact that their
>experiences fall outside the purview of university curricula.
>
>What I want, finally, is for Ph.D.s to be proud of what they've
>learned, not because they've been granted the title of professor,
>but because they've done something useful with their minds.
>Likewise, I hope that professors will come to appreciate that all
>teaching does not have to end in the production of more professors.
>We should not be wringing our hands over the loss of tenure-track
>jobs, but trying instead to build an honorable tradition for
>thinkers who work outside the university system. [...]
http://www.salon.com/it/career/1998/11/06career.html