Ph.D's are generally regarded as totally overqualified in most avenues of life, treated with suspicion, regarded as foolish and impractical people who spent years on nonsense no sensible person would care about, and resented as smarty pants know-it-alls. Also PhD training really does unsuit you for lots of the normal behaviors, attitudes, and activities expected of most people in the business, legal, corporate, and government worlds. It's hard to explain the effect, but it is transformative, like getting a serious religion for a long time (even if you get over it), or doing tour of duty in the Marines (even noncombat), or having your brain really thoroughly washed by the Red Chinese. No one gets out the same, just knowing more stuff. I'm am not saying it makes you better, maybe Joanna is right that it makes you worse, but call that as you may it makes you _different_ in may that other people (disfavorably) notice. (I have a PhD in philosophy and political science from a top 5 school as well as law degree from a top 40 school.)
--- Dennis Claxton <ddclaxton at earthlink.net> wrote:
> But then there's this:
>
>
>
> >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
>
>
> ___________________________________
>
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>
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