I took another swig of chardonnay, looked my A.B.D. friend in the eye, and said: “You’re better off in graduate school. If I were you, I’d hang out there as long as I could.”
She looked at me like I was crazy, like maybe that one glass of wine had gone straight to my confused head. But I didn’t back down. I fixed her with my best cat-in-a-staring-contest gaze and held my ground. Watching her widened eyes, I could practically see the words zipping around in her brain: “You’re telling me to embrace my poverty-level wages? Continue to teach needy undergrads and stay up until 2 a.m. writing my dissertation? Stay put in my shoebox apartment and fall deeper into student-loan debt? You are out of your mind.” And maybe, I thought, I am. Maybe I have been made nuts by loping too long on the academic hamster wheel.
But let me back up.
In the 2008-09 academic year, I wrote three columns for The Chronicle (under the pseudonym of Margaret Tennant) detailing my search for an entry-level, tenure-track position. I capped off my series with an ending that was, if not fairy tale, at least happy. I didn’t score the professorship of my dreams, but I did get a promising job as a postdoctoral research fellow in the medical school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and soon after, was asked to be a teaching apprentice in the university’s department of social medicine. “Apprenticing” is academic code for “we’d like you to help us out, but we can’t afford to pay you anything.” Teaching, however, is my passion, and the department has a well-deserved reputation for excellence; it was a no-brainer to say yes.
In addition to landing great jobs, I was thrilled to be done with graduate school. I’d had my eye on the prize for so long that I’d developed carpal tunnel vision. My singular, exhausting focus on writing, rewriting, and defending those 200-plus pages of text meant that I neglected other, more important things, like my health and my husband. I blithely assumed that bodily wellness and a rejuvenated marriage lay just on the other side of those five all-important signatures from my dissertation committee. And once I got those, I would be skipping down the yellow-brick road toward job security and a more generous salary.
Post-dissertation defense, my husband forgave me for my three-month stint in the guest room, where I had typed every night until 3 a.m., and we both rejoiced when I quit being on a first-name basis with the receptionist in student health. But job security and salary were other matters entirely.
Instead of landing in a postgraduate Oz, I found myself somewhere far bleaker. The man behind the curtain failed to mention that just six months after the start of my two-year fellowship, I would essentially be right back on the job market—since a two-year postdoc may just be the shortest job you’ll ever love. Sure, it’s a great place to take a breather after you’ve completed the grueling marathon of graduate school. But more important (to your advisers, at least), it’s a protected time in which to a) publish papers, b) get grants, and c) apply for jobs.
So far, on that “important” stuff, I am 0 for 3.
In the past six months I have:
- Submitted three papers to peer-reviewed journals: none accepted.
- Wrote one grant proposal: shot down.
- Applied for two tenure-track professorships: denied.
Now, I’m not much in the statistics department but even I know that I am significantly lacking when it comes to achievement, with a P-value of approximately 0.000.
I wish I could say I’m getting used to rejection, that the epidermis of my ego is sprouting calluses, that I have learned not to take this stuff personally. But I would be lying.
And I am keenly aware that despite the six co-authored papers I’m lucky to have on my CV, unless I score that elusive first- or sole-authored publication in a prestigious journal or snag a generous grant, my job applications will continue to be tossed into the “only if the really good people turn us down” pile. And let’s face it, there are a lot of really good people out there.
It’s hard to know if my failure to thrive is a red flag, or just “the way it goes"—as I keep hearing from my mentors. I don’t doubt their sincerity, but it strikes me that they are from a different era: one in which education cost less, fewer people flocked to graduate school, and the job market wasn’t saturated with overqualified candidates all panting to board the tenure-track ship before it sinks once and for all. Still, I am grateful for their unfailing support, and the ego reinforcement offered by my husband. “No one can ever take this away from you,” he keeps telling me. “You’ve worked really hard and achieved something few people could ever accomplish.”
Fair enough, though “ever endure” sounds more apt now than “ever accomplish.” But it’s important for me, if Debbie Downerish, to note the flip sides to his reassurance. No one can take away my Ph.D., nor can anyone eliminate the enormous debt load I accrued while earning it. My monthly student-loan payment, high enough to lease a Mercedes, won’t end for decades.
My friends are supportive, too, but many of them are in younger cohorts; they have at least another year until graduation. I’m determined not to decimate their dreams, but I am weary of their “you’re not allowed to complain because at least you have a job” stare and the “it’s your own fault for taking out so many student loans” eye roll. It’s easy to judge postgraduate angst when your parents still pay to fly you home for spring break, and, well, you still have a spring break.
Like many of my peers, I entered graduate school with a strong work ethic, one I believed would serve me well. Being in grad school was similar to my undergraduate life, when I worked more than one job at a time and still managed to rack up credit-card and loan debt. But I assumed that this negative money cycle would end when my education did. It was never the plan to get my Ph.D. and then long for a salary of $40,000 a year. I grudgingly have to agree with a point brought up by Thomas H. Benton in his one of his columns for The Chronicle: Living the “life of the mind” is much easier when you are born into the life of the platinum card.
My plan was to get a Ph.D. so that I might work just one job. A job I love. And yes, one that would both pay off my debt and allow me to enjoy life with less guilt, more fun. I’m not talking about going on a Nordstrom shopping spree here, but I wouldn’t mind being able to go a little crazy in Target. These goals, stated abstractly, seem neither outrageous nor unattainable. But, given my credentials, the state of the economy, and the crumbling reality of job security in academe (read: the demise of tenure), I’m beginning to have doubts.
I am torn between cranking out papers and applying for more and bigger grants, or just—here’s a crazy thought—finding a job outside academe. Although, each time my mind goes there, I rebel. “NO WAY. I have worked too hard to give up my dreams.” But the brick wall of my rebuttal is increasingly eroded by a burgeoning stream of depressing questions.
Am I sacrificing happiness for a mythical principle instilled in me by a bunch of workaholic debtors? Am I putting my future, my mental health, and my relationship in jeopardy by hanging in there? Is pride my biggest obstacle to happiness?
Those are valid questions and, frankly, I wish I had asked them ages ago. I recall, with deep chagrin, various colleagues pondering those conundrums over the years. I smugly viewed their doubts about academe as signs of weakness. I belatedly realize their strength and yes, wisdom: The unexamined academic life just isn’t worth living.
So, graduate students, I urge you to examine your lives. Look long and hard. Face your debts and your doubts. Appreciate what you’ve got, while you’ve still got it. Revel in your opportunities to wait out this lousy economy, stave off the student-loan collectors, and study in coffee shops. Know that graduate school isn’t so bad, after all. And yes, while you can, just stay there.
