In this monthly column, Leonard Cassuto explores the ins and outs of doctoral training, with advice for both graduate students and their faculty mentors.
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AdviceWhat’s the Best Way to Do Public Humanities? Ask a Philosopher
Not every academic can or should do public outreach, but those who do it well benefit all of academe. -
Advice
Can Yale Reform Its Humanities Doctoral Programs?
Major universities have been slow to acknowledge the collapse of the tenure-track job market. A new report from Yale changes that. -
Advice
How a 2-Day Boot Camp Is Helping Ph.D.s Identify Career Options
A career-diversity program overseas is worth replicating at American universities. -
Advice
The Concrete Benefits of a Virtual Conference
Yes, academics miss our in-person scholarly meetups. But the online version of the annual MLA convention had its own virtues. -
Advice
Will Covid Finally Force Us to Fix Our Broken Doctoral Advising?
In a barren tenure-track market, we must consider what, exactly, we are preparing doctoral students to do. -
Advice
How to Write a Dissertation During a Pandemic
Many doctoral students feel a crisis of purpose amid Covid-19: Should they bother to keep writing? -
Advice
Graduate Advising in the Time of Covid-19
Amid the uncertainties created by the global pandemic, what our doctoral students may need more than usual is structure. -
Advice
The Gender Politics of Doctoral Reform
Where are the white guys when we talk about changing the way Ph.D.s are advised and trained? -
Advice
Why We Need a Yelp for Doctoral Programs
What if departments could gain prestige from how they treated their graduate students? -
Graduate Students
Anatomy of a Polite Revolt in Columbia’s English Department
In a tenure-track market where the odds of getting a job are never in your favor, graduate students are waking up and demanding more help from their programs. -
Advice
6 Tips to Improve Your Cover Letter
Why write an application letter so dry that even you wouldn’t want to read it? -
Advice
8 Tips to Improve Your CV
It’s not just a written record of your credentials. It’s an argument in favor of you. Draft it with that in mind. -
Advice
Outcomes-Based Graduate School: the Humanities Edition
An English department looked to data to rework its graduate-program curriculum, and it paid off for the students. -
Advice
Outcome-Based Graduate School?
Perhaps it’s time to teach our doctoral students things they actually need to know for the nonacademic careers some of them want to pursue. -
Advice
Worried About the Future of the Monograph? So Are Publishers
The new president of the Association of University Presses talks about the challenges facing academic publishing and what they mean for first-time authors. -
Advice
How to Increase Graduate-School Diversity the Right Way
One university’s successful effort to recruit and retain more minority students in Ph.D. programs begins at the undergraduate level. -
Advice
Finally, a Model for Disciplines to Track Ph.D. Career Outcomes
An interactive database created by the American Historical Association offers a comprehensive look at the professional paths of 10 years of history Ph.D.s. -
Advice
Can You Train Your Ph.D.s for Diverse Careers When You Don’t Have One?
A new seminar at Michigan helped doctoral students explore nonfaculty jobs and helped a professor learn how to teach about them. -
Advice
Scholars, Know Thy History: Higher Ed Has Always Struggled to Survive in the U.S.
A new one-volume history of the American academy should be a must-read for every graduate student — and plenty of more-established Ph.D.s, too. -
The Graduate Adviser
The Grief of the Ex-Academic
And what the decision to leave the professoriate behind says about graduate education. -
The Graduate Adviser
How to Fire Your Adviser
Sometimes the only way forward is to start over again. -
The Graduate Adviser
How to Ask for a Recommendation
And how to supervise the faculty member writing it. -
First Person
Advising the Dissertation Student Who Won’t Finish
We need to teach students that leaving graduate school is a decision, not a failing. -
First Person
Advising the Struggling Dissertation Student
We haven’t paid sufficient attention to the jarring transition from graduate course work to thesis writing. -
The Graduate Adviser
Let Them Read Our Recommendations
Why graduate students should be allowed to see the letters we write on their behalf. -
Advice
What Will Doctoral Education Look Like in 2025?
Predictions and hopes for the future of Ph.D. training. -
First Person
How Much Is Your Adviser’s Reputation Worth?
Part 1 in a series on how to pick the professor who will guide your dissertation. -
Advice
How to Go Public, and Why We Must
A new book seeks to help scholars vault themselves out of the ivory tower and into the wider world. -
The Graduate Advisor
What Do You Mean, ‘Job’?
Our career lexicon for graduate students is in need of a makeover. -
Advice
A Tenure Track for Teachers?
We should have debated a dual-track tenure system 15 years ago. It’s not too late. -
Advice
Documenting What Ph.D.s Do for a Living
A new study of postdoctoral careers — inside and outside of academe — aims to collect the numbers and the stories. -
Advice
Why We Need Ph.D. Career Fairs
Graduate schools can’t afford to wait for employers to come to us. -
Advice
The Job-Market Moment of Digital Humanities
Tech-savvy candidates have an advantage — for now. -
The Graduate Adviser
How Much Is Your Lab Director’s Reputation Worth?
Part 2 in a series on how to pick the professor who will guide your dissertation.
