PhD and diminishing job opportunities

[Toyin Falola]

The projection for jobs in the humanities is not looking good. This year has been particularly bad, even for those who finished from private universities.

Before you encourage anyone, try to understand the trend. Universities are doing drastic cutbacks in admissions as the opportunities continue to diminish. Jobs are drying up everywhere. If a global economic meltdown occurs this year, those planning to retire will need to work for at least 5 years to recoup major losses from their 401K.

 

Coronavirus is also producing an unexpected outcome: students in cities that are shut down are being taught online, with professors drawn from different parts of the world. While the impact of technology has been realized, it is now clear that professors can stay in one country and produce students in another. I have had to withstand pressure to teach hundreds of students in two other countries from my home office.

 

The person you encourage today may become your enemy tomorrow! You can device your ways, but you cannot control your steps:

 

 

TF

 

Toyin Falola

Department of History

The University of Texas at Austin

104 Inner Campus Drive

Austin, TX 78712-0220, USA

http://toyinfalolanetwork.org/

 

 

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

The situation is indeed dire. Our graduate student slots have just been cut and there is no promise that our previous number, already small, would be restored. There is also the problem of mismatch between graduate fields where most students are being admitted and fields where there are still some jobs. That accentuates the anxiety about job prospects.

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[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

Why resist?

 'I have had to withstand pressure to teach hundreds of students in two other countries from my home office.'

Toyin Falola  

This is a long anticipated development, well before the current medical crisis:

'students...are being taught online, with professors drawn from different parts of the world. While the impact of technology has been realized, it is now clear that professors can stay in one country and produce students in another.'

Toyin Falola  

That is as it should be.

All teaching cant be physical. 

Such developments also facilitate flexibility  in terms of where to live, instead of the prevalent notion that one must live where one works. 

Real time online dialogue across different locations also complements the current monological-one person alone  talking-  approach of platforms like YouTube, valuable as those are.

toyin

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[Michael Afolayan]

"The projection for jobs in the humanities is not looking good. This year has been particularly bad, even for those who finished from private universities." TF

Has it ever been good in the last few decades? Southern Illinois University system has always advised graduate student applicants in the humanities to diversify as much as possible by availing themselves to courses and minoring in other fields - computing, paramedicals, business methods and deliveries, etc., if only they are serious about being a part of the competitive market.  UCLA did the same in the late '70s/early '80s and enclosed a note in all applications about the problem with majoring in the humanities.  The fact of the matter is that most graduates in the humanities corner themselves into the job market of teaching, as if the whole world is a physical classroom and all humans are traditional students. Well, the field is saturated and clogged. It has become the survival of the fittest, and the fittest belong in the class of diversifiers!

Teacher-Mentors should include this fact in their interactions with their student-mentees.

MOA

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[Harrow, Kenneth]

hi michael, you need a longer memory. area studies, africanstudies, including literature, and the humanities in general grew in my early years of teaching inthe 1960s through to the 1990s. the decline began in the 2000s, maybe even mid-2000s. our english dept had an enrollment of 1100 steadily for decades, and we are a state university. the decline began in the 2000s with parents' concerns over jobs, and then students looking for business majors or then tech or comm arts. every humanities area fell; we fell precipitously to under 500 majors. other majors disappeared or lost grad programs: at first all the language programs suffered, except for arabic and chinese. now all the humanities, and some social sciences, have felt declines.

i believe this is true throughout the country, but it's been mostly in the past 15 years.

the digital has become the new salvation for the humanities, more than other disciplines. digital humanities is growing; even in film, digital filmmaking, and digital industries like nollywood are viable or growing. but that implies the turn toward the tech side; film studies has shifted away from theory, like all the humanities, toward production or exhibition: tech issues, apparatus issues, industry issue.

only one thing do i know for sure: this too will change.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

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From: 'Michael Afolayan' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - PhD and diminishing job opportunities

 

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