[Article] No academic jobs and a PhD makes you a horrible person (salon.com)

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/culturebox/2013/04/there_are_no_academic_jobs_and_getting_a_ph_d_will_make_you_into_a_horrible.single.html

I almost posted this in the grad school thread, but I figured that wasn't fair to those people having another type of discussion.

I'm interested to know what people think about this article.

Well, tenure-track positions in my field have about 150 applicants each. Multiply that 0.6 percent chance of getting any given job by the 10 or so appropriate positions in the entire world, and you have about that same 6 percent chance of “success.”

Factors not taken into account:
- Department placement history
- Multiple years on the job market

also:
-that's not how combined probability works

lol humanities students

i like that illustration

seconded!

I don't like her interpretation of the conclusion of the Tractatus.

ya its p idiotic

yeah real facile reading

Salon makes you a terrible person

I don't like her interpretation of the conclusion of the Tractatus.

actual lol at this

i know one person who finally landed a tenure track job in a very small field at a super prestigious university, but i think i only know three other phds in the humanities who landed a tenure track job at all, from over 20 who finished. these kinds of articles have been appearing over and over for a decade plus.. and yet.. lots of people keep going to graduate school, don't they?

you’ll mostly be using made-up words like “deterritorialization” and “Othering”

"made-up words"

deterritorialization of the liminal space on the threshold of othering the problematic subaltern

who can/cannot speak