I’m a sophomore at a public university who wants to maybe become an English Professor. Ive been researching about becoming a professor and it seems like the only way to absolutely make sure that I will get hired and get tenure, if I want to become an English Professor, is if I get into a good graduate program, maybe an Ivy League one. I still have three years of college yet but I’m not sure if its still possible for me to get into an Ivy League program. I have a 3.66 GPA and only one extracurricular that I quit last semester. I’m going to try to do more extracurriculars and get straight A’s this year but I don’t know if that will be enough to get me into a good graduate program.
Besides school I also work part time which is kind of why my GPA is so low. I started working my first semester in college and I focused more on work than school 
The Ivy League is a sports conference. It has no bearing on the quality of a graduate program.
You need to work to pull up your GPA. Students from pretty good public universities go on to graduate schools at Ivy League or equivalent all the time. In my experience (which is limited to one particular “equivalent”) they generally had a very good GPA for undergraduate.
That’s a great GPA for an engineering major. I don’t know the range for competitive English majors.
I don’t know a whole lot about English, but I believe the GPAs are usually very high. You should be perfect or very near perfect on the GRE verbal and writing portions. Publications would be probably a great idea as well.
Getting a tenure track position as an English professor is extremely difficult, even if you received your doctorate from Harvard. My niece got a doctorate in English from U Penn. She had one offer in 3 years–to teach as an adjunct at a directional state U. She gave up on academia and got a job in publishing. Make sure academia is really what you want to do. You still have three years as an undergraduate–lots of time to decide.
How is 3.66 average?
Most top graduate schools consider a 3.5 to be the minimum to be competitive. Your 3.66 gpa is great (especially considering that you’re working), but most graduate school programs put more weight on your upper division work over your lower division work. While lower division work definitely plays a role, upper division is usually considered more important.
There isn’t a whole lot of data for most graduate school program admissions. However, I would say that you should aim for as high of a GPA you’re able to get. Being as close to a 4.0 (especially when you’re a junior and senior) is really important, especially since you’re aiming for top-tier programs.
Extra curriculars (if you mean clubs etc.) aren’t usually considered important when applying to grad programs. GPA is the most important part when applying to grad school. But other factors (Letters of Recommendation, GRE scores, research experience etc.) are required and can make or break your application. GPA alone will not get you into top programs.
Don’t know where you live, but there are many other schools with top programs that aren’t one of the Ivies. Have you considered other schools besides Yale, Harvard etc.? UC Berkeley’s English program is ranked #1 by US News (Columbia is ranked #3, and Harvard is ranked #8).
Hope this was helpful and good luck with the rest of your college career!
A 3.66 GPA is pretty good. If you can push it a bit higher that’s better, but 3.66 is sufficient to gain you admission to a top program.
Grad programs don’t care about extracurriculars the way colleges do. Grad programs care that you have done things that are analogues to what you’d do in the grad program. So a physics grad program will want you to have experience doing research with a physics professor for a few years. English programs generally want to see evidence of independent scholarship/research in English - so talk to one of your English professors and arrange to do an independent study (or two or three). Seek out special programs that help prepare English and humanities students for doctoral programs. And you’ll need to submit a writing sample - so one of those independent studies should be the basis of developing a paper you can submit as your sample. Doing independent studies working with professors is a good way to get letters of recommendation, too.
Bromfield2 gives good advice here, too. Pursuing a career as an English professor these days is kind of like trying to become a musician or something. Tenure-track positions are more or less going the way of the dodo, replaced by contingent/adjunct positions or - for the somewhat lucky ones - full-time, non-tenure-track lecturer/instructor positions. So you should only pursue a doctoral degree in English IF you are okay with the idea that you will most likely NOT become a professor at the end of it. It’s kind of a ‘go for its own reward’ kind of thing, where the idea of spending 8 years doing scholarship in English literature for very little pay just sounds so exciting that even if you never become a professor, you still will have loved the opportunity.
And that’s true even if you do get into a top-ranked program, which as several others have mentioned isn’t necessarily in the Ivy League (could be another private or public university) - although you do have better chances. Berkeley’s program is one of the top in the nation, and they publish their graduate placement on their website. Out of the 14 who defended their dissertations and finished between 2016 and 2017, 9 (about 60%) are assistant professors (all at great colleges and universities - Scripps, Princeton, UC-Irvine, Hamilton, etc.) Four of the other five are postdoctoral fellows, three of which are at great places that are likely to lead to a faculty position down the line. And the remaining one is a senior lecturer at an excellent university.
Harvard, which is also ranked in the top 10 English programs, also publishes their placement results. In 2016-2017, out of the 9 placements that are listed, only four of ended up in tenure-track assistant professor positions. If you scroll down the current alumni positions on page 2 and look at the ones who finished in 2015, 10 people are listed but only two of them have assistant professor positions (Centenary University and West Point). Four of them have positions at Harvard, which to me is a bit of a pink flag; it sometimes signals that departments are arranging for their unemployed graduates to work at their school (often temporarily and for low pay) to boost their placement ratings.
And interestingly, they don’t always end up in glamorous places. For the 2016 grads, there are people at UNC-Chapel Hill, Hollins University, and Reed College - but also the New Jersey Institute of Technology and the University of Warwick.
And then I looked at the placement for Vanderbilt University, which is ranked #27 by U.S. News (the NRC rankings put them somewhere between #4 and #30; I think it’s safe to say Vanderbilt is at least a top 30 program). Out of the 26 graduates listed in the last five years that employment placement is listed (2011-2016), only 9 people have tenure-track assistant professor positions, and none of them got those straight from grad school - all of them had a non-tenure-track lecturer or postdoctoral position first. Furthermore, fully 19 of them were lecturers at Vanderbilt for 1-2 years before moving on somewhere (all three of the graduates from 2015 became lecturers at Vanderbilt, and only one of them has moved on elsewhere. Also, all five of the graduates from 2014 were lecturers at Vanderbilt, although four of them have gone elsewhere since then).
And these are not glamorous places - Oklahoma State University; University of North Alabama; Florida Polytechnic University; University of Tampa; Rockhurst University. As a former academic only a few of them look appealing to me (Bard College at Simon’s Rock; San Francisco State University, University of Illinois - and even then, San Francisco is the only place I’d actually want to live).
This is for a top 30 program!
Per your question, no a student with average grades from a public (or any university) can’t get in to an ivy league or top grad school. It has nothing to do with the public part and everything to do with average. Just like an average high school student can’t get in to ivy league and top undergrad, you need to be far greater than average to get in to a top grad program.
3.6 is not average. It’s very good. Of course try to get a 4.0. The better you do, the better your chances. You’ll find 4.0 in college is harder than high school. If it’s not, you’re at the wrong school for your skills.
Well, I think this characterization is slightly over-pessimistic. I think it is more fair to say that not all of the recent Harvard English PhD graduates obtained tenure-track positions immediately upon graduation. Nevertheless, of those that did not do so immediately, some eventually will.
Indeed, some of those who did not obtain tenure-track positions immediately upon graduation instead obtained positions that are arguably better than the overwhelming majority of tenure-track positions available. For example, 2015 Harvard English PhD graduate Daniel Williams was invited to the Harvard Society of Fellows, which is hands-down one of the highest honors available to new scholars not just in English but in all of academia. I have no doubt that many tenure-track professors in any discipline at even the top universities, let alone the lower-ranked universities, would gladly trade their positions for an invitation to the Harvard Society of Fellows for they are well aware of the latter’s status as a golden passport in academia that opens the doors to a vast array of career opportunities. By the same logic, Alexis Becker joined the Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts at the University of Chicago, a highly prestigious honor for new liberal arts scholars. {Indeed, her description in Harvard Phd placement document does not do her justice, because her full academic title is Collegiate Assistant Professor and Harper-Schmidt Fellow of the Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts at the University of Chicago.} I therefore wouldn’t exactly fret for the career prospects of Dr. Williams and Dr. Becker, even though they are not listed as having placed into tenure-track positions immediately upon graduation.
I would also similarly argue that, at least for many academics, obtaining an untenured position at a top-ranked school is far more desirable than a tenure-track position at a low-ranked school, not least because the former is far more convertible to the latter than vice versa. Upon graduation, Heather Brink-Roby became a lecturer at Stanford and Maggie Doherty became a lecturer (and preceptor) at Harvard. While these are non-tenure-track positions, I strongly suspect that many tenure-track professors at lower-ranked universities would gladly trade positions with them. Furthermore, if Dr. Brink-Roby and Dr. Doherty ever decide that indeed wish to garner a tenure- track position somewhere, given their credentials, I don’t doubt that they will find something. It may not be at a top-ranked school (but, given their credentials, it very well may), but they would surely find something. In contrast, a new tenure-track assistant English professor at a low-tier school has little chance of becoming a lecturer at Harvard or Stanford. {Heck, even the department chair at a low-tier school probably would not be selected to be a lecturer at Harvard or Stanford.}
And besides, and far more importantly, I think it is deeply unfair to be judging English PhD departments by how many graduates obtain tenure-track positions immediately upon graduation. While it is true that many PhD graduates in English do not obtain tenure-track academic positions immediately upon graduation, the same is true of most academic fields. For example, in the natural sciences, math, many social sciences such as psychology and sociology, and even engineering and CS, it is basically de rigueur to serve at least one and sometimes several postdocs before one finally obtains a tenure-track academic position. For example, nowadays it is nearly impossible to obtain a tenure-track position in, say, biology, without at least one postdoc. While many postdocs do indeed eventually obtain tenure-track positions, the upshot is that we shouldn’t judge PhD programs solely on their ability to place people immediately into tenure-track positions.
Akin to my argument explicated above, I’m not sure that this is a bad thing, particularly regarding Harvard. Indeed, I would argue that plenty of people in academia wouldn’t exactly mind being employed at Harvard, even if the position is temporary and low-paid. Put another way, if we could poll all of the new assistant professors of English at low-ranked schools and ask them whether they would rather work as a Harvard Preceptor (as per Margaret Rennix), a Harvard research associate (as per Cara Glatt), or a Harvard librarian (as per David Weimer ), I am sure that many of them would jump at the opportunity. Perhaps not all, but many. After all, many people will rationally deduce that having a tenure-track position at a low-ranked school doesn’t actually guarantee that they will receive tenure, and if they fail, what are they going to do now? They would then need to find another career, for which having that low-ranked school on their resume isn’t exactly going to be particularly helpful. In contrast, Harvard gives them access to an unparalleled brand name and networking opportunities.
Regarding the specific point that certain departments may be arranging for their unemployed graduates to be working at their school - even if only via low-paid temporary work - in order to boost the department’s placement ratings, I would say that that is is indeed what is happening, well, good. They should do that. That indicates to me that the department truly cares about supporting its own graduates. Frankly, I wish all departments would do likewise. It’s hard for me to see why that’s a bad thing.
[quote[Well, I think this characterization is slightly over-pessimistic. I think it is more fair to say that not all of the recent Harvard English PhD graduates obtained tenure-track positions immediately upon graduation. Nevertheless, of those that did not do so immediately, some eventually will.
[/quote]
Of course. The question is, how many is “some”?
If you look at the class of 2014, out of the 3 graduates listed, 1 of them is an assistant professor (at West Point).
If we go out to 2013, which was 5 years ago, out of the 4 graduates that year, 3 are currently assistant professors (at the Air Force Academy, Albright College, and the University of Houston).
2012 has 6 graduates listed. Three are tenure-track assistant professors (Louisiana State University, University of Rochester, and Indiana University).
2011 has 8 graduates, out of which 5 are in tenure-track assistant professor jobs.
In aggregate, there are 21 graduates listed and 12 of them have tenure-track academic positions. That’s about 57% - a little bit more than half. These are people who are 4-7 years out, which should be more than enough time for them to have finished up any fellowships and visiting positions or have converted their part-time/contingent positions to full-time.
The idea that a lecturer at a prestigious school can easily convert to a tenure-track position is an oft-repeated but unfortunately untrue canard. It is actually much more likely that a person who begins as a tenure-track assistant professor at, let’s say, Virginia Commonwealth University will be able to move into a tt position at University of Virginia or William & Mary or Cornell or Columbia later than someone who begins as a lecturer at Cornell or Harvard or Columbia.
There are many reasons for that, but one of the reasons is that the person on the TT at VCU has more time in their professional schedule to actually to do the things they need to do to look good to other TT positions (write papers, publish books, speak at conferences). Lecturers are lecturing. Unless they are in a special lecturer position, they usually have heavier courseloads and do not have the same institutional support for research and scholarship as a TT professor.
For these reasons, I disagree pretty strongly with the notion that most tenure-track professors at lower-ranked schools would trade their tenure for a contingent position at Harvard. Perhaps the Harvard Society of Fellows, and then it would depend on how much lower they were. Someone at Georgia State University or Cal State Northridge? Maybe. (I wouldn’t, but maybe someone else would.) Someone at like, Penn State or University of Virginia? Probably not. And I don’t think tenure-track professors at say, VCU or Penn State or Cal State Northridge would be willing to trade their tenure-track status for a contingent lecturer position even at a prestigious place. That simply doesn’t make sense career-wise.
One might say that it is a little unfair to judge PhD programs on their ability to place students in tenure-track positions immediately or pretty soon after graduate school. I say, perhaps that’s true - but also, I don’t care and life isn’t fair. If I’m a superstar student in a position to choose which doctoral program I want to go to, I am absolutely going to prioritize the ones that get me into the kind of job I want, preferably with less time toiling in low-paid temporary work.
It’s also true that in many fields doing a postdoc after the PhD is unavoidable (which I am very familiar with - I’m a PhD-trained psychologist who did a postdoc myself). In those cases, you judge the PhD program by the field, not the dream. So yes, it’d be unrealistic to expect even the top PhD programs in psychology to be placing the majority of their graduates directly into assistant professor positions. However, I would expect that their graduates 2-3 years out would start showing up in those jobs.
Having to postdoc for 5-7 years before getting a job is actually problematic, IMO. It’s a signal to me of the unwillingness of the field (and potentially, individual programs) to make choices about enrollment and program size that benefit their students and the next generation of scholars rather than benefiting themselves. That’s why I say tons of temporary lecturer positions at your own school is a pink flag - sure, in the short-term it’s better that those students have roof over their head and are presumably eating, but in the larger scheme of things it’s probable that we’re just educating far too many PhDs in that field because the market can’t bear them.
Doctoral program hopefuls therefore should be armed with all the facts about the job market and have to to decide whether or not that’s something they’re willing to deal with when deciding whether or not to get the PhD at all. If you KNOW that after doing 7 years of a PhD you will then have to spend another 5 years in low-paid, contingent positions for the mere chance of maybe getting a tenure-track position - that’s something you have to factor into your decision-making.
To be clear, I am not saying that Harvard (or Vanderbilt) are bad PhD programs. On the contrary, these are EXCELLENT programs, top 10 in Harvard’s case and top 30 in Vanderbilt’s. I’m not even saying that a potential English PhD students shouldn’t pick them - obviously if you get into Harvard’s program and you really want a PhD in English, GO THERE. It’s a great place! Compared to the rest of the English landscape, the placement is actually very, very good. The ones who don’t end up at tenure-track jobs actually end up at GREAT jobs - just non-academic ones.
This information is for people who are deciding whether or not to get a PhD AT ALL (or students who say they want one, but maybe don’t know about it yet). It’s dropping the knowledge that TT jobs are hard to come by and if you want a PhD in English you should be content with the real fact that there’s a strong possibility you won’t land in academia.
Again, I think you’re being deeply unfair towards those Harvard PhD English program. To wit, consider the 9 out of 21 English Phd graduates from the 2011-2014 cohorts who you imply as having ‘failed’ for ostensibly not holding tenure-track positions.
Yulia Ryzhik is currently a tenure-track assistant professor at the University of Toronto after completing her visiting position at University of New Mexico. {I’m not sure why Harvard didn’t update its placement results to reflect this fact.}
That therefore leaves only 8 graduates that warrant further attention. So let’s examine those 8 more closely:
Adena Spingarn is a lecturer at Stanford.
Rikita Tyson is a school teacher at the Commonwealth School, one of the most prestigious private schools in the nation
Odile Harter is a librarian at Harvard. It should be noted that the Harvard library system is arguably the most prestigious, and certainly one of the highest paying library systems in the world.
Laura Wang is a school teacher at the Iolani school, arguably the most prestigious school in her home state of Hawaii.
Jason Manoharan first became a strategy consultant at BCG after graduation, and is now a VP at the College Board
Stephen Hequembourg is a lecturer at Virginia.
Sara Gorman became interested in health policy (indeed, she arguably always was interested), and therefore entered the MPH program at Columbia whilst also becoming a global public health project manager at J&J.
Joanna Grossman, who has always been interested in animal rights, is now a policy specialist and lobbyist at a animal rights NGO.
The upshot is that many - indeed, perhaps even all - of them could have obtained tenure-track positions somewhere if they had truly wanted them. Some of them perhaps never wanted such positions in the first place. {Indeed, I wouldn’t be surprised if Laura Wang and Rikita Tyson starting from day 1 had always wanted to leverage their PhD’s to become private school teachers.} Others found that their interests shifted such that they found the academic lifestyle to be less enjoyable than they had thought and found other pursuits to be more interesting. Still others, as I continue to assert, would rather be lecturers at top-ranked schools than hold tenure-track positions at low-ranked schools.
Nevertheless, to reiterate, many of them could have surely obtained a tenure-track position somewhere if they had truly wanted one. It might be at a low-ranked school, it might be in another country, but to say that none of those 8 aforementioned graduates couldn’t have found something if they wanted it is an extreme position to take.
First off, I was envisioning schools that were far lower ranked than VCU. Nevertheless, I’ll entertain your example and say that I emphatically disagree with your VCU example, for reasons I discuss below.
Actually, I’m afraid that this is (sadly) not the case for the simple fact is that a tenure-track position at a school ranked similarly to VCU - and certainly at schools lower ranked than VCU - is also likely lecturing all of the time. That’s frankly why low-ranked schools produce relatively little research scholarship: their “tenure-track positions”, so to speak, are in reality just glorified lectureships.
In contrast, a lectureship at, say, Stanford, which is what Adena Springarn holds, actually doesn’t teach all that much, allowing people ample opportunity to conduct scholarship. Indeed, Springarn just published her first book (Uncle Tom from Martyr to Traitor) through the Stanford University Press. The vast majority of tenure-track English professors who graduated in the same year as her have yet to successfully publish their first book at all, let alone publish it through one of the top university presses in the world.
And that speaks to one of the great advantages of working at a top school, even if in an untenured position. I doubt that it is a coincidence that Springarn holds a lectureship at Stanford and is now publishing through Stanford University Press. It seems far more likely that her presence at SUP has provided her with the opportunity to network with and develop connections with the editors at SUP. And, whether we like it or not, the fact is that one of the key factors - indeed, arguably the most important factor of all by far - in determining your success in academic publishing are your connections to editors.
Actually regarding CSUN, it makes perfect sense career-wise, for the reasons explicated above. Again, the tenure-track position at a place like CSUN is basically a glorified lectureship, where you could very well be teaching more than would the lecturers at Stanford or Harvard. You also would have little opportunity at CSUN to be connected to powerful academic editors and coauthors.
What I find to be deeply unfair is that you are judging PhD programs on their ability to place all/most students in tenure-track positions, when many of those students either discover whilst in the program that they no longer want tenure-track positions, or perhaps never did in the first place. That’s like judging an undergraduate CS program solely on whether they place all/most of their graduates at large tech firms like Microsoft or Apple when many of them would, say, rather start their own firms (which might become the next Microsoft or Apple).
The statistic that should matter is the percentage of PhD graduates who actually want a tenure-track position and truly cannot get one (even a low-ranked one). While this figure may never be knowable with certainty, I would surmise that in the case of Harvard English PhD graduates, the percentage is likely rather low.
I would argue that it’s a problem only if the postdoc is bad. While some surely are, others are actually quite pleasant: essentially a continuation of your student years but with higher pay and prestige. This seems to be particularly true of a non-lab discipline like English where the better postdocs provide great freedom regarding where you work and what you work hours will be and provide the opportunity to interact with brilliant colleagues. Heck, I think that plenty of grunts in the corporate world wouldn’t mind that lifestyle, even if they would need to sacrifice income to do so. The key is to avoid the bad postdoc.
I would also point out that a (good) postdoc is actually far better than holding a tenure-track position for a crucial and cunning reason: as a post-doc, your tenure clock has not officially started. A good postdoc therefore effectively gives you ‘bonus clock time’ with which to further your research. There are plenty of junior professors who fail tenure review but would have passed if they just had taken a postdoc and therefore have had a few more clock years.
But the point is that I rather doubt that many Harvard English PhD graduates are relegated to bad postdocs. If you disagree, then by all means, name me a person on the list of graduates who you think is stuck in a bad postdoc, and we’ll talk.
Actually, your pink flag comment was not specific to lectureships per se, but rather to general staff employment at a particular university, whether as a lecturer, a librarian, a preceptor, research associate, or the like. However, in this particular case, we were not just talking about PhD graduates becoming employees at, say, some community college. We’re talking about graduates becoming employees at Harvard. Whether we like it or not, the fact is that Harvard is arguably the most desirable employer in all of academia. I suspect that plenty of PhD graduates are perfectly content to take staff positions at Harvard.
Surely we can all agree with your general point that a tenure-track position, particularly in a field such as English, is difficult to obtain.
Nevertheless, we shouldn’t make it out to be more difficult than it actually is. Every PhD program, whether Harvard or elsewhere, has plenty of students who never actually wanted an academic career path in the first place and are pursuing the PhD for other reasons (like becoming a private school teacher) or who initially did want such a career path but who discover whilst in the process that they would rather pursue other endeavors. Given that the PhD years are generally in one’s mid/late 20’s, many people will marry and have children during those years: life events that tend to precipitate a dramatic shift in priorities. Vivid prior dreams of an academic career path may fade to nothingness when you’re cradling your newborn baby in your arms.
I would also say that, particularly regarding a school like Harvard, students may rationally determine that a tenure-track position at, say, some 4th-tier school simply does not compare to the vast litany of other non-academic opportunities that they have. For example, a guy like Jason Manoharan perhaps figures that while he could potentially obtain a tenure-track position at a 4th tier school, such a position would not only pay poorly and offer low prestige, but also have no guarantee that he will actually obtain tenure. Compare that to his other option of becoming a highly paid and high-prestige strategy consultant at BCG.
Getting back to the OP’s original post: OP, a PhD is a research degree as much as a teaching qualification.
One of the criteria for getting a PhD is that your thesis research has added something novel or original to your field. When you apply to do a PhD your essay is a ‘statement of purpose’, about your research interests. By chance, I know two students currently applying to PhD programs. The SoP of one focuses on a novel way to resolve a debate about a particular aspect of the Bloomsbury Group and Virginia Wolff), while the other is looking at an area of Shakespeare studies. Both are highly qualified students, whose grades and relevant work (both started doing research and writing papers in these areas as undergrads) make them eligible for top-tier programs - and there is very little overlap in their application lists. The world expert in your field might not be at an ‘Ivy’ - and doing your PhD work with the world expert is going to do your career more good than going to an ‘Ivy’.
Of course, first you have to have a field - one that you think will hold your interest for 40 years of researching, writing and teaching.
@peterquill, I’m a PhD-trained psychologist who myself chose not to pursue a tenure-track job and am happily a researcher in industry. I don’t personally privilege academic positions over industry positions. I am not implying anything about the failure or success of PhD programs that don’t place people into assistant professor positions. I’m judging the programs by their ability to place students in tenure-track assistant professor jobs because that’s what the OP asked about. They want to be a professor of English; therefore, they need to find a graduate program that’s going to allow them to get a job as a professor of English.
I would actually be very surprised if English PhD applicants went in with the goal of become private school teachers or consultants (because you can do those things with a masters. Most people who do those things have master’s degrees). Most people who go on to get PhDs in English most likely initially intended to become English professors, much like the OP.
The FACTS are that few people who get a PhD in English will get a tenure-track assistant professor job. Your chances are MUCH higher at a top-ranking English program like Berkeley or Harvard, but they are far from 100% (being “absolutely sure,” as the OP puts it). Now, you may well end up somewhere else very fabulous, which is great! But if your goal is to be a tenure-track assistant professor, then those other places are not where you wanted to be.
No need to invoke an appeal to authority, for I could have done likewise, but did not for it is a logical fallacy. Rather, we should simply consider the merits of the argument.
I’m well aware of your logic. However, I continue to express concern judging Phd programs solely by the percentage of graduates who obtain a tenure-track positions is a deeply slanted and unfair metric, given that, to reiterate, it is inevitable in any PhD program that many of the graduates simply don’t want such positions (and perhaps never did). Some people are perfectly content being just lecturers, particularly if it is a lectureship at a place like Harvard or Stanford. Some people are content being just school teachers, particularly if it is at one of the most prestigious and exclusive schools in the nation. Some people simply discover that their life priorities change and/or they don’t actually enjoy scholarship after all and would therefore rather pursue other activities. And I don’t see anything wrong with that.
Again, a far more fair metric would be to examine the percentage of graduates obtained a tenure-track position from the subset who actually wanted such a position. Regarding the Harvard English PhD program, I would assert that that percentage would be quite high.
But again, if you disagree, then by all means, name me some people on the list of aforementioned Harvard English PhD graduates who you honestly think would truly not have been able to land any tenure-track position whatsoever - not even at a 4th tier university - and we’ll talk.
I am actually somewhat surprised that you’re surprised. Keep in mind that regarding Laura Wang and Rikita Tyson who became school teachers, we’re not talking about just any private school here, but some of the best private schools in the nation, and for which there is certainly no guarantee that holding a master’s degree would suffice in order to be hired.
But perhaps more importantly, we’re also not talking about any PhD program. We’re talking about Harvard. I think it’s safe to say that both Wang and Tyson will be treated by their schools like queens, not least because, let’s face it, the parents of the students at those schools would like nothing more than to send their children to Harvard. Teaching at such schools would therefore seem to be a far more attractive career path for a Wang and Tyson than a tenure-track position at some low-ranked university.
But even if it is true that none of these people came into the PhD program with the specific intent of becoming school teachers or consultants, as stated previously, I think we have to respect the fact that many people discover through the PhD program that they don’t actually want to become academics after all but would rather do something else. And I see nothing wrong with that.
And besides, I have to be honest, any Harvard PhD program will be heavily skewed by what I call the ‘Harvard Effect’. Many people will choose to enter a Harvard PhD who don’t actually intend to become academics after all just because, well, it’s Harvard. Whether right or wrong, a Harvard degree, and especially a Harvard PhD is considered to be a once-in-a-lifetime honor. Indeed, I myself can think of several people who have explicitly stated that they don’t want to become academics and therefore wouldn’t join any PhD program at all… unless it’s Harvard. Perhaps one might argue that Harvard should then weed out such people from the admissions pool. But, hey, what can I say, they don’t.
All of that speaks to the fact that the subset of Harvard PhD graduates who actually wants a tenure-track position is much smaller than what has been implied here on this thread. Yet it is that smaller subject that actually matters. No PhD program should ever be expected to place 100% of its graduates into tenure-track positions.
It would be fascinating indeed to run a study that compared people’s SOP’s when they were PhD applicants to the topics that they actually pursued as academics for 40 years. My guess would be is that the percentage of the latter that actually equalled the former would be vanishingly small. It seems to me that the overwhelming percentage of academics change their focus, sometimes dramatically so.
Indeed, I would argue that such a change in focus is not only likely, but that a lack of change of focus is rather dubious. The whole point of research is that you don’t actually know what you are going to discover (for if you did, then it wouldn’t be research). Hence, conducting research should inevitably mean discovering new intellectual pathways that nobody knew existed.
Not disagreeing with your overall point, @peterquill: for the majority of people, their research interests do evolve over time. Of course, it depends on how narrowly you define ‘field’- from your post I am guessing that you define it rather more narrowly than I do.
Many students have only the vaguest idea of what a given career path actually involves, and there are quite a few CC regulars who hang around and post on areas in which they have something useful to add based on their experience or expertise (cf, @juillet)
My post was written (as I trust yours were) to add to the OP’s understanding of the path to becoming an English professor. Knowing that part of the college journey for the prospective PhD / English Professor is the development of their own research interests, and understanding that research and writing are as core as teaching in that job is relevant to the OP’s original post.