For the Parents: Changing Career Paths...

Parent Cafe
1

<p>As I am sitting here, unemployed, with an MA degree and almost nothing to do, for the past few months I have been thinking to myself that I don’t really want to do what I earned my degree in and would like to switch subfields. True, I have a lot of experience in my area and, for the most part, made good grades. </p>

<p>How many of you all here have changed career paths, and how many times over the course of your life did you do this? Is it normal to doubt oneself or feel foolish, or even somewhat saddened, by past choices? How did you go about changing career choices? Was it really difficult, expensive, etc?</p>

<p>Someone much more knowledgable than me, please reassure me that I am not confined to doing one single thing for the rest of my life.</p>

2

<p>More detail would really help here. No one is confined to any one career path, but we could give more useful suggestions if we knew what your career was and what your degrees are in.</p>

3

<p>Hi. I have a degree focused on Biological Anthropology, but want to switch to Cultural. Ultimately, I want to be a professor.</p>

4

<p>Bumping up</p>

5

<p>you had better read this recent article:
[Strategy</a> - Faculty - The Case of the Vanishing Full-Time Professor - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/education/edlife/03strategy-t.html]Strategy”>http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/education/edlife/03strategy-t.html)
and thread on CC
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/843047-big-change-most-college-instructors-now-grad-students-adjuncts.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/843047-big-change-most-college-instructors-now-grad-students-adjuncts.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>the bottom line is that at many, if not most colleges, being a prof is no longer a tenure track position. The majority of professors these days are “temporary” help, i.e. adjunct professors. So you should think twice about going back to school for a PHD for 4 years if you are unlikely to be able to land a job as a prof.</p>

6

<p>I am not in an academic field. But I did take several classes in both those fields in my undergrad years (a million years ago, this IS the Parent Cafe). You could be worse off (say, majored in cultural anthro and now want to become a chemistry prof). Your fields of interest aren’t too far apart. However, I’m thinking that to be a prof (at least at a large university or presitgous college), you need a PhD. So choices you have:</p>

<ul>
<li>Start the application for a PhD program in Cultural.</li>
<li>Try for a teaching job at a smaller/less prestigous school, or even a community college in Biological Anthro. But let it be known that you would like to teach Cultural classes to, and work toward crossing over there.</li>
</ul>

<p>I personally vote for option 2. Unless you are debt free, neither of those fields pays much. You would be going further into debt for something that isn’t the most employable skill set on the market if you enter a PhD program now. I’d at least work for a few years to pay down any school debt you have first. And if you can get some experience teaching Cultural, that might help with PhD program admission.</p>

<p>Regarding switching, I think this happens more than you think. Many, many students get degrees in areas where they have no idea what the work really involves on a daily basis or they don’t really understand the job market in their chosen field. In fact, I think it happens to the majority of students. We do an appalling job of helping young people explore the long term aspects of career/major choices in this country, I think. I personally have worked for a legal pulishing company, a hospital corporation, a large consulting firm, an insurance company, an internet startup, and run my own business over the past 25 years. Sometimes you have to suck it up for a while to be financially prepared for a transition, though.</p>

7

<p>here is another eye-opening recent article from the Chronicle of higher Education</p>

<p>[Graduate</a> School in the Humanities: Just Don’t Go - Advice - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“http://chronicle.com/article/Graduate-School-in-the/44846/]Graduate”>http://chronicle.com/article/Graduate-School-in-the/44846/)
Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don’t Go</p>

<p>an excerpt-</p>

<p>"Nearly six years ago, I wrote a column called “So You Want to Go to Grad School?” (The Chronicle, June 6, 2003). My purpose was to warn undergraduates away from pursuing Ph.D.'s in the humanities by telling them what I had learned about the academic labor system from personal observation and experience.</p>

<p>It was a message many prospective graduate students were not getting from their professors, who were generally too eager to clone themselves. Having heard rumors about unemployed Ph.D.'s, some undergraduates would ask about job prospects in academe, only to be told, “There are always jobs for good people.” If the students happened to notice the increasing numbers of well-published, highly credentialed adjuncts teaching part time with no benefits, they would be told, “Don’t worry, massive retirements are coming soon, and then there will be plenty of positions available.” The encouragement they received from mostly well-meaning but ill-informed professors was bolstered by the message in our culture that education always leads to opportunity.</p>

<p>All these years later, I still get letters from undergraduates who stumble onto that column. They tell me about their interests and accomplishments and ask whether they should go to graduate school, somehow expecting me to encourage them. I usually write back, explaining that in this era of grade inflation (and recommendation inflation), there’s an almost unlimited supply of students with perfect grades and glowing letters. Of course, some doctoral program may admit them with full financing, but that doesn’t mean they are going to find work as professors when it’s all over. The reality is that less than half of all doctorate holders — after nearly a decade of preparation, on average — will ever find tenure-track positions.</p>

<p>The follow-up letters I receive from those prospective Ph.D.'s are often quite angry and incoherent; they’ve been praised their whole lives, and no one has ever told them that they may not become what they want to be, that higher education is a business that does not necessarily have their best interests at heart. Sometimes they accuse me of being threatened by their obvious talent. I assume they go on to find someone who will tell them what they want to hear: “Yes, my child, you are the one we’ve been waiting for all our lives.” It can be painful, but it is better that undergraduates considering graduate school in the humanities should know the truth now, instead of when they are 30 and unemployed, or worse, working as adjuncts at less than the minimum wage under the misguided belief that more teaching experience and more glowing recommendations will somehow open the door to a real position."</p>

8

<p>Being a professor these days isn’t the same kind of career anymore. What exactly about being a professor interests you? Is it the teaching, and on what level? Is it research? Writing? Depending on where your interests lie, you may be able to pursue them outside of the academic track. The reality of academia can be far from the intellectual life it appears to be.</p>

9

<p>^^^Cross-posted with menloparkmom. Wow, it’s worse than I thought. There are a lot of Ph.D’s working in bookstores (if they’re lucky),or as baristas (more commom) where I live, across from an Ivy U. </p>

<p>As for career change, bluealien, doing some solid research is really important before you commit to paying more tuition. Lots of people change careers at all points in their lives, and it can be an exhilarating experience. You just need to go into it with your eyes wide open: interview as many people already in your chosen field as you can in order to get a realistic, day-to-day account of what their work lives are like.</p>

10

<p>I know being realistic is important, but does that mean I should just give up on my dreams?</p>

11

<p>I think it means objectively assessing your chances of beating some very tough odds and emerging one of the few with a good teaching job. Was your undergrad and masters performance impressive? At top schools? Do you have good research under your belt?</p>

<p>I would talk to a few young profs in the field to get input.</p>

12

<p>Many of us have given up on our dreams because, at a certain point with spouse and mortgage and children and tuition, practicality – an income – is more important than dreams.</p>

<p>Sorry to be so negative, but at some point, there’s a point of diminishing returns for pursuing your dreams. If you wind up “happy” but destitute (along with the rest of the family), have you really won anything??</p>

<p>IMHO, there’s a certain satisfaction to be gained by being gainfully employed at a respectable company and Taking Care of Business.</p>

13

<p>

Never pay tuition for a PhD program in the humanities.</p>

14

<p>Your dreams can change too.</p>

<p>I made the move from CIS and consulting to engineering a long time ago as I could read the writing on the wall in the group that I was working in. I’ve enjoyed engineering immensely for 25 years and even enjoy doing unpaid open source work.</p>

15

<p>

</p>

<p>Actually, I think 50% is a pretty high number.</p>

<p>Surely not every single PhD wants or deserves a tenure-track job? There are a lot of people who may have minimally gotten their way through a PhD program, and paying them for life to write third rate stuff would not be a good idea.</p>

16

<p>Blue, I wanted to send you a PM but your inbox is full. Can you delete so I can resend? Thanks.</p>

17

<p>Sorry starbright. I will delete.</p>

18

<p>

</p>

<p>While that percentage is higher than what I’ve been reading and hearing, it would include all of the students in the sciences who are sought after. Success rate is much lower in the humanities.</p>

<p>We are entering what will be a pragmatic period in time. These always follow great recessions. In addition we have a global economy with new realities. We’ll see a lot more accounting and business majors…cultural anthro majors? Not so much.</p>

19

<p>“How many of you all here have changed career paths” - I completely changed my profession after 11 years working in one field and hating it a lot. Went back to school (CC), got job after graduation, loved it a lot, changed jobs 9 times (living in very economically depressed area and not being able to relocate). Various employers paid for the rest of my education all the way thru MBA. Now spending about 30 years working in my second field, I love it more and more and my current job is the best one ever. </p>

<p>But, I understand perfectly what being unemployed means. I have been there 8 times. It is very depressing and one needs to work hard to maintain positive attitude and be very persistant in job search. I have taken 50% cuts in salary, traveling to different state on daily basis, working in brand new industries for me, I was ready to take ANY position in my field. Looking back, it was all worth it and had been great fun which continues. Meeting new people, adjusting to new places, learning a lot.</p>

20

<p>Blue: I don’t think there’s anything wrong with trying to be one of the ones who makes it in humanities academia. But I think that you do need to:</p>

<p>1) Go in with your eyes open about your odds.</p>

<p>2) Have a backup career that you could be happy in, possibly one that you can get training and certs and do volunteer work in while you pursue your cultural anthro grad program.</p>

<p>As to your original question, it’s not uncommon to change career paths. My fiance switched from cognitive psychology to technical writing. My mother went to law school in her late 30s (and is now a partner at her firm). My uncle was a hunter and other live-in-the-woods jobs for most of his adult life, and is now in nursing school. I have a friend who switched from materials engineering to software quality assurance, one who switched from finance to college admissions, and one who switched from chemical engineering to technical writing to nursing. I switched fields after my bachelor’s degree, from neuroscience to artificial intelligence.</p>

<p>Boston University has a special program for people who majored in non-technical fields and decided later that they wanted to switch to become engineers. Many schools have post-bac programs in computer science for people who want to switch to that, and post-bac premed programs for people who decided later in life that they wanted to be doctors. I’m in a group for non-traditional female computer science students, many of whom had other careers before or previously stayed at home to raise kids, and one of the group members was originally in <em>dance</em>. That’s right, she switched from dance to computer science in mid-life.</p>

<p>Yes, it’s normal to have doubts and regrets. But it can be done, and frequently is. The expense depends on your particular path. If you can find a funded grad program in your new subfield, the expense shouldn’t be a huge problem.</p>