Hello, I am an architecture student who is debating about going the PHD route to teach architecture history instead of practicing architecture. I have been debating getting a professional degree or a teaching/research degree for architecture. I like to teach and tutor my fellow classmates and I am good at it. I also am good at writing research papers and got A+'s on both of my writing classes. However, I don’t like to read long, boring peer revised journals or write tedious research papers. But, the idea of writing books sounds intriguing. I am afraid the writing/research part of a PHD and being a professor would outweigh my love for architecture history and teaching. How much writing is required for a PHD and professor. Is it worth the time to work to be a full professor? Thank you for your time and help.
It depends on the subject and the department, but expect to read and write a lot. The dissertation is less of a book than a series of chapters, each of which is a glorified research paper, which have sometimes been done for a class. My dept. expected me to read every book and article that had ever been written on my topic (which was specific) but still generated a 13 page bibliography. My advisor limited the body of my diss to 250 pages.
Don’t. Get. A. PhD.*
A lot. A lot a lot a lot.
The PhD is a research degree. Although many (most?) PhDs do end up teaching, the PhD itself is intended to teach you how to do research in a specific field of inquiry and contribute to new knowledge in that field. Even in the professional fields of which I know - management, accounting, nursing, engineering - research is key, the primary function of a doctoral student, the assumed career path of the doctoral graduate, and what you will spend the vast majority of your time worrying about.
I’m not entirely sure which field you would go into. If you want a PhD in architecture and you study architectural history from that perspective, with the goal of being a professor of architecture - most architecture programs are either at professional schools or major research universities. Given that, your main priority as a professor would be to do research in the field and produce scholarship. Reading long peer-reviewed journal articles and writing tedious research papers is basically the definition of that job.
If you got a PhD in art history or history, and were able to go into a history department, you might be able to find a more teaching-focused job that requires little in the way of scholarship (relatively speaking, that is). But even then, you’d still have to do 6-8 years of scholarship to get the PhD, and you’ll still be expected to stay up to date in your field (meaning reading peer-reviewed monographs and journal articles) and to publish some papers occasionally. If you wanted to end up at an elite teaching school - a top liberal arts college, like Swarthmore, Davidson, etc. - then you’d have higher research expectations. Writing a book in academia is basically the long version of a peer-reviewed article; it’s my understanding that in book fields like history, you have to try to get it published in a good academic press, and that the manuscript is still peer-reviewed for quality.
Basically, a PhD is for people who love to read research papers in their field and to write long research papers themselves because they feel like they are contributing. If you dislikes these things, you hate the main functions of the profession, and it’s not a good fit.
If you like to teach, you could get a professional degree in architecture, work as an architect, and then adjunct teach classes for a local university or college in architecture practice or history. There’s always lots of adjunct work to be had; the pay is low (averaging $3,000 per class) so it’s not good to do it as a career alone, but if you already have a professional career that would be a way to satisfy your love of teaching.
*I say it this way not to be snarky but for emphasis! It seems like a really bad fit for you. That’s no comment on your scholarly achievements or potential, but just about whether you’d like the day to day.
**Oh, and one other thing - whether your dissertation is more like a book or a series of connected chapters depends on your field. STEM and some social science fields are more likely to do several connected papers and stitch them together, including some seminar papers. But in humanities fields or humanities hybrid fields (of which I feel like architectural history is) the dissertation is more likely to be akin to a book-length monograph. My 132-page dissertation was the result of several smaller studies, but was still constructed like a book with a 50-page literature review. I had 49 (double-spaced) pages of references. No, seriously.
Thank you so much for all of the advice. I will keep all of these comments to mind. I think I will get a professional architecture degree and focus in historic preservation, I think that would be a better fit for me. Thanks again.