Is it hopeless?

juillet
Wed, 28 Jan 2015 23:50:35 +0000

To directly address the problem you’re asking about - to address the low GPA, you can get an MA and do very well, proving that you are able to handle graduate-level coursework and scholarship. There are some MA programs that may take you. The prestige of the MA at this level doesn’t matter so much; what matters is proving that you can succeed and your low GPA in college was due to factors that have since been resolved. You won’t get funded for the MA most likely, but you should get funded for the PhD after.

Now, a couple of other notes:

-Your goal should not to be a professor of “anything at all.” Professors are researchers, and the path to professorship involves a lot of research/scholarship. You have to have a deep abiding passion for something in particular to get through a PhD program, and you have to show focus and specialization in a particular area (while still learning enough about the broad areas that you can teach lower-division classes). European studies is a wide-ranging major, so you need to decide right now which PhD you want to pursue. Both fields you mentioned are impacted but history is probably less so than the two languages you know well enough to think about teaching. Then get the MA in that field. (Unless you decide you want to teach European studies. Then get the MA in that.)

-The academic job market, particularly in the humanities, is dismal. The chances are good that even if you do get into a PhD program and finish it, you won’t get a tenure-track job in history and be a professor. So you need to be okay with the idea that you might toil 6-10 years earning a PhD in history or European studies or whatever and then not ever be a professor. Going to a top program really increases your chances of getting a professor job later, so your goal should be to leverage yourself into a top program.

-You should not get a PhD without the funding. Top programs (even in the humanities) tend to fund all of their students that they admit, so you probably won’t have the option to pay with loans. There are a few low-tier programs that might admit you without funding. Don’t go. First of all, those programs are not going to help you do what you want to do. Second of all, you’ll be unable to repay the debt. The average assistant professor makes around $58,000. That’s not enough to repay the kind of debt you would have to take on to complete a 6-10 year program.

-This probably goes without saying, but the predictions and opinions of “everyone” don’t really matter. Those opinions are primarily formulated by people with 1) no first-hand experience of what earning a PhD and being an academic are actually like and 2) no insight into your personal thoughts, feelings, and circumstances. You have to follow your own interests and desires. It sounds like you actually want to be a professor - so that’s good. But remember that always, especially if/when you are struggling through a PhD program. (And I say that not as a reference to your GPA, but because everyone struggles through a PhD program to some degree. It’s hard!)