Good points
Worth pointing out, maybe, that while in the UK funding is decoupled from admissions, it also means admissions is not so heavily focused on those who want to be successful academics as seems the case in the US. Also, PhDs in the UK tend to last 3, maybe 4 years, with the caveat that almost all of them require a masters as entry. That said, you can go from start to finish (bachelors, masters, PhD) in 7 years total in the UK if youāre diligent about your PhD progress. If you can get funding from somewhere, the UK does have a time advantage.
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However, in the UK, they expect you to have finished a two year masters BEFORE you start your PhD. So itās more like 5-6 years total.
For the USA it also depends on the field. In Physics or engineering, it is around 5 years, while in, say English, itās around 8 years. Evidently in education its even longer, but I think that most of those students also teaching part time.
It seems that they reason that PhDs take so long is that the academic job market is bad, so there is no hurry to leave grad school, and students are trying to create a larger body of work. So while a book from oneās thesis was needed for tenure in humanities which are book fields, now that book needs to be published before an applicant will be considered seriously for many TT jobs. So they are not just writing their thesis, they are also building it up to a book, and looking for publishers. That is also why field in which there are many jobs, both in and out of academia, take so much less time. They are still have the same required output as they did 30 years ago. That is also why, for most other science fields, or for non-book humanities fields, a post-doc is generally also required, since a PhD thesis-level amount of work is no longer enough if an applicant wants to be hired for a TT position.
Ridiculously, even some primarily teaching colleges and universities now require a very large body of research. So at at a college where faculty are expected to teach a full time load, they are still required to have active research. The primarily undergraduate serving public universities (AKA as ādirectionalsā, excluding places like SIUC which is a research university) are especially guilty of this.
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A masters in the UK is almost invariably one year (even an MBA Oxford MBA | SaĆÆd Business School).
Hence 3 year BA, 1 year MPhil, 3 year PhD is typical, especially as PhD funding is usually based on a fellowship not TA model and strictly limited to 3 years. If you go over then you are on your own and it may take much longer if you are trying to finish in parallel with working another job.
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Time to degree for humanities PhDs (and to a lesser extent in the social sciences) was ridiculous even before the academic job market imploded.
But the horrible state of the academic job market is an important consideration at the front end of a PhD, and while uncomfortable, should be mentioned repeatedly. Iām an English professor, and if Iām talking to a student considering a PhD in modern American literature, I (to the horror of some of my colleagues) actively discourage the student from that pathāeffectively, there are and will be very simply no jobs to be had in that specialty. (A student interested in rhetoric/writing Iāll discourage a bit less, but I wonāt be full-on encouraging it.)
There is an ethics-based reason that I ended up consciously moving into settling in at a department that doesnāt offer a PhD, to the moderate confusion of some colleagues who know and like my research and donāt understand why I didnāt end up at a research powerhouse institutionābut I consider much of the PhD-granting sector of academia to be morally questionable, running their programs on the backs of poorly-compensated grad students while providing them a credential for jobs that donāt exist. There are a few fields that are exceptions to this (e.g., economics, computer science, some mathematics subfields), but theyāre rare and also tend to be in fields where (a) thereās a robust non-academic job market for PhDs and (b) programs do an even-sorta-good job of gatekeeping entrance to PhD programs better than most other fields.
{/rant}
TL;DR: The training system for the academic job market is broken, and PhD students/recipients get horribly damaged by that.
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Thank you.
Academia doesnāt need any more underpaid and underemployed adjuncts destroying their own lives and providing cheap replacements for tenure lines. If there were fewer English PhDs being produced, perhaps universities wouldnāt be able to offer minimum wage and no job security to people with MAs and PhDs, knowing that these are the only jobs in the field that are available to most academic job seekers.
Your rant is pretty point on.
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Glad to hear your thoughts @dfbdfb and @MWolf because I was going to ask you about the job market for those currently finishing PhDs. I received a clinical psych PhD in the 90s and I remember how incredibly tough the academic job market was back then, and Iāve heard itās much worse now. My kidsā dad was a prof at a couple of small colleges, and I saw what was involved in getting and keeping those positions. I definitely think my D17 would be a good English professor, but I did not encourage the PhD route when she was finishing her undergrad degree this past year. Luckily sheās happily working in the editing/publishing field.
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I have to admit I keep hoping D20 decides not to go the PhD route (sheās not in Humanities - I probably wouldnāt be able to hold my tongue if that was the case). Iāve been sending her information about Masters programs that would essentially give her entree into some of the work she currently is interested in.
Thankfully, she knows how much research I do so she looks at those āinfo dumpsā as me just making sure she has as much information as possible to make her choices.
Ultimately, though, if she can get funded and she still wants to pursue the PhD course - she will be an adult making that decision. Makes me sometimes wish for those days when kidās choices were less fraught.
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Yeahāand I can already tell that my C25 is temperamentally well-suited to being a professor (social sciences, thatās already long been a given), is the sort of person who would thrive in that sort of position, and in fact would probably be very good at it. But Iāve actively discouraged all of my kids from following me into academia, and that oneās no exception.
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I would only encourage my D19 to go into academia if she gets a TT position in a well financed private college, and maybe a handful of public flagships. Also, she should train for the non-academic job market as well, and look at non-academic jobs as more likely than academic jobs. Of course sheās in a new and developing field in STEM, which is helpful.
@dfbdfb I remember that there was a study which I think showed that English PhDs who leave academia generally report better pay and higher job satisfaction than those who stayed in academia, and not only the adjuncts but FT and Tenured faculty as well. I donāt remember where it was published, though Iām sure that the CHE or IHE had an article about it.
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My D19 is not pursuing a PhD or going into academia, but she has just landed a fantastic spring internship that should give a meaningful boost to her future career. Sheās at Parsons, getting their business degree (strategic design and management) with a minor in art history, and she wants to work on the business side of the art world. She participated in a program outside of school that introduces young Black people to various roles in art through a show that they mount, with some as artists, some as curators, some in support roles. D19 was a registrar, charged with managing the physical status of the artworks and keeping the show on schedule, and she impressed the director of the program a lot. The directorās day job is running one of New Yorkās most prominent new galleries, and she invited D19 to apply for an internship ā which D19 had already spotted herself and planned to apply for. She got it! Itāll be such a valuable experience for her, and a great launching pad for anything else she wants to do. Weāre thrilled for her, and so proud.
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@Vineyarder - Thatās wonderful news! Congrats to your daughter. What an interesting field!
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DD is graduation approved, and ceremony time selected! Luckily, she and her friends all got in the Saturday 1:00 ceremony (I knew it would be the most popular compared to Saturday 9 am or Friday afternoon).
Next week is Spring Break, and she and her friend are going to tour apartments for their summer internships. They donāt want more than a 6 month lease, so options in the area are limited basically to one nice apt and one not as nice. The nice one can be in their budget IF you are able to snag an unfilled discounted one last minute. But if you reserve in advance itās more expensive. The not as nice one always has availability and is just cheaper. So I guess there is a Plan B and I will try not to worry!
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Wow time flies! Your D is graduating in three years and has friends doing that as well? Is that typical?
Onto a summer internship and what will the plan be after that?
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Yes here the dual enrollment credits are really popular in HS and her local regional public accepts them all! DD had 22 credits that counted going in, then did 3 credits last summer and will have 12 credits this upcoming summer with the internship and a short term abroad class. So together the summers make a full-time 7th semester.
If she enjoys it, weāre hoping the internship can turn into full-time job. We think it is a good possibility. If not, she will be living in the same city as her sister, and there are plenty of jobs around, so she plans to stay past summer and work at something unless or until a career job is obtained.
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Wellā¦. In retrospect probably fortunate that D19 didnāt want to use spring break for our long intended but still vaguely planned ancestry trip to Lithuaniaā¦ she wanted to come home for spring break. Will be lovely to see her. She is having a great semester so far, both socially and academically - Iām hugely relieved, and of course happy for her.
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Hi all. Hope everyoneās kids are fine and doing well. I see some are already planning graduation, wow!
Iām going to do a dad brag post, but thought that some of you might like to know my son will be competing for a NCAA National Championship this weekend in track and field. Pretty cool! I think he actually has a decent shot to win. Heās running in 2 events, prelims on Friday and finals Saturday.
Heās been doing great with school and sports. Having a really good year. He just secured a nice internship locally too, so his summer will be well spent. He is thinking of using his extra year of sports eligibility ( lost 1 year to covid) to go a 5th year and compete and get masters. That seems to be the plan.
My older graduates from Northeastern soon. Iāve become a ski bum 
Glad to see people still updating whatās going on with their kids. Iāll read thru the thread a bit and catch up.
Cheers!
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Thatās really exciting! Are you going to be there? Sounds like a nice future plan, too. Good luck to him!
Very cool @RightCoaster! Congrats to you son! Thanks for updating and glad heās doing so well. Good luck this weekend!
My kid has decided sheāll graduate on time in May 2023 & barring an insurmountable schedule glitch, sheās on track to do it. Her only trouble, and it is a big issue to me, is that she hasnāt decided what direction sheās going to go with her life post-graduation.
I didnāt have a job offer until a month before graduation, so Iām just going to sit tight & hope she gets things to fall in place like I did.
I did put down a deposit on a vrbo (over a year out --crazy!) once she decided on graduation. Congrats to those whose off-spring are graduating soon!
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