PhD in American Studies

juillet
Sun, 16 May 2010 01:31:34 +0000

Like Student35 said, you need to figure out what your actual passion is and what you loved about American law. Was it the study of laws and legal history? You can do legal research as a JD and even be a law professor (although you need to go to a top 14 law school and do really, really well in law school). Was it the study of the political processes? Political science can serve you there. Was it the history? History. And so on and so forth. I think you also need to consider your plans and what you want to do. A person with a PhD in American studies or history is more or less limited to faculty positions as professors in those fields. As already mentioned, American studies is not hurting for professors and the job market is bad. History PhDs are also faced with an overabundance of supply relative to demand, and there aren’t many jobs outside of academia for historians (although there certainly are some! I met a historian who worked for the federal government maintaining historical records for the country, and there are some who work for private foundations. If you combine it with museum or preservation training you can do museum work). If you get a degree in either of those fields, you need to consider whether you really want to be a professor or a professor-like scholar at another institution (and whether you want to spend 6-10 years getting the degree. Average time to degree is a lot longer in those fields).

Political science PhDs have more demand outside of academia especially if they have quantitative training. And of course you can use a JD to do a lot.