Unlike shown on TV journalism majors make a pittance. To progress in the field you must move from market to market.
But wouldn’t getting a tenure-track faculty job at a LAC be even more competitive than getting such a job at some other type of school, due to the small size of LACs and consequent small number of faculty needed? Even more so if one were trying for elite LACs (are elite LACs significantly different from other LACs in what you describe above?).
In my engineering career, I spend a helluva lot of time making PowerPoint slides. Also, Excel is my middle name…
English composition written & verbal skills are a big differentiator among STEM people.
Yes, mostly. I would say that the most elite universities have the most competitive slots, because most new PhDs (either because they actually want to or because they have drunk the kool-aid) do want positions at prestigious research universities - the allure of teaching 3-4 classes a year while spending most of one’s time embedded in scholarship (and the high field prestige and power the positions come with). Think Princeton and Harvard but also Michigan and Wisconsin.
However, after that there’s often a split. Years of indoctrination (or personal preference in some cases) devalues teaching relative to research, so teaching colleges (elite or not) are often seen as less desirable alternatives.
And honestly, some senior faculty who advise doctoral students know jack about them. For example, I was telling my doctoral committee about a position at Claremont McKenna in my field and I got blank stares; they were surprised when I told them the position only had a 2/2 teaching load (2 classes a semester). Another time a position at Agnes Scott with a 3/2 load was described to me as “a lot of teaching” by a mid-career advisor of mine. And once, I went to a professional development seminar in which the organizers (all professors at an R1) claimed all teaching colleges had 4/4 loads. (I had to show them the ad from CMC before they believed me.) This happens peer to peer, too - upon telling a close friend and colleague of mine that I really wanted to be at a small elite LAC (before I made the decision to just get out of academia altogether), she tried to discourage me and convince me to “at least try” for an R1.
Therefore, a lot of new PhDs see less prestigious research 1 universities (think Virginia Commonwealth or Georgia State), or Research 2 universities (like Lehigh, George Mason, Fordham) as a better alternative to even elite teaching colleges like Amherst or Williams, which ironically might actually have a lower teaching load and more research support than some R2s. They’re just unaware because they are not treated as equal alternatives to research university positions by the senior and mid-career gatekeepers in the field.
It’s really quite baffling, because those R1 positions are so scarce and trying to convince everyone to gun for them when they might not be the best fit makes no sense. Moreover, many of these colleges have better support for research than some regional research universities. A colleague of mine teaches at Pomona; he’s currently on the 4th-year sabbatical that all professors are granted after their successful third-year review (he’s spending it at Princeton!).
That said, yes, the elite LAC positions definitely are still very competitive. A position in my field last year at Amherst drew over 200 applications.
Top LACs are definitely different from non-top LACs. When I say “top” in this context I’m referring to the top 50-60 or so. Top LACs generally have lower teaching responsibilities (4-5 classes per year), more support for research, more engaged and better-prepared students, and higher salaries. Lower-ranked LACs have more teaching (6-8 classes a year, sometimes more), less institutional support for research, students with worse HS preparation and lower salaries. On average, of course.
Graduating debt free, or as close to debt free as possible, will make your life easier in ways you can not imagine as an 18 year old kid.
The burden of having to make monthly payments for years will color every decision you make.
The freedom to accept a low paying but interesting job, to travel, to take the road less traveled, is something you will appreciate.
Would non-PhD-granting universities be similar to LACs in this respect? Examples would be the 23 campuses of the California State University system, which have about double the enrollment of the better-known-outside-of-California University of California system.
STEM reality check: Kids contemplating math and the pure sciences (not on premed track) , Chem, Physics, Math, Bio, should know the following
- A BS degree does not get you a job in the field. However, If you are a graduate of a reasonably prestigious college/university, you may be able to leverage that prestige with internships and connection to get an entry level job.
- A PhD does not necessarily guarantee you a job either : tenure track jobs at many universities, big and small, are disappearing. And industry can be picky about the field of specialization of the PhD. For examples, PhD in statistics is valued but PhD in Number theory may not be.
DH(Bio) and I (math) are both PhD’s from the mid 1990’s. Job market was tough then, but you did get something if you were willing to compromise a little. Now, the opportunities are so few and far between even for those willing to compromise.
OTOH, there is increasing demand for mid level Higher Education administrators . I work with many of them and they keep many aspects of the university going. More turnover than an academic job means more opportunities, and a different career trajectory can lead to a rewarding experience.
These jobs (like so many others) are really not on the radar of a high school student. I encourage many of freshman and sophomore college students to swing by the college career fair, just to see what’s out there, and how they can make themselves marketable, regardless of their degree.
Hmmm, looks like this relates to the complaint about how the increasing cost of college education is due to the large increase in number of administrators, while faculty numbers remain mostly constant.
A surprising number of my friends who got their PhD’s around 1990 are still only assistant or associate professors at their third or fourth university.
Might be a stretch, but might anyone have any input on curatorial/art museum related careers/fields?
Post #46 My dad got a Ph.D in Chemistry in the 80’s it took him 2 years and 287 resumes to find a job in industry after graduation, and he had to move almost from one coast to the other to get it.
@unduex the one very smart/driven person I know in that field has worked at a couple of local museums neither making much money (guessing under $20,000), sometimes p/t sometimes f/t. I think she has left to be a personal assistant.
Re international careers–
I’d urge students to go to Tales from a Small Planet http://www.talesmag.com/ and read the entries on expat life for a dozen or so cities they’d like to live in. Great info on costs, quality of life for singles/couples/families, issues with danger, air pollution, prej-udice. A good reality check.
For State Dept jobs specifically, don’t expect to be sipping champagne in Paris or Berlin. Early on you’ll be moving every 1-3 years and most likely spend time in some very unpleasant places.
I know a lot of people in these fields, as well as specialists in auction houses, and other similar jobs. What specifically do you want to know?
Not all art museum jobs are low paying. Here’s an article from several years ago reporting on the $1 million in annual compensation to be paid to the director of LACMA.
Not a lot of those jobs, though.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-lacma18-2009aug18-story.html#page=1
I did a post grad year with a woman who was interest in being a museum curator. Back then she was encouraged to go into academia and put together shows that would go traveling to museums. She’s an associate professor at a well-known University and has had several well-reviewed shows with coffee table books. I don’t know whether the advice she got would hold true today though. Another friend of mine became a conservationist. She started her apprenticeship in high school, went to a top LAC where she majored in art history and continued to spend her summer doing conservation work. She’s done very well and has worked on some important manuscripts.
Regarding the State Department. The exam is a long drawn-out process that requires at least two written and one oral section. If you make it through all three parts, you are put on a list. There’s no guarantee that they’ll take you off the list and give you a job. If you spend too long on the list, you have to start the whole process all over again. My younger son has gotten part way through twice. But most people who do well on the exam these days have some years of working at something else behind them.
As a foreign service officer you have a two-fold mission. One is to understand what’s going on in the country and report back to the US with your recommendations, but you also have to represent whatever the US’s current policy is, whether you like it or not. One of the reasons ,my father liked working in East Africa so much was that no one in the US really cared much about it, so while there was not a lot of conflict for him, even if he didn’t like our current policies. My father loved his job. He was a real people person and he wasn’t afraid of anything. Those posts other people considered “unpleasant” he loved. He served in Somalia, Tanzania and Uganda among other places.
http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/about/staff
https://ucannualwage.ucop.edu/wage/
If you are curious about salaries of museum professionals, you can find the actual compensation for folks working at art museums in the University of California and Cal State systems online. The UC system has 2013 salaries online. By searching the above links, for example, you could find out that the director of the Berkeley Art Museum (affiliated with UC Berkeley) made about $208k in 2013; the chief curator, $136k, and other most of the other curatorial staff members’ salaries ranged from $70K to $100K.
Wow, thank you! Yes, I’m hoping to get a PhD in art history following under-grad, which would hopefully open up more opportunities; ideally, I’d want to curate in a well-established art museum in the area of my interest. I’ve interned at a local museum for a few years so I have some idea of the different levels of employment. I certainly don’t expect to be wealthy doing this, but post #51 was pretty frightening. Hoping to feel myself through internships in institutions of interest during under-grad, but I also really love doing research, and yeah, it’s definitely not a ‘big’ field in terms of openings so I do see myself probably working in positions not directly related to curatorial work in a museum before I make it there.
There are many other jobs in a museum aside from just curating (education, administration, director, etc). You might look into going to a school that has a museum on campus and interning/working to become more familiar with various positions. Museum curators work their way up by usually starting out in small, regional museums. My sister works in museum education and loves her career.
My State Dept friends who segued into the foreign service at a senior level from advanced careers in other industries, had to do stints in places like:
Ethiopia
Pakistan
Surabaya, Indonesia (lol, not even Jakarta)
One friend was thrilled to be going to New Dehli-- you know its depressing when New Dehli is considered a step up in location…
Even very senior level career State Dept staff get the shaft. I know of one US Ambassador who was told his next job was in Afghanistan.
The posh posting are handed out via political patronage. That’s how total ditzes like Carolyn “you know” Kennedy can end up as the US Ambassador to Japan. And Jane Hartley is the US Ambassador to France. From Hartley’s wikipedia page"