More on Not Going to Grad School from T. Benton
Over the past several years Thomas H. Benton has been writing articles in The Chronicle of Higher Education in which he has attempted to disabuse students about the life of graduate school and the career that may (or may NOT) come after.
The first was “So You Want to Go to Grad School?”, published in 2003.
Last year he followed up with, “Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don’t Go,” a virtual manifesto 
against going to graduate school for any number of well-conceived reasons.
Benton (whose real name is William Pannapacker) is at it again. This time, he’s revealing another dirty little secret: “The Big Lie About the ‘Life of the Mind’”.
Not to take the suspense out of it for you, but the sum of the article seems to be represented in this paragraph:
Graduate school may be about the “disinterested pursuit of learning” for some privileged people. But for most of us, graduate school in the humanities is about the implicit promise of the life of a middle-class professional, about being respected, about not hating your job and wasting your life. That dream is long gone in academe for almost everyone entering it now.
I guess what I’m saying is: I know what you’re thinking: “If Kirk can get a full time, tenure-track job, I am so golden!” But it might not be that easy.
So, if you’ve decided to go on to a PhD program in humanities: Why did you decide to go to grad school? Did any of you specifically choose not to go this route? Did you enter with eyes wide open? Do you feel like you’re hosed? Feel free to comment under a pseudonym for this one.
The jury is still deliberating…..There’s much I feel that can be done, especially for the church. So, I am not deadlocked on an academic post. I think, in fact, that there is a whole lifetime of work that can be done in making the academic stuff even more accessible to regular churchgoers. I think of my sister, my father, my in-laws–none of them would have much fun reading Gorman’s book on Theosis, Hays’ Echoes of Scripture, or even your book (no slight intended!). All of these books have very important ideas and things to teach the church, and I have no doubt that many would benefit. But, it seems there is yet another level at which the fruits of academia need to be distilled for the every-woman. (And every-man. I am not trying to be snide, just politically correct. At least as far as you know!)
I’m rambling. But, my point is that I don’t yet feel like the PhD is a fruitless endeavor.
Kyle
I think you’re right about the need for more translators, Kyle. Trying to remember–do you know Stephan Turnbull? He’s doing such translation in a very direct way as a PhD’d pastor.
Scot McKnight is one doing similar things from the other end: talking to normal people from the academic’s chair.
I wanted to be like Steve, but since that didn’t work out I’m hoping that I can do similar types of “translation” that Scot is doing–though, of course, in my own way, with my own personality and interests and concerns.
Distillers are important. Now the question–will anyone want to drink our post-academic swill? Will anyone want to publish it? I think it can be done, I’m working on it, but it’s a tough sell.
I think that N. T. Wright is a great example of this “distillation”, especially with his “for Everyone” series. It doesn’t take much reading of those commentaries to see that they are based on the fruit of years of academic research.
That said, I am hesitant to hold him up as an example, simply because I doubt there are many “Wrights” out there with the ability to excel in both academic and every-person (how’s that?) circles. I agree that we need more of them though.
As for me, I’m trying to use my studies to serve my church, and this may eventually lead to PhD studies — but I also have the great safety net of the blessed B.S. in Engineering, for which the jobs are not diminishing…
Gee Daniel… way to be a party pooper the week I heard back about getting into my favorite PhD program!
But in answer to your question, I did indeed specifically choose not to go this route for the first seven years of my adult life on the grounds that it would feed my worst flaws of narcissism, arrogance, competitiveness, etc. I came back around to it on accident, first for a mere MA to get a job teaching community college, and then kept going when I realized I was becoming healthier than I had been before. Strangely, I seem to be designed for it (which I don’t take as a good thing per se… being designed for an esoteric world of ephemeral studies with arrogant over-achievers feels like a tragic flaw). My thesis director likes to discourage everyone from going on to a PhD unless the person cannot help it; I don’t know what it says about me that I seem to be one of those people.
In the mean time as I fortify my character flaws in hopes of settling in to a nice stable position in purgatory, I do find myself hoping that there is room for a reconciler who can straddle the line between the Fundies and the Intelligentsia. But I’d be lying if I said I went to grad school with that goal in mind.
Sorry for the long comment… this was just the right time for these particular questions for me.
Congratulations on the PhD program! Somehow I had missed that. Strong work, Em!
Now go bury yourself in your studies and come back to worry about this in 6 years. I’ll refrain from making comments about the luxury you have, that others might not, to retire to the family farm if all else fails.
Your restraint is commendable, old friend.
Funny, I had “that conversation” with a fellow undergrad student a few years after we parted ways. He went on to grad and then post grad studies…in the UK of course…and I went on to get married.
While attending Fuller part-time for my Master’s degree a few years later, we met in the Fuller bookstore and got to talking.
He said, “You know, if you are planning on going on to the post-grad level, you may as well take out the big loans and go for it full-time.”
When he told me about how much the big loans were, I thought, shucks, I can barely make my house payment for about that much, let alone quitting my quite secure full-time job and taking on another similar loan!!!
I was utterly bummed! Then, through a process of reflection and/or revelation, or some combination of the two, I realized that after all those years of schooling and debt, I may actually have to take a job in Chickenbreath Nebraska or something to make less than I was already making…but at least I would love my job!
Well, I finished out the quarter at Fuller and bid my beloved academic life adieu. Occasionally, I regret it, but I still read voraciously (currently devouring Campbell’s Deliverance of God) study and teach what I am learning in various ways.
It seems to me that just as it was back in the days of Erasmus, Luther and Calvin, seminary is a luxury that only a few can truly afford.
Thankfully, I believe this trend is changing, and that is partly why I decided to do some blogging myself. There is a lot of great content on the net that is free, so I hope to point that out to others along the way.
Looking forward to your posts!
John
Interesting line here and in Brian’s comment below.
I tend to put seminary in a categorically different box from “grad school in the humanities.”
For the most part, seminary is preparing people, or at least credentialing them!, to take jobs outside the academy, in churches. It is not conceived of as “trade school” from the curriculum construction end, but it often serves that function in its mission to prepare people for ministry.
So I think that assessing the value of seminary education as a means to a career raises a host of different, unrelated questions to the issue of grad school as a means to a future career. The former has to contend with changing dynamics in the church, changing ideas of how to prepare to serve the church, the possibility of church jobs awaiting; the latter has to deal with the self-propagation of the academy itself as it prepares people to perpetuate the motion of the machine.
I like that thought. My education is viewed and geared on how to serve. Which doesn’t make sense when thinking about paying off student loans, but that’s a few years away
I started gradschool it because I like what I do. But I’ve been aware now more than ever that the likelihood of obtaining not just an academic job (which is already super slim), but an academic job I can live with is incredibly slim (which is slim to zero). Not that I want anything fancy, but just something that permits me to do both research and teaching without killing myself or constantly having to fight to get access to necessary material.
It seems like most places these days are choosing not to hire newbies, but folks already established who are looking for a change of scenery. That sucks. And frankly, I genuinely do not expect the market to pick up when/if the economy does. It didn’t when the same thing happened in the early ’80s. When universities learn they can get by with a little less in times of want, they tend to stay that way–particularly so long as the humanities become increasingly devalued and expendable, and so long as we’re unable to make our case that the opposite should be true.
…Sooo, truth be told, I’ve been bugging my employed friends about suggestions to consider if I can’t find a job. Trying not to be a pessimist or make any self-fulfilling prophecies, but to be honest about the state of the university. Not depressed about it, but the older I get the more aware I get that this little journey can’t be indefinite and must have a lucrative end.
I’m loving it, but I was trying to not to go. Plus I have no hope of middle class, career, or making the money. I would probably agree with his article because a lot people I know go to Grad School for that reason only. So you end up with a lot of “entitled” kids expecting a high paying job without every holding a normal job/no job experience.
I could do no other than go as far as I could go, for I’m simply driven existentially to know as much about God, the world and humanity and everything in between as I can, and as far as I could go turned out to be Duke and now Wheaton. I was always thinking of alternative venues to use my academic gifts and pursue my intellectual interests — the pastorate, Christian ed, high school teaching, etc — and in the back of my mind there was always the fallback of law school. I’m also not above swinging a hammer. But I’m glad to be able to do what I do. I’m also very glad I was on the job market 2005-2006 and not now.
I have followed Pannapacker’s writings over the years. It’s not irrelevant that he’s in English, which might be the most oversupplied of the humanities.
For biblical studies, the bar for entry is a little higher, partly because of the languages, so the sheer numbers are somewhat less forbidding. You need four things: the academic gifts, the ability to present yourself professionally, a strong work ethic, and good advising (and by this last one, I primarily mean the knowledge to choose the right schools). I can think of a few people who have all four who have struck out on the job market, but the majority who have them honestly seem to me to have gotten jobs.
Every step of the way is a check on one’s ambition: “Did I do well in a master’s program?” “Did I get into a top Ph.D. program?” “Did I get funding?” If the signs turn bad, on to something else. Some people ignore the warning signs.
On the other hand, that comment is based on watching the market for the *past* decade. The coming decade could be much worse.
You make a good point, Chris, in that I have not yet seen someone who did well at Duke or Emory or Harvard simply not get a job. But, it is taking folks sometimes two or three years in the job-market (having the dissertation published, a couple years’ worth of teaching experience, etc) to land. And I fear that I might be looking at the first crop of Duke NT PhDs to fall through the widening cracks of the market.
Those of us in religion/theology have the added challenge of having to fit someplace theologically. I found myself eliminating about 1/3 to 1/2 of the jobs each cycle due to lack of fit (either I wouldn’t sign their statement of faith or they wouldn’t sign off on mine).
I’m quite certain that my wife would insist that Mr. Benton should not be so generous in his treatment of Ph.D. pursuit. As for me, I just wonder how long it’s going to take me to pay off Fuller and if I couldn’t get just as far by downloading ECDs and reading the books. What?! Jaded? Me?
It is strange that I have developed the pattern of rebelling by reading scholarship that isn’t assigned. Livin’ on the edge.
Robby, as always your contentious and rebellious spirit leads me to wonder just how long it will be before you’re taken out to the city gates and stoned.
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I decided to get my PhD while still in my undergrad program in biblical and theological studies. At that point, the decision was based on a desire to teach theology in a Christian college or seminary, being totally naive about how unlikely that was. By the middle of my (six year part time) MA, I started reconsidering, realizing how competitive the field was. By the end, I came back around to my earlier decision, but now based on the benefit I saw for the church to have more PhD’d pastors. I’m in my first year now of my PhD program (in the UK, of course) in systematics, planning on going on to full time pastoral work, but of course always entertaining the fantasy of being J. D. Kirk’s colleague at Fuller Nor Cal
It’s J.R.D.Kirk … he’s too fancy to have just one middle name.
OK, this sounds absolutely, hopelessly pious, but my grad school endeavors were fueled by a conscious belief that that is what I was called to do. The practical payoff: because I wasn’t sure what I might feel called to do next, I wasn’t as anxious about it. (Felt pretty clear it was supposed be teaching in some form, though.) (Or maybe I was just completely sleep-deprived. Daniel, I can picture myself sitting next to you in the Barth seminar, wondering how many minutes of sleep I had gotten the night before.) This is a theology blog, so… I’m curious what others think. Does a Christian category of a vocation that emerges in the context of the Church mean that we in fact are not, should not, be pursuing “the implicit promise of the life of a middle-class professional, about being respected, about not hating your job and wasting your life.” Or… does it just allow us to fool ourselves?
You’re probably right, Holly, but I’m sufficiently jaded about the idea of particular vocation that I won’t admit it. Too often, “called” is simply fancy language to baptize what we want to do anyway. Or, when we’re doing better, it’s a way of baptizing where we are as the will of God. Of course, given my Calvinian sympathies, I’m not entirely unhappy to say “Where I am is where I’ve been called,” but I wouldn’t really want people risking too much based on their sense of vocation.
Of course, being called to grad school is one thing, being vowed and determined that one is called to academics is something else.
Hmmm… If I didn’t have a blog I might need to get a therapist…
Daniel, you keep on ceding that sacrament to the devil.
I went to seminary at TEDS in Chicago, and never thought for a moment about a Ph.d program in theology. I was preparing to be a pastor, which have have been for the last 6 1/2 years. But just after I finished seminary, I was being affirmed intellectually and pastorally that perhaps I should consider farther education, but I was told all these things from the beginning, that the job market is slim, that being a white male theologian is a strike against me, and that I would have better job security as a pastor (if you can believe that). But in a process of discerning the will of God I applied at various programs near chicago so that I could continue in my pastoral commitments (for me, it was not the Lord’s will to leave the pastorate to pursue a doctorate). so, I made it into my top program with just enough funding to make it work. but I still have no delusions about the jobs market, and who knows, I might not even look for jobs when I’m done. So i guess I feel fortunate that I wasn’t pursuing my dreams in the academy but feel led into it, and I’ve been around people who have helped me be clear-sighted about it.
so, anyway, that a bit of my story.
Hey Geoff – I knew I recognized your name. I wish I had checked out Life on the Vine when I lived in the Chicago-land area and went to TEDS (we were in Educational Ministries class together). I’ve been getting a lot out of your fellow-pastor David Fitch’s blog recently.
Re: vocation/calling: Yes, some are called to an academic ministry in a seminary or other higher-ed context. But there is a very pernicious myth out there that such a calling is higher than others (the same myth is often propagated about ministry).
There is a calling for every one of God’s people, and they each should discern what that is, rather than all the bright Christians trying to get into academia (which isn’t quite the case, though at a seminary it sometimes feels like it). My comment above tries to lay out some ways to check one’s sense of calling.
Yep. I think you’re right on this, Chris. One interesting sub-text of seminary ed is whether we’re communicating that academics is what we really hope people do even while all our lit. says that we’re here for training ministers (by which folks usually don’t mean ministers, though I think Fuller probably lumps all this together intentionally–by “our” I meant seminaries in general).
My spiritual advice to would-be Ph.D. students (After the practical advice about difficulty getting in, staying in, and finding a job) would be to follow the sense of call but always with three things in mind:
1) taking each leg (semester, exams, dissertation, defense, job search, etc.) at a time and the next one as a divine question mark (this is faith/trust);
(2) being sensitive to the needs of family or others that may change the plans/call (this is love);
(3) having a backup plan that will allow you to walk away, if necessary, without bitterness toward God or others (this is prudence, mixed with hope I suppose).
Wow, Mike. Faith, hope, and love as relevant to pursuit of vocation?! Strong work. Thanks for this.
whoa is this the Michael Gorman???? I don’t know how to react to this situation…
Brian: take a step back, and a deep breath.
Here goes:
Scholars are real people, too. And many of them are almost normal. Ours is a relatively small world, and many of us know each other.
But, in all honesty, there’s no reason to contain yourself. He’s really that cool.
I’m new to this ‘scholar’ world. Michael’s book I have recommended to everyone who wants to know Paul’s theology and letters more. I mean that book has made my dream in ministry a reality. It’s all pretty cool to me. I hope Michael Gorman will join us at Hollingshead one day
haha
Actually just realized the other day why I’m in grad school. I think my intellect is probably my best asset. I want to make the most of it, and I have a sense of responsibility that says it’s an injustice to let my intelligence be “wasted.”
But you come right down to it, it’s ego. I didn’t think so for a long time, but it is. It makes me feel good to know stuff. It validates me.
Daniel,
As you might guess, I speak those words from some experience.
Reminds me of our lunch meeting in New Orleans. I got the feeling that you secretly wanted to yell, “Run away!” (In best Monty Python voice)