The job market feels impossible « Political Science Rumors

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The job market feels impossible

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Sheldon

Imagine you're at a high ranked program. You are taught that the sum total of your value as an applicant is pubs, research skills and prestige so you prioritize that over teaching or service. Then you come here and learn that there are a significant number of jobs where the graduate from Tennessee who did their dissertation with SPSS but adjuncted at community college and was active in service is way more attractive than you. I wouldn't take it well, either.

Yes, fair enough. It sucks. But it doesn't excuse the denial of reality. If the Tennessee PhD gets the job, that's real. It's a data point. We may kick and scream how unfair it is and so forth.

The problem isn't the random Tennessee PhD who takes the 5-5 job at Tennessee Tech. He's not taking the job that the 19th best Indiana grad was hoping to get or the 26th best Yale grad was aiming for. It's that Indiana has 19 people on the market and Yale has 26 (numbers made up, before someone chimes in with "IU doesn't have 19 people on the market!!!")

2 months ago # QUOTE 5 YEA 0 NAY !
Branden

Precisely. But underlying all this garbage is diversity and a push for more women in the profession. Mediocre women, who honestly have no place in PhD programs, will use the PhD to get teaching experience as a hedge thinking they won't get a real academic position. Oh but now it looks like teaching experience is more valued of all a sudden... What a *convenient* change of affairs. Do not believe any of the drivel written in this thread. Schools don't care about scholarship anymore -- it's all about background, personality, gender, race, etc.

Imagine you're at a high ranked program. You are taught that the sum total of your value as an applicant is pubs, research skills and prestige so you prioritize that over teaching or service. Then you come here and learn that there are a significant number of jobs where the graduate from Tennessee who did their dissertation with SPSS but adjuncted at community college and was active in service is way more attractive than you. I wouldn't take it well, either.

2 months ago # QUOTE 1 YEA 37 NAY !
Branden

If real AP jobs are being replaced with 5-5 jobs, then yes I am right in sayiing that colleges are basically turning into high schools. Let's just face the facts for a moment: college is the new high school. Bad standards, more teaching emphasis, lots of admin at the top telling everyone want to do, research quality is dwindling, etc.

There is no point in a PhD anymore. You're basically getting a PhD to teach a bunch of kids who really don't want to learn.

2 months ago # QUOTE 8 YEA 8 NAY !
Branden

The tenured profs are basically not active at all and using the young to do all the teaching for them. They're basically retired pretending to add value "im in meetings and stuff".

2 months ago # QUOTE 2 YEA 4 NAY !
Mack

Stu, thanks for similar school. I'm also in that Kanas State, Oregon State, Southern Mississippi bracket and my cohort hasn't done great. Out of the 10 graduates I know, there is 1 TT job, 3 VAPs, 1 director, 2 house husbands who want a TT job, 1 person working a desk job, and 2 I have no idea where they are. My n=1 is envious of your n=1.

(No we don't put out 10 people a year)

2 months ago # QUOTE 2 YEA 0 NAY !
Hattie

"The tenured profs are basically not active at all and using the young to do all
the teaching for them. They're basically retired pretending to add value "im in
meetings and stuff"."

Really? Can you explain to me how to do this? Clearly I missed something.
Signed, Tenured Prof.

2 months ago # QUOTE 6 YEA 2 NAY !
Virgil

“People seem to forget on this board that many lower-ranked programs do very well at placing students. It is very rarely at R1's but they often have placement rates comparable to what we would regard as quality programs, just that those placements are in 4-4's and LACs.”
Give me three examples of PhD granting schools like this. I don’t know any lower ranked programs that do very well at placing students. I see this claim off and on and, frankly, don’t believe it.

Define lowly ranked PhD program. What is the ranking cut off in your mind?

2 months ago # QUOTE 0 YEA 0 NAY !
Virgil

^Because if you're talking about really lowly ranked places, Oklahoma and LSU do okay.

If you're talking about places outside the top 25, then places like USC and UVA do pretty well.

Someone requested that two such programs be named. You're welcome.

2 months ago # QUOTE 2 YEA 0 NAY !
Terance

I love how tenured fuks try to rationlize the current situation by claiming that candidates "arent up to scruff" when these fuks haven't published anything in 15 years and most of the people they hired are "diverse" nitwits who won't publish anything of note for the rest of their lives. BUT BUT BUT you don't have teaching experience. you people are fukin sick. Why don't you just admit that academia is a giant pile of bs and you simply don't give a s**t about Phd students?

Branden, between this and all of your other similarly themed rants on this thread it is pretty easy to see why you are frustrated about the job market.

As much as you want that article in Political Analysis to compensate for it, repulsive personalities like yours will doom your chances even at many R1s. You want the process to be perfectly correlated with fine-grained measures of publication so far, but we don’t view it that way. Those with several publications (yes, including solo; yes in top outlets) are all viewed collectively as “productive” and within that group you’re going to lose to someone less abrasive every time.

2 months ago # QUOTE 20 YEA 1 NAY !
Jackson

Precisely. But underlying all this garbage is diversity and a push for more women in the profession. Mediocre women, who honestly have no place in PhD programs, will use the PhD to get teaching experience as a hedge thinking they won't get a real academic position. Oh but now it looks like teaching experience is more valued of all a sudden... What a *convenient* change of affairs. Do not believe any of the drivel written in this thread. Schools don't care about scholarship anymore -- it's all about background, personality, gender, race, etc.
Imagine you're at a high ranked program. You are taught that the sum total of your value as an applicant is pubs, research skills and prestige so you prioritize that over teaching or service. Then you come here and learn that there are a significant number of jobs where the graduate from Tennessee who did their dissertation with SPSS but adjuncted at community college and was active in service is way more attractive than you. I wouldn't take it well, either.

The only reason your not getting a job is that you're a revolting human being.

2 months ago # QUOTE 12 YEA 3 NAY !
Ebenezer

This thread: the gathering place for life's losers. Yeah, our PhD program is ranked #89 but two years ago one of our grads got a job at a branch campus. So we serve a vital purpose and my 2-2 teaching load is totally justified.

2 months ago # QUOTE 8 YEA 7 NAY !
Marci

Nice to see that the name generator still gets it right now and again.

This thread: the gathering place for life's losers. Yeah, our PhD program is ranked #89 but two years ago one of our grads got a job at a branch campus. So we serve a vital purpose and my 2-2 teaching load is totally justified.

2 months ago # QUOTE 3 YEA 1 NAY !
Teddy

A completely realistic and, I think, almost entirely helpful look at the job market featuring actual academics. Bravo.

2 months ago # QUOTE 0 YEA 0 NAY !
Earnestine

This thread: the gathering place for life's losers. Yeah, our PhD program is ranked #89 but two years ago one of our grads got a job at a branch campus. So we serve a vital purpose and my 2-2 teaching load is totally justified.

Exactly. Yet the program keep accepting students and pretending like there is a market for their researchers

2 months ago # QUOTE 3 YEA 0 NAY !
Mabel

This thread: the gathering place for life's losers. Yeah, our PhD program is ranked #89 but two years ago one of our grads got a job at a branch campus. So we serve a vital purpose and my 2-2 teaching load is totally justified.

again, reality suggests otherwise. but i know it's tough out there so i understand the rage.

2 months ago # QUOTE 2 YEA 2 NAY !
Mabel

This thread: the gathering place for life's losers. Yeah, our PhD program is ranked #89 but two years ago one of our grads got a job at a branch campus. So we serve a vital purpose and my 2-2 teaching load is totally justified.

Exactly. Yet the program keep accepting students and pretending like there is a market for their researchers

but there is.

2 months ago # QUOTE 1 YEA 2 NAY !
Ebenezer

There is a "market" for all kinds of crap, eg children's toys with lead paint, clothing made in sweatshops, poorly educated political science PhDs from terrible programs, etc. No honorable person would be party to any of it...much less profit from it like the unscrupulous faculty at these backwards programs.

Exactly. Yet the program keep accepting students and pretending like there is a market for their researchers

but there is.

2 months ago # QUOTE 1 YEA 5 NAY !
Manuel

This is true

If real AP jobs are being replaced with 5-5 jobs, then yes I am right in sayiing that colleges are basically turning into high schools. Let's just face the facts for a moment: college is the new high school. Bad standards, more teaching emphasis, lots of admin at the top telling everyone want to do, research quality is dwindling, etc.
There is no point in a PhD anymore. You're basically getting a PhD to teach a bunch of kids who really don't want to learn.

2 months ago # QUOTE 0 YEA 0 NAY !
Manuel

lool

This thread: the gathering place for life's losers. Yeah, our PhD program is ranked #89 but two years ago one of our grads got a job at a branch campus. So we serve a vital purpose and my 2-2 teaching load is totally justified.

2 months ago # QUOTE 0 YEA 0 NAY !
Manuel

Inconvenient truths are still true.

Precisely. But underlying all this garbage is diversity and a push for more women in the profession. Mediocre women, who honestly have no place in PhD programs, will use the PhD to get teaching experience as a hedge thinking they won't get a real academic position. Oh but now it looks like teaching experience is more valued of all a sudden... What a *convenient* change of affairs. Do not believe any of the drivel written in this thread. Schools don't care about scholarship anymore -- it's all about background, personality, gender, race, etc.
Imagine you're at a high ranked program. You are taught that the sum total of your value as an applicant is pubs, research skills and prestige so you prioritize that over teaching or service. Then you come here and learn that there are a significant number of jobs where the graduate from Tennessee who did their dissertation with SPSS but adjuncted at community college and was active in service is way more attractive than you. I wouldn't take it well, either.
The only reason your not getting a job is that you're a revolting human being.

2 months ago # QUOTE 0 YEA 5 NAY !

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