The following is from a reader who approves of my idea of soliciting advice from the rest of you, many of whom are better apprised than me of the current academic climate and job market. Name and identifying details have been elided.
If you have a moment to offer some advice on the situation I've found myself in, I would be very grateful. If not, no worries.I moved a great distance from home with my wife (still within my country, ____) to attend a Ph.D. program in philosophy. I am [under 30]. The faculty member whom I desired to supervise my work is well-known and respected in her field and her interests align perfectly with mine. I completed the first year of my Ph.D., satisfying all my course requirements, only to learn yesterday that my supervisor has taken up a new position elsewhere in ___, and effective immediately will no longer be part of our department. I knew this was a risk of attending a school for the sake of one person. My gamble did not pay off. It is too late for me to transfer schools for this year. Waiting another year to reapply to other programs seems like a waste of time, especially at my age. There is no one at my department who can supervise my current interests (and if there are, they are nobodies). Part of me wonders if this is a sign to get out of academia now while I have the chance. But the skills I desire to acquire and the questions I want to pursue can only be acquired and pursued, 'professionally' anyway, in academia. What to do?
You did not say whether your wife is employed (and making good money) or whether you have children or intend to have them in the near future. Is she supportive both spiritually and materially? These are relevant factors. Since you are a white male getting close to 30 whose political leanings are broadly conservative (else you wouldn't be corresponding with me), my advice is to leave academia now. The job market is brutal, you are getting old, and the academy is a hostile environment for conservatives. This is advice I tender with my 'practical hat' on, not my 'idealistic hat.' I could say that philosophy is a noble calling worthy of years of sacrifice, that the genuine article needs to be defended and upheld in the currently decadent halls of academe; but that is advice I would feel comfortable giving to myself alone. Rather than put up with the low pay and humiliations of the academic world, why not find the modern-day equivalent of lens-grinding and make like Spinoza pursuing philosophy as a free man unburdened by the institutional constraints of the leftist seminaries? Is it not nobler to separate truth-seeking from money-making, subordinating end to means?
Related:
It depends on whether you're going in large part for the experience of being in graduate school and the degree, or whether it's entirely in the hopes of getting a career in philosophy. I'm not going to regret getting the degree even if I don't land an academic position. If you're going to graduate school entirely for the hope of getting a tenure track job, I think I'd have to lean toward advising you to consider going in a different direction. The political discrimination is getting even worse, and now administrators are increasingly getting involved in hiring decisions, which is bad news. Most of what I got out of graduate school was the informal side of it, just spending a lot of time thinking about philosophy and talking about it with other people with similar interests. The classes and lectures were a small part of it.
Posted by: Spencer Jay Case | Friday, June 26, 2020 at 06:45 PM