Comments on: PhD, or not PhD

By: Alan

Alan — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 17:14:36 +0000

I don’t know if it makes you feel better, but cultural anthropology and specific cultural coursework was a requirement in my degree program from the School of International Studies at the University of the Pacific. If the professor who did the courses on Africa had been in residence in my four years at school, I would have taken more.

By: Joe

Joe — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 21:32:37 +0000

I’m one of those students/persons who worked for a number of years instead of going straight from undergrad to grad school (in Anth). My parents forced me to work, and I’m EXTREMELY glad they did so. (I worked in the media industry in a non-Western region [Southeast Asia] for five years.)

I have much, much more insight into to topics brought up in my current Anth grad program compared to others who went straight to grad school. I can apply these theories/topics to my personal experience. I’m breezing through the course, making excellent grades, find the course very stimulating, and feel bad for my classmates who went straight from undergrad to grad school.

Sure they can regurgitate the theories, although for the most part, they don’t have much of an idea how these translate in regards to different contexts, as this is mostly understood through experience.

As such, I feel that admissions committees to Anth programs should not concentrate on GPA, GRE’s, etc, but should focus upon whether or not a student has experienced life to a significant amount of time outside of one’s “own” culture context. This, I believe, should be the most important factor when reviewing a candidate. The rest is more-or-less bureaucracy (although it should be said that I’m a horrible standardized test-taker!)

By: mark

mark — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 03:47:07 +0000

WHOA! Lets be clear *I* have an exclusive on being “negative and grumpy” on this site. I have both patents and trademarks. The rest of you blighter’s are to even things out and give the site some cred.

I agree partially with Frank but not all, I am a very happy capitalist after all, and think its fine for anthros to be capitalists as well.

Where I agree is that during both my grad programs there was a very big difference between the students that had gone from kindergarten to grad school without stop and those that did spent a few years working. Don’t mistake me, I have also met more than one returning student that was a 5 x 5 loon as well, but people that have had a successful career prior to grad school certainly brings something extra back to school with them.

By: Donna

Donna — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 00:22:01 +0000

“negative and grumpy” Hee! And I thought I was just telling the truth. Far be it for me to discourage people passionate about anthropology from studying it. My point is, the PhD takes a long, long time. Make sure that you really want to study anthropology for 10 years before you take the PhD plunge. And make damn sure that you’re realistic about the job market for academics, and that you allow yourself to envision yourself outside of the Ivory Tower. Because that is where you are likely to end up. And it’s a fine, fine place! A friend of a friend today said that one of her professors encouraged her to pursue a PhD if “that’s what you want to do in your 20s.” I think that’s a fine paradigm for choice. And it’s what I chose to do with my 20s, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. My beef is not with the discipline, but with the lack of a realistic professional assessment of our collective professional prospects as PhDs in anthropology, indeed, in the social sciences. There are so many of us! And so few tenure-track jobs. Let’s own the shift the focus, acknowledge that the tenure-track is far more the exception than the rule these days, and for goodness’ sake, be open about that reality with our students. I repeat: it is terribly irresponsible to do anything less.

By: Tony

Tony — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 19:01:10 +0000

As an aside. I got involved in Ethnography.com because Cindy wrote an article about an article I wrote (does that makes sense?) regarding how the issue of culture has been appropriated by other academic departments. The link is here: http://www.ethnography.com/2007/08/can-and-should-anthropology-share-culture/#comments

The gist of Cindy (and my) article is that the subject of culture has been appropriated within the academy by other departments. As a sociologist I have done it, and as department chair in a sociology department, I even hired two anthropologists as lecturers to teach our “culture classes.”

The point is that culture is so successful as a subject that it is now taught by many departments–while Anthro Ph.D.s are as Donna points out, under-employed.