, 2 min read
Death of the invisible adjunct
I stumbled on a channel setup by Seb called Topic Exchange: Channel ‘invisible_adjunct’. I was an avid reader of the invisible adjunct. For those that don’t know, the invisible adjunct was one of the many Ph.D. holders who have a decent publication record and are in every way competent scholars, but they still fall through the system and end up beggars at some university. For those of you not familiar with the context, let’s just say that there is tremendous pressure on professors (like myself) to train more and more and more Ph.D. students.
This comes in part from the government which likes to measure universities by numbers: how many Ph.D. does this university produce… and so on…
Now, of course, if all these graduates are unemployed… well who cares? And who’s going to believe you when you say that Ph.D. holders can’t find jobs? Who’s going to pity them? Surely, they can’t find a job because they want to earn $500k a year? Right.
No. Most Ph.D. graduates are lucky to find a post-doc. A post-doc, in Canada, pays around $30k. Sometimes more, sometimes (amazingly) less. I’m not saying that some of them don’t find great jobs. It happens. But it is statistically insignificant.
So, the invisible adjunct is someone who just gave up. She’s not alone.
Some people are smarter and they leave early, like wolfangel… but many don’t.
I particularly like a recent post by Erin. Here’s a comment which rings very true:
My experience with a Ph.D program was that the myopic focus on only academic skills was very damaging to the students in my program. Academic who have devoted their whole life to study of a particular subject in an educational setting have little understanding of the learning that takes place on the job or as part of living life.
But here’s some advice from a couple of science Ph.D.s :
There is only one reason to get a Ph.D. — because the career path you want to pursue requires it. Do not do it because you think it will make you feel important, because it will do the opposite. Do not do it because “there are a lot of things you could do with it”, because there are plenty of things you can do without it. Do not do it because you think it will be an intellectual adventure, because you’d do much better with a library card.
I think that all students should read and seriously consider such statements before undertaking a Ph.D. I’m not saying a Ph.D. is a bad thing… but, well, read the quotes above!
There is more:
your odds of getting the PhD are smaller than you think, your odds of getting a job are slighter still, and your odds of getting tenure at a place yet smaller, and then all of this happening at a place you would otherwise choose to live? Infinitesimal.