I began graduate school in the late eighties when many still believed the
rosy projection of plentiful jobs in the mid-ninties, and I have watched
with great anxiety as these jobs have failed to materialize. Restructuring
and cutbacks are not limited to higher education, but have also been faced
by my peers in medicine, engineering and business. In medicine, for
example, if you want a choice of jobs at the end of training you are far
better off pursuing a Physician's Assistant degree than an M.D.in most
specialities. If an M.D. is your goal, you are better off passing up
cardiology for family practice. A doctoral program is a long, demanding,
and sometimes expensive process. For many, a Ph.D. is not helpful unless
you plan to teach. It is unfair to be anything less than brutally honest
with students about the difficulties of future employment. If the
situation improves they will be lucky, if not, at least they have been
warned.
Jenny Stine
Ph.D. candidate, History