Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Considering a Humanities PhD? Think Again!

If you haven't seen it already, this brief homemade video, So you Want to Get a PhD in the Humanities , is currently making the rounds in cyberspace. Have time to take a looksie?
http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/7451115/

I checked it out today and had a good chuckle. The low-budget quality is great; perfect for the topic under consideration! You really should watch it all the way through--it's only 3 minutes long--because the film honestly does get better and better. How many PhDs out there had a similar conversation before applying to graduate school ages ago? How many more conversations like this will it take to convince young people that a humanities PhD, particularly in a field like English, is not always the best way to reward one's hard work as an undergraduate? There are better ways, my friends.

For what it's worth, I honestly do hope prospective PhD applicants will take the film's message to heart, even if they think it's a total exaggeration. (FYI: It's so not an exaggeration . . . regardless of how sad this may seem.)

Enjoy!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've seen this all over the internet and it is pretty funny. What's crazy is how something seemingly obscure could end up getting so many hits. There are obviously a lot of angsty professors, adjuncting PhDs, grad students, and wanna-be grad students out there looking for comic relief. Hope we'll see more in future!

Anonymous said...

good start

maddy said...

Thanks for the info!

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