Post #6

We have read many important and informative articles in this class throughout the semester. We have learned about the history of English departments, how to write for an audience, and how to interact with your mentor and thesis committee members. However, the article that has remained on my mind constantly since we read and discussed it is “Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don’t Go” by Thomas H. Benton. I came into graduate school with many of the unrealistic notions that he mentions. The state of the English faculty in universities is different than it was when my professors and mentors at my undergraduate institution were hired. I went to a small, liberal arts college in South Carolina, and almost a third of the professors in the English department only had MAs and were not looked down upon as inferior teachers; I saw no difference between their ability to teach me about novels, poems, and literary theory and the ability of professors with PhDs to teach me the same concepts. However, as more and more students are pursuing MAs and then PhDs, institutions are naturally going to hire the most qualified applicants. With such large numbers of applications, those who have a PhD at the end of their name and have large numbers of articles published listed on their CVs are going to be hired by institutions looking to prove themselves as distinguished institutes of higher learning.

This article and the advice it contains may seem overly bleak, but Benton does provide a wake-up call that has led me to two different realizations. The first is that I must look at other career options when I leave graduate school with my thesis completed. The competition for jobs is cutthroat, and thus students are fighting to enter into PhD programs, programs that are going to accept those with greater qualifications than I can feasibly attain within the next year or so. The second realization is that this thesis is very important (more important than I thought) if I decide to take the risk and apply to a PhD program. My thesis must be as polished, relevant, and interesting as possible if I stand any chance of being accepted by a PhD program in order to pursue my dream career.