Harvard Magazine's "The Ph.D. Problem"

One of my old professors linked to this article on his facebook. I read it and promptly stuck it up on mine. They bring up a couple of issues with getting a Ph.D. in the humanities:
- the median time to degree is 9 years
- 50% drop out before they finish the program
- of the 50% who complete, only half ever get a tenure-track job
- humanities doctoral programs are admitting more and graduating more students every year
- the within-the-academy humanities job market is miserably bad
- spending so much time working on such specialized knowledge often eliminates outside-the-university job opportunities (which are obviously badly needed)
- the dissertation process does not produce particularly good research or research that is necessarily something that will help broaden our knowledge
- it takes longer to do a dissertation in the humanities than it does in the social or hard sciences because despite the lack of experimentation or much archival research, there is so much pressure to find a way to say something new or different about the same texts (i.e., to spin something in a new way, basically) that dissertations become even more difficult
- universities like having grad students around to teach their courses (i.e., cheap labor)
- the system seems built to produce ABDs rather than full-fledged Ph.D.s
- these problems deter many potential students, so that the only students who end up even starting grad school are exact duplicates of the professoriate, leading to very little in the way of new or challenging thought

So in general, yes to all. The stats are dire and have been for a good fifteen years at this point. The article points out it's really been this bad since the 70's.

Basically, I've been thinking about the article in terms of my own 6+ years of graduate school experience. I do tend to agree that the system works to produce ABDs. I am one. Getting through coursework was relatively simple and made sense. The process stopped making quite so much sense when I got to exams, but I got there and got through them. I've been ABD now for 2+ years. I was stymied and left without any real guidance or mentorship when it came to my dissertation proposal. It started out badly with my disclosure to my advisors of my ADHD - they responded both by telling me in essence it was just something I was going to have to get over because "adult scholars don't need deadlines" and then proceeding to give me zero helpful advice on what I should do to craft a workable proposal until mid-December, when the advisor I generally like sat me down and went through everything with me in detail, helped me understand what she didn't think was working and so on. The next draft passed no problem. Since then, nice advisor hasn't been particularly available (sabbatical followed by pregnancy/accompanying family leave) and hosebeast advisor has done everything in her power (from "I get the sense that this project is going to take a LONG TIME" to "I really don't think you're doing this right" without then telling me what she thinks would be right) to make me feel inadequate and unable to finish. I think this is mostly my fault: apparently I shouldn't have told them about the ADHD, but more I should be better about being my own advocate and in asking them point blank what the hell it is they're looking for since I seem unable to read their minds (particularly the mind of hosebeast). Add in the complete and total lack of departmental support, and things aren't going well for me or for the other students in my department that I've talked through this all with. Brownie aside, most people I've talked to don't seem to have a clue how to finish their dissertations because they keep getting drafts back marked "been said before." Well, yes - when there's 4 shelves full of books in our pitifully understocked library on a particular text, it's damned difficult to find anything new to say.

Ultimately, I think I'm angry that I had no idea about how dire things were for graduated Ph.D.s before I began my doctorate - I'm not entirely sure I would have even started it. And it sucks watching a bunch of intelligent, articulate, thoughtful people falling apart because the dissertation isn't working out right, or rotting away in graduate school when they could be doing something that gives them a better work/life balance, etc.

Perversely, I'm still not convinced I can quit without having the dissertation finished. And I think if I do, I'll probably end up being an asshole to people who are considering starting, and wearing my "grad school dropout" badge with too much "I'm covering up for my insecurities" type pride. You know, the type of pride that tends to create douchebags. So if I end up doing this, I can only hope my friends like me enough to tell me.