The debate about the merits and deficiencies of pursuing grad school are not anything new. A large section of this debate stems from Thomas H. Benton's piece last year in the Chronicle of Higher Education, in which the professor asserts that Humanities students should only pursue advanced degrees if they have sufficient economic support that affords them the ability to receive a degree that gives them no advancement in any career. Which narrows the field significantly (richies only!).

Recently, Benson checked back in with an update on the "big lie" that has permeated the discussion of his initial piece. This lie is the "life of the mind"

The myth of the academic meritocracy powerfully affects students from families that believe in education, that may or may not have attained a few undergraduate degrees, but do not have a lot of experience with how access to the professions is controlled. Their daughter goes to graduate school, earns a doctorate in comparative literature from an Ivy League university, everyone is proud of her, and then they are shocked when she struggles for years to earn more than the minimum wage. (Meanwhile, her brother—who was never very good at school—makes a decent living fixing HVAC systems with a six-month certificate from a for-profit school near the Interstate.)

Benson then details a scenario in which a young woman with her doctorate can't land a job, lives off food stamps, isolates herself from family, friends and colleagues and sinks into depression.

Scenarios like that are what irritate me about professors who still bleat on about "the life of mind." They absolve themselves of responsibility for what happens to graduate students by saying, distantly, "there are no guarantees." But that phrase suggests there's only a chance you won't get a tenure-track job, not an overwhelming improbability that you will.

[...]

Graduate school in the humanities is a trap. It is designed that way. It is structurally based on limiting the options of students and socializing them into believing that it is shameful to abandon "the life of the mind." That's why most graduate programs resist reducing the numbers of admitted students or providing them with skills and networks that could enable them to do anything but join the ever-growing ranks of impoverished, demoralized, and damaged graduate students and adjuncts for whom most of academe denies any responsibility.

Suffice to say the entire article is worth reading for those leaning toward grad school. And it's particularly relevant right now. Despite whatever economic gains we've made over last year, the job market is still dismal and is expected to get worse (unemployment dropped in January, but is expected to climb again going forward). So it's easy to put off looking for a job and instead pursue grad school.

Now, I'm not particularly qualified to critique the veracity of Benson's claims, so I'm not going to do so. I am in grad school, but I also have a full time job to which the degree applies (a category he excludes from his warnings). He could be right, he could be completely off base. I suspect he has a very good point. And I am quite certain that he is correct when he implores student's to explore all of their options when contemplating graduate school. Part of that contemplation, of course, is to read this article to gain a better understanding of what a life in acdeme entails. It's also useful to inquire with the school about past graduates and how successful the program has been with putting them in jobs outside of academe.

When making a commitment of such significant monetary value, you must take note of every option on the table and it's consequence. If your field does not require an advanced degree it's probably not worth pursuing. Similarly, if your looking to continue education in an effort to pursue a life of acedeme, it may be usefule to understand the challenges to that path. (h/t to clusterflock)

"Study" courtesy DAEllis via Flickr Creative Commons

This may or may not help our readers out ... as our readers tend to be current students and recent grads. But, for those thinking of attending law school or grad school - or perhaps transferring - it's worth mentioning that the Washington Monthly has entered the College Ranking Game. I've always been a bit wary of this for-pay system, largely dominated by US News and WOlrd Reports vaunted rankings. The Atlantic's James Fallows explains why:

As a one-time editor of  US News & World Report, I am all too aware of the fatuousness imperfections of its college-ranking system. Being a pioneer in ranking has been the economic salvation of US News.But the premise that vastly different institutions can be preciselyranked on overall quality has its obvious limits. What are the "best" ten lines of work, ranked one through ten, for your child to aspire to? What are the "best" twenty-five cities to live in -- or pieces of music to listen to, or food to eat? Or people to marry? The only sane answer is, "it depends," which is the answer when it comes to colleges and universities too.

I concur. Not only are the rankings subjective, but they can be damaging to students and parents who make decisions based on one dominant list. Furthermore, they are damaging to employers who make hiring decisions based on those lists; not taking into account the intangibles of a possibly superior potential employee who couldn't even land an interview due to attending a "less regarded" educational institution. So if these lists are bogus, is there any reason to pay attention to Washington Monthly's?

The practical solution to ranking mania is not to try to eliminate them -- it's too late -- but instead to crowd the field so that no one "Best Colleges" list has disproportionate influence. Toward that end, the Washington Monthly's latest iteration of its college rankings is valuable simply for existing and adding diversity to the ranking field. It's more valuable than that, because of the way it carries through its analysis about the traits we really should value in universities, plus letting people tailor their own rankings based on the qualities that matter most to them.

That sounds fairly reasonable to me. The old compare and contrast ... what's important to you and how the rankings change to reflect what matters.

So, when picking a Grad School, Law School or any school, it may be best policy to use a number of different resources. What do different rankings say. What do friends, relatives or other connections say? What are your impressions upon visitation. These are all important qualities when choosing the next step in your education.

Let's hit the Links ...

Chief Happiness Officer Has Advice For Staying Motivated: From author Daniel Pink's TED talk. Dan discusses the use of performance rewards, and suggests that they may not be as beneficial as one would immediately think ... offering that the larger the reward, the worse the performance.

INside Higher Ed Reports that 55% of Campuses Report H1N1 Cases: Not career related, but if you are still in school it may help to know what the situation with H1N1 is. Check with your health center and look into the possibility of flu shots and other precautions to prevent contracting the virus.

The Chronicle Of Higher Ed Checks Out Free College Cell Phones From Google: "Google has donated cellphones to 11 colleges and universities for use in introductory computer-science courses this fall, hoping that students will build some interesting applications for the company's cellphone software." What kind of App would you build?

Welcome to the Daily Roundup. Each day at the ThinkTalk Blog we will post some links that we find informative, interesting, or just plain funny. The goal is to let you know what else is going on out there, and ultimately help you with the development of your career.

Round Two of today's Daily Roundup is coming at you. It's a link parade!

Welcome to the Daily Roundup. Each day at the ThinkTalk Blog we will post some links that we find informative, interesting, or just plain funny. The goal is to let you know what else is going on out there, and ultimately help you with the development of your career.