Mormon Studies and Kishkumen

[Moksha]

Perhaps I should encourage him to present his work more widely. I don't think I need to be involved, but he definitely should consider sharing his ideas with others.

What about the two of you on RFM or Mormon Stories? Your presence would make the student comfortable.

Bet the students of the Communications Department at Kishkumen's university could rig up a nice broadcasting link for them.

[Symmachus]

Whatever you do, please be upfront with the student that he is unlikely ever to be employed in academia, so if there are other options that come up in the time he takes to live life and "get a job" before graduate school, he should not ignore them under the delusion that getting a PhD in Religious Studies or some other humanities field (or even in science and math these days) translates into a well paying job in academia or anywhere else for that matter. If there aren't other options, a well funded PhD is a good gig, but you should tell him how many candidates you rejected when you were last on a hiring committee. Then multiply that number by ten to reflect the scale of PhDs out there not employed in academia vs. number of openings over a few year period: that will give him a much better idea of his prospects in general. It is just the unfortunate fact that I have seen far too many cases of a talented but impressionable mind of someone in their early 20s swayed by the encouragement of a professor who has not personally experienced the job market in the last several years as a fresh PhD. They behave as if, because they got on a lifeboat, the Titanic wasn't so bad. But people's lives do get stunted in this racket (and it is a racket): they are optimistic and eager in their 20s and before they know it they are in their mid 30s with a degree that is absolutely not marketable outside of its narrow niche, and so they have to compete for entry level jobs with younger people. At best, the fact that they have a PhD is irrelevant; at other times, it can be a problem ("with your background, why do you want to work here exactly?"). They consider themselves lucky not to have gone into debt for a PhD (if they got into a well funded program with a livable stipend in the first place). Then the encouraging professors all along the way, from the undergraduate professors to their recommender and PhD advisors, say "oh that's too bad" if they think of it at all. I don't mean to make this sound accusatory towards you or to say that we must blame the encouraging professors for the encouragement, only that the student should not be under delusions nor should the encouraging professors. My view, having now been on both sides of this, is that professors do have a moral obligation to really drive this home to prospective academics, to encourage them in their research but to discourage them in taking academia as a serious career option. It has already hit many icebergs and is a sinking ship; almost all the life boats have been filled: so we should not be telling people to buy a ticket! Admittedly, it's hard to run a graduate program that way, but that is one reason I say this a racket: the institutional incentives promote this situation, even if they are not primarily responsible for it.

At the same time, please encourage him to continue in his work, which does not have to be done in the academy, whatever job route he takes. One of the interesting things about Mormon studies, for all its faults, is how amateur it is without it necessarily being amateurish. I think you are absolutely correct that the study of Mormonism has so much to offer the wider world. It just needs the right people to offer it up, and it looks like you have found such.

[Kishkumen]

At the same time, please encourage him to continue in his work, which does not have to be done in the academy, whatever job route he takes. One of the interesting things about Mormon studies, for all its faults, is how amateur it is without it necessarily being amateurish. I think you are absolutely correct that the study of Mormonism has so much to offer the wider world. It just needs the right people to offer it up, and it looks like you have found such.

Thank you for the sage advice, dear consul! I can't disagree with a single thing you say. I have given him "the talk." I have told him to consider a law degree (damn you, Shades!)/PhD and then trying out law academia. Might as well have a shot at a job that pays something for all that school. But you are right. Academia may actually be the worst place to try to do good work right now. If there were free healthcare in the US, I would probably quit right now and then get some work done.

[Chap]

Academia may actually be the worst place to try to do good work right now.

That does not only apply to the US. There are a number of other countries, even large parts of continents, where this applies.

[malkie]

At the same time, please encourage him to continue in his work, which does not have to be done in the academy, whatever job route he takes. One of the interesting things about Mormon studies, for all its faults, is how amateur it is without it necessarily being amateurish. I think you are absolutely correct that the study of Mormonism has so much to offer the wider world. It just needs the right people to offer it up, and it looks like you have found such.

Thank you for the sage advice, dear consul! I can't disagree with a single thing you say. I have given him "the talk." I have told him to consider a John Dehlin/PhD and then trying out law academia. Might as well have a shot at a job that pays something for all that school. But you are right. Academia may actually be the worst place to try to do good work right now. If there were free healthcare in the US, I would probably quit right now and then get some work done.

Are you restricting yourself to the US?
There's "free" (as in single payer/government) healthcare in every province in Canada - though I'm not sure about the territories.

[Kishkumen]

Are you restricting yourself to the US?
There's "free" (as in single payer/government) healthcare in every province in Canada - though I'm not sure about the territories.

Canada prioritizes hiring Canadians, and from what I gather they seem to value productivity over quality in a way that is more rigid than American universities. In other words, scholars were scrambling to publish anything in any kind a pointless collection of pieces just to make the numbers for the year.

[Physics Guy]

I'm Canadian and ended up working in Germany. Canadian universities are all public and Canadian academic jobs do have to prioritise Canadian citizens, but only to the extent that if the university wants to hire a foreigner, they have to prove that no Canadian citizen had comparable qualifications. Statements from established academics are accepted as proof, and if a department wants you, and you have published on exactly three topics, then the department can simply declare that what it absolutely needs is expertise on those very topics.

What that means in practise is that if a Canadian department actually does want someone like you, and you really do impress them, then they will be able to make the offer to you, regardless of citizenship. The scenario that the Canadian preference rules out is the Hail Mary hope that a department doesn't really know what it wants, yet is somehow so smitten with your CV that they offer you the job.

That scenario is unlikely. Faculty positions are a scarce resource everywhere and most departments in any country have a pretty clear idea what they hope to get in return for their nugget of gold. If it should somehow happen that a department doesn't really know what it wants, and is simply combing through the stack of applications to see if anything strikes its fancy, then in Canada that department is probably going to toss out non-Canadians, because if it doesn't really care whom it hires, anyway, then it might as well at least get credit for dutifully hiring a Canadian this time.

If you have a realistic chance of getting hired, though, because you're a strong candidate who fits the advertised profile, then there's no reason not to apply in Canada. If you get that far then citizenship won't be an obstacle. The main reason most Canadian university faculty are Canadian citizens is that among the fortunate few young academics who get offered faculty positions anywhere, the ones who choose the Canadian offer out of their several offers are more likely to be Canadians who want to live close to family.

And I'm pretty sure the same applies in most countries. Don't worry about not being a citizen. The US gives green cards to new university hires as a matter of course—it takes a bit of time to process the forms but it really does happen just like that, your university just gets a couple of big shots to write letters swearing that you're God's gift to your field and you're in—and other countries do likewise.

That's the nice way of saying this. The less upbeat way of saying the same thing is, if you really want an academic career, you have to be prepared to move anywhere in the world.

And that's a necessary condition, not a sufficient one. No matter how much you want an academic career, you need to have a good Plan B because it's a roulette game and your odds won't be high even in the best case. Any job for which you apply, anywhere in the world, will likely have dozens to hundreds of other applicants who are approximately as well qualified as you are.

Nice work if you can get it
And if you get it
Won't you tell me how?

[Philo Sofee]

Man all this academia reality is depressing. Why are we doing this to our own people in the U.S.?!

[Symmachus]

Thank you for the sage advice, dear consul! I can't disagree with a single thing you say. I have given him "the talk." I have told him to consider a law degree (damn you, Shades!)/PhD and then trying out law academia. Might as well have a shot at a job that pays something for all that school. But you are right. Academia may actually be the worst place to try to do good work right now. If there were free healthcare in the US, I would probably quit right now and then get some work done.

I am very glad to hear that the advice, sage or not, is not needed from me in your case—and far be it from me to offer it. It is reflexive at this point. That student is lucky to have access to your hawk-eyed wisdom, my dear reverend.

That very last clause made me laugh! It gets at the ultimate absurdity of academic life: you go through all of this so that one day, if you are extremely lucky, you too will not be able to get any actual work done! What a pitch!

[Physics Guy]

One of the nice things about being a professor in Germany is that after your PhD students graduate they generally do have better job prospects, for higher salary, than they would have had without the degree. Whether there are any good practical reasons for this, or whether it's just a bizarre cultural quirk, doctorates are valued credentials outside academia. Since students are not paying tuition fees for their studies, and you're probably paying them a modest living wage as a stipend, you really don't have to feel guilt about taking on doctoral students. Spending the extra few years in school can be a perfectly reasonable decision on their parts.

We're still not encouraging them to dream of academic careers. Faculty positions are as scarce here as anywhere. The nice thing is just that we don't have to exaggerate anyone's academic career prospects in order to attract graduate students.

I can't think of anything in particular that German universities are doing to earn or sustain this acceptance by the rest of society. It may just be a critical mass thing. Somehow there's already enough buy-in to higher education that it is now an easy sell. It probably really helps that nobody is going into debt to earn their degrees, because education is socialised. That's just another chicken-and-egg puzzle, though, because of course everyone is paying for the education with taxes.