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    Behind the Academic Curtain: How to Find Success and Happiness with a PhD
    Behind the Academic Curtain: How to Find Success and Happiness with a PhD
    Behind the Academic Curtain: How to Find Success and Happiness with a PhD
    Ebook276 pages4 hours

    Behind the Academic Curtain: How to Find Success and Happiness with a PhD

    By Frank F. Furstenberg

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    About this ebook

    More people than ever are going to graduate school to seek a PhD these days. When they get there, they discover a bewildering environment: a rapid immersion in their discipline, a keen competition for resources, and uncertain options for their future, whether inside or outside of academia. Life with a PhD can begin to resemble an unsolvable maze. In Behind the Academic Curtain, Frank F. Furstenberg offers a clear and user-friendly map to this maze. Drawing on decades of experience in academia, he provides a comprehensive, empirically grounded, and, most important of all, practical guide to academic life.

    While the greatest anxieties for PhD candidates and postgrads are often centered on getting that tenure-track dream job, each stage of an academic career poses a series of distinctive problems. Furstenberg divides these stages into five chapters that cover the entire trajectory of an academic life, including how to make use of a PhD outside of academia. From finding the right job to earning tenure, from managing teaching loads to conducting research, from working on committees to easing into retirement, he illuminates all the challenges and opportunities an academic can expect to encounter. Each chapter is designed for easy consultation, with copious signposts, helpful suggestions, and a bevy of questions that all academics should ask themselves throughout their career, whether at a major university, junior college, or a nonacademic organization. An honest and up-to-date portrayal of how this life really works, Behind the Academic Curtain is an essential companion for any scholar, at any stage of his or her career.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press
    Release dateSep 23, 2013
    ISBN9780226066240
    Behind the Academic Curtain: How to Find Success and Happiness with a PhD

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      Behind the Academic Curtain - Frank F. Furstenberg

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      1

      ENTERING GRADUATE SCHOOL

      If you are thinking about entering a doctoral program, you are not alone. In 2011, according to figures provided by the Council of Graduate Schools, there were more than 600,000 applications solely to doctoral programs where students are aiming to earn a PhD or an equivalent degree. Overall, the chances of being accepted to any given program are about one in four: rates of acceptance vary greatly by the quality of the university and whether it is publicly or privately funded.¹ About one in eight applicants was admitted in the top tier of private universities compared to over one in three of the second tier of public universities, and almost one in two in the lowest rung of doctoral programs that are classified as low-activity research programs.²

      Applications to doctoral programs have been steadily rising over the past decade, especially among women, who now make up a majority of applicants and acceptances to graduate programs. Overall, more than 70,000 new students entered doctoral programs in 2011; slightly over half of these first-time students were women. These new entrants to doctoral programs make up only a small proportion of the total enrollment of graduate students in PhD or equivalent doctoral degrees, which numbers more than 440,000 students. In 2010/2011, about 63,000 doctoral degrees were awarded, a 50 percent increase above the previous decade.³ Although slowed a bit by the Great Recession, the United States remains one of the world magnets for higher education, especially graduate education leading to a doctoral degree.

      If you are thinking seriously of becoming a professor, completing a PhD is virtually required. I say virtually because some people have entered academia without a doctorate or its equivalent, although this route has become much rarer over time. (There is more latitude to teach without an advanced degree in many professional schools, although here, too, substitute qualifications count for less these days than they once did.) Many people who are ABD (all but dissertation) do manage to find employment in higher education, but they are almost always confined to teaching in two-year institutions or the lower ranks of four-year colleges and universities. This is because in most fields, there is no shortage of highly competent candidates vying for good jobs. The academic marketplace is highly competitive in most academic disciplines, even for positions that are deemed to be less than ideal. Of course, there are many other career options besides an academic career that you can pursue with a PhD, as I will discuss in the next

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