No, You Cannot be a Professor Part III: Survivor Stories

[This is a guest post from friend and former student Lee Nilsson, building from my 2011 post Open Letter to My Students: No, You Cannot be a Professor. Lee blogs at The Digital Archeologist.]

Pictured: Larry Cebula

So you've finished up your fine liberal arts education and have a fresh BA with your name on it from a respectable school.  Congrats!  You did it.  Your capstone paper, History of the Salt Trade in Western Sahara from 1870-1922, was called "riveting" by your favorite professor.  You've moved back in with your parents.  No big deal.  That is common these days, and you'll be out of there soon.  Because you have your sights on something grander.  You are going to graduate school.  You are going to be a college professor.  

And why not?  The local craigslist job openings category is a depressing list of technical work you are in no way qualified for and high-level executive stuff which requires eight years of experience and an MBA.  You don't want to work in medical administration.  You don't want to work in a toll booth.  Sure, your favorite professor gave you a pained expression and mentioned something about the "tough market" when you told him/her about your dream.  But s/he wrote the letter of recommendation anyway.  So s/he is probably not that concerned...Right?  

Your future? 

Naturally, you're first move is obvious, you Googled "how to become a history professor."  That is how you came across a depressing, cynical screed by a mean-spirited and sarcastic history professor named Larry Cebula called "Open Letter to My Students: No, You Cannot be a Professor."  You read it a few times. You read the follow up "No, You Cannot be a Professor--the Reactions."  At first you were skeptical.

But the reaction pieces are dripping with wishful thinking, and the article confirmed all the doubts in the back of your mind.  Maybe it's all hopeless.  Maybe the toll booth wouldn't be so bad.  I mean, at least you won't have Larry Cebula as a graduate advisor.  What kind of deflated, depressed, and broken students must he be graduating every year?

Hope is good!

Well dear reader, look no further.  I am one such.  And I've been tasked with giving you hope.  Not that you will become a history professor (no, that still ain't happening), but that it is possible to have an interesting and fulfilling career in the humanities.  You don't even have to have a Ph.D. either!  You can do it with a simple MA.  The key is making yourself as well-rounded as possible in this new economy.  Here are a few lessons I've learned which may be helpful to you.

Lesson 1:  Take advantage of every opportunity during grad school, and don't be afraid to take risks.

Grad school is about resume building.  A good academic department will have trips, internship opportunities and job openings you should take advantage of.  While in grad school I went on an archaeological dig to Cyprus, worked in the Washington State Archives as a researcher/writer, served as associate editor of the local history website and mobile app spokanehistorical.org, and went to Portland, Oregon to present a paper with the Phi Alpha Theta history society.  All of this is great resume fodder.  It also gives you experiences and contacts you would not otherwise have if you had spent all your time in the library staring at black and white photos of early-period Saxon pot shards. 

NDSR second cohort starts January 2015. 

Stay tuned!

In this economy it is often going to be more important to have some real work experience than it will be to have a paper published in a journal read by literally tens of academics (though being published does not hurt).  It may take some risk or sacrifice in the short term to make yourself more employable down the road.  I had to give up a graduate teaching assistantship (and quite a lot of money) to work at the state archives, but it paid off.  My work at  spokanehistorical.org and the Washington State Archives led directly to me being chosen as the first ever National Digital Stewardship Resident for the Library of Congress (an amazing program, by the way, check it out).  

You will want to accumulate a large set of skills that do not fall into the traditional "liberal arts academic" framework.  You want a huge advantage right now?  Learn to code.  The future is in the digital humanities.  People with those skills are already in high demand.  Most of all learn how to teach yourself new skills.  If you take anything away from grad school.  Let it be that. 

Lesson 2: If you want to be successful after grad school, you must be mobile and flexible.

Its a big country...

This is increasingly true in nearly all fields these days.  Being able to pack up and move to Bozeman, Montana at a few weeks' notice can be a real strength when looking for work in the humanities.  Cast a very wide net.  You may not be able to get that amazing job in New York City right out of grad school.  Look for parts of the country where your skill set-may be in more demand.  Don't limit your search to the "dream job" you've been pining for for years.  Having trouble getting a curatorial job in a city museum?  Try administration and communications.  Failing to get a federal writing job in the black hole of USAjobs.gov?  Try contractors and vendors.  Can't get that archivist position with your local state archives?  Try the private sector.  Be flexible.  You may find you'll like where you end up better than if you'd gotten your "dream job."

Lesson 3: Be creative.

"I am a hard worker with lots of experience in content management.  I've managed content on a weekly basis for one year at Content Management LLC. and for two years at Content Dynamics Industries, Inc.  I have been instrumental in increasing productivity over five percent in..."

Asleep yet?  Yeah, don't be like that.  Hopefully, you got into the humanities to be creative.  Sometimes its valuable to take a risk to stand out.  Don't go off the deep end and be unprofessional.  But the people who do the hiring at cultural institutions are looking through stacks of identical cover-letters and resumes.  All of them have the same two to five years experience in "whatever" that you do.  Hiring managers hate reading those letters just as much as you hate writing them.  Sometimes it's okay to make a high risk, high reward move.  Take for example this:

The job was for the Civil War Trust, a group of people almost certainly familiar with the mammoth Ken Burns documentary "The Civil War."  One hour of late-night video editing later I had a short and ridiculous parody of Burns' style which served as a fun addendum to my traditional cover letter.  I submitted it at midnight and by eight-o'clock the next morning I had the interview.  High risk, high reward.

Lesson 4: Be personable. 

Not you...Right?

Jokes aside, you could not ask for a better advisor than Larry Cebula.  He works like hell to get his students employed in their fields and is tireless in the networking that requires.  Indeed your graduate advisor and other professors can be an incredible support system when looking for work.  But all of that is dependent on you not being a jerk.  

Some common jerk moves:  Acting childish and raising your voice.  Getting mad about little issues and burning bridges.  Showing absolutely no interest in them as human beings and demanding all attention be on yourself.  Treating professors like they are your servants.  The list goes on.  Always remember that these people can be your colleagues and friends after school ends.  Act like it.

Another pro-tip:  Dress for the job you want.  Not the job you have.  It pays off in spades to show some appreciation for the fact that other people are forced to look at you.

Lesson 5: Have some ambition, but be smart about it.

The future is bright!

The "millennial" generation is positively drowning in cynicism.  While our parents and grandparents imagined a glorious future in outer space and flying skateboards, our generation is focused on predicting how civilization will collapse, whether it be zombies, super-volcanoes or something else.  It's important to stay positive.  Government institutions, historical societies, archives, libraries, museums, journalism, think-tanks, publishing etc. etc.  All of these and more are open to you with a simple MA or less.

My humanities story has taken me from a small suburb of Detroit to the Library of Congress and eventually the  U.S. State Department.  There are literally thousands of great opportunities for people with our weird interests.  Very few of them will involve teaching students at research universities.  But that should not stop you from doing something you'll love.   You might even like where you end up better than you would have liked being a college professor.  Because again, you aren't going to be that. 

Some Resources for the Humanities Job Seeker:

• National Council on Public History Jobs page - They post a new list of public history jobs every week.  

• USAjobs - Yes, it may be a black hole where resumes go to die, but its essentially the only way to get direct federal employment.  And it is possible to get responses.  Write a very good resume with their resumebuilder app.  If you can find any way to justify making yourself an "expert" in every question a position asks, do it.  Do not lie.  But really think hard about it.  Every Library of Congress, Smithsonian, or NARA job might get 400+ applications.  At least 50 will have veterans preference.  You have to really stand out to get passed the folks at the Office of Personnel Management.   Make use of the Saved Searches feature: "National Archives," "Library of Congress," "Historian," "Archives," "writer," etc.  Check daily.  These change fast.   Dont put off applying.  They  will sometimes end an open period early.  

• Code4lib - For those with library science and archival experience as well as some tech savvy.  

• American Library Association Job List - All of these will say "MLS required."  Ignore that.  If you have the skills, demonstrate them with your application.  I've met librarians in the federal government with backgrounds in archaeology, medieval studies, computer science etc. etc.    Can't win if you don't play.  

• Society of American Archivists - Premier archivist organization with premier list of archivist jobs.  Lesson #2 is very important here.  

• H-Net - For general discouragement.  Try looking up your area of expertise in the location you want to work in.  Cry.  But dont worry.  You are going to be fine.  Especially if you take my sage advice.  If you see that list and think, "Gee, there are so many professor jobs!"  Remember that every job posting will have hundreds of applicants, many are not tenure track, and that site is literally global.  

• AdjunctNation - For those who have taken the dark path of the adjunct.  Some people just have to teach.  If you are one of those, the best approach may be the old fashioned style.  Every community college gets a stack of adjunct applications.  Go there personally, meet the head of the department during his/her office hours.  Hand them your packet (syllabi, CV, etc.) personally.  If he/she likes you, it may get you to the top of the pile when they need someone to teach a course.  Also, professors in your department will often know professors in other schools.  Don't be afraid to ask for an introduction.  Remember, this path lacks security and basic benefits.  You spouse or partner better have a great job and be cool with you making less than a fry-cook at McDonald's.            

• Idealist.org - Idealist has many of the sorts of jobs you will get a call-back for.  Its all non-profits and most of them are east coast.  But these are the sorts of writing/editing/administrative jobs that a humanities MA can get.  Beware of low non-profit wages.

• Historical Consulting Firms such as History Associates or The History Factory do for-profit research on behalf of government and corporations.  I've known some people who have gone this route.  Many of these jobs are on a project basis and will be temporary.  

• A lot of organizations don't post to these sorts of lists.  So check the job listings pages of organizations you might want to work for.  If the Gates Foundation or Coca-Cola is hiring a historian or archivist, they may not be as familiar with these sorts of lists and just throw it up on their website.  Look for yourself.  

One last thing:  Apply.  Don't be discouraged by the fact you only have 7/10 of the requirements.  If you think you can do the job, apply.  Many people hamper their own success by undervaluing themselves.  This is especially true for women, who tend to have less bravado and stupid confidence when applying for jobs. Be stupid.  Be bold.  Apply.  You deserve it.  Now go be successful.  

Lee Nilsson earned his Masters in History at Eastern Washington University in 2013. He was a National Digital Stewardship Resident at the Library of Congress from 2013-14. In August Nilsson begins work as a Junior Analyst for the U.S. State Department.

We Know You Can Read. So Can We

Today the Chronicle of Higher Education published a column that I wrote, "We Know You Can Read. So Can We: In Which I Sit through a Conference Panel and Do Not Obtain Enlightenment." Yes, standards at the Chronicle are really slipping--what can you do? Here is a bit of the piece:

I am so excited to be at Big Annual Conference in my discipline! And now here I am at Session With Very Interesting Title. I have read books and articles by these women and men, so to have them all sitting together is a buffet of scholarly brilliance. And now the woman who is doing research on the very thing I am most interested in is about to give her presentation. This is going to be great!

Wait. Why does she have all those papers? No need to panic. Most likely those are handouts, or at worst some notes. She wrote Really Awesome Book That Changed the Field, so she knows what she is doing. There, she is beginning. ... 

Oh, God, no. She is looking straight down and reading from her paper. I spent 10 hours on airplanes and all my professional-development money for this? Maybe she is just reading the introduction before she shifts to a more conversational presentation? ... No, she is forging into the second paragraph, reading the words out loud.

The rest is here.

I love the comments--over 130 so far, sharply divided between people who think I am absolutely right that reading papers is boring and folks who are outraged at my anti-intellectualism. The same discussions are going on in some Facebook threads started by friends. What do you think, Dear Reader, do you enjoy people reading papers out loud at academic conferences?

No, You Cannot be a Professor--the Reactions

My recent post, Open Letter to My Students: No, You Cannot be a Professor, was far more widely read than anything I have posted before (27,000 page views and counting). It provoked considerable discussion--not only in the comments section of this blog but also on Twitter, Facebook, and other blogs. Some excellent points were made and I thought I should address them in one place. Reactions fell into a few broad categories:

What, this again?

Yeah I heard that one before

Brian Sarnacki tweeted "Not sure the world needs another "don't go to grad school" article, but if it does here's one from @larrycebula..." Others pointed out that all of my points had been made before, with the best known examples being Thomas Benton's essay Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don't Go. I pretty much agree with this criticism. In fact I keep a few copies of Benton's essays in my desk to share with students contemplating a PhD. So why another "don't go to grad school" article? I guess because I feel like the situation is even worse than Benton and other have presented, and because my students need the reminder.

"stark but truthful picture of the higher education job market"

The bulk of the reactions were similar to the above comment from Ted Schwab. An old friend from grad school emailed to say that her program had added the post to the assigned readings for incoming MA students. Digital history guru Dan Cohen called it "depressing but sage advice." Thanks, guys.

The Opportunity Costs Debate

I was properly called out for my offhand remark that the opportunity costs of a humanities PhD are "over a million dollars." I should admit this was a wild guesstimate on my part--but I am not sure I was wrong. In a thoughtful reply to my post, Sean Takats calculated his own opportunity cost. Takats gave up a well-paid job at IBM to pursue a history Ph.D. and in six years sacrificed by his calculation $450,000 in earnings.  But his calculation is incomplete, not taking into account the investments he might have made it that time (IRAs, home equity, etc.) and how those investments might have appreciated from that time until his retirement. He also does not calculate the differential between what he makes now as a professor and the larger amount he would be making had he stayed in the IT field. If you add those up, surely we are well over a million dollars.

"Charlie Brown, aren't you going
to the AHA this year?"

But wait, you say, very few humanities PhD students are walking away from a job at IBM. A better starting point is average starting salary of someone with a fresh B.A. in history--provided they can find a job at all in this economy. Zachary Schrag does the math and comes up with $120,000 in opportunity costs for a six-year doctoral program--but again, he is calculating only the lost wages for those years.

Of course, many college graduates are not finding work at all right now. For them, a fully-funded grad school gig is far better than moving back home with the parents. One person commenting about my post on another discussion board (unfortunately I cannot find the link) said that I did not understand the realities of the economy right now. He said he was a new college grad and was back at the crappy job he had right after high school and for the same money. A fair point. But even for those students, surely the economy will recover in the better part of a decade they would spend in grad school.


My Students Can Too Be Professors! They are Special.

Source of poor career advice

(Alternate version: I am special.) Part of the reason the job market is so overcrowded is the many professors who continue to urge impressionable young people to "follow your dreams!" without offering any realistic advice about this career path. Every department has a couple such professors, usually very popular with students. I was recently trying to warn a student about the odds in pursuing an academic career. She listened for a bit and then shut down. "I rely on Professor Sparkle Pony for career advice," she said. Good luck with that.

Holger Syme takes on my post point-by-point to argue Yes, You Can be a Professor--but his only argument is that since he overcame great odds and became a professor, his students can too. Sean Takats properly calls this response "a textbook example of survivorship bias." Takats quotes Wikipedia: "Sur­vivor­ship bias can lead to overly opti­mistic beliefs because fail­ures are ignored […] It can also lead to the false belief that the suc­cesses in a group have some spe­cial prop­erty, rather than being just lucky." This is a better explanation of the point I made in my post, that asking professors if you should go to grad school in history is "like asking lottery winners if you should buy a ticket." Nate Kreuter expanded on this point with a column over at Inside Higher Ed titled You Aren't the Exception.

We Need to Reform Humanities Ph.D. Programs

I like it that a lot of commenters thought that the job market was in part a symptom of the wretchedness of current history PhD programs--which in this country take an average of nine freakin' years to complete, have terrible drop-out rates, and with few exceptions are focused exclusively on preparing one for a career as an academic historian at a research-focused university. There is a lot to say on this topic and I will reserve my ideas for a later post.

"You are a world class ass"

Me?

A substantial subset of readers think I am a jerk. "I'm not a professor, but your condescending know-it-all tone further confirms how lucky I am to have chosen a career path outside of academia," one anonymous commenter wrote. "It's nice to not have to deal with pompous a$$hats all the time." I didn't even realize that my mother read my blog! Others described the post as "snotty," "tinged with condescension," "shortsighted" etc. etc.

They may have a point. Yet I do not like giving the advice in "No, You Cannot be a Professor." I have any number of students who would make great history professors, given the chance. But realistically they will never have that chance, and I have a responsibility to tell them.

Advice for Academic Bloggers

I recently received an email from a professor who want to start a professional blog. "What advice would you give about having a blog?" she asked. "Is there anything you wished you knew at the start? Anything you did and wished you hadn't? What are the best ways to get out the word about the blog?"

My usual answer to would-be blogger: "Try standing in the garage and talking to yourself for twenty minutes a day. If you find it satisfying, you might also enjoy writing a history blog."

That answer is too flippant--and wrong. I began this blog with no particular expectations of readership or impact.  And Northwest History remains a small fish in the blogging world--even in the history blogging world. I am sure that I do not receive a fraction of the readers that Kevin Levin enjoys over at Civil War Memory or that read AHA Today. But this blog has brought me a modest professional reputation in my field, some interesting collaborations with people whom I have met through the blog, and serves as a resource for my students. At history conferences someone usually comes up to me and introduces themselves as a reader--perhaps the only one at the conference, but still. And when I went up for tenure this year I presented this blog as a work of public history scholarship and my Cliopatria award as peer review. I received tenure. Not bad for something I began on a whim in 2007.

Four years is a long time for a blog to remain active--it is like a century in dog years or something. A lot of what I considered my peer history blogs when I began aren't around anymore (others are still going strong). What have I learned in four years? My mission statement covers some of this ground. Here is my advice:

1. Decide what your blog is about, and stick to it. This blog covers the history of the Pacific Northwest, digital history and resources, and sometimes teaching. You topic does not have to be a straight jacket (perhaps 10% of my posts are outside of my usual topics), but keeping a tight focus helps you build an audience and reputation. 
2. Don't make it about you. Blogging about your academic work is fine, but if you find yourself posting pictures of your cats, it is time to retire from academic blogging.
3. Don't make it about politics. It is so tempting to become political--what the hell is wrong Eric Cantor anyway?! And political posts will get you an audience more quickly that anything else you could do. But the political quickly drives out the historical, and soon you are running a miniature version of the Daily Kos. 
4. When you have an idea for a post, go ahead and start it. Save it as a draft and come back later. The 'Blog This' browser button helps you get a fast start to a new post. 
5. Not every post needs to be an essay in miniature. Sometimes sharing a video or a new online resource requires only a few words of introduction. Blog posts should be pithy.
6. Share what you are working on. The other day I posted a brief letter from William F. Cody that I had just transcribed, along with a video clip I found online.
7. Don't expect comments. According to Google Analytics I have a readership. 35,000 people visited Northwest History last year (either that or 1 person 35,000 times--same thing right?). Most of these people came here on purpose-my leading referrals are from Facebook and Twitter and other history blogs. But I don't get 100 comments a year. 
8. Try to keep a semi-regular posting schedule. My Google calendar nudges me to post something twice a week. 
9. It is OK to stop. A blog is not a lifelong obligation. With a blog as in life, when you run out of things to say you should stop talking.
10. I don't have any insights into promoting your blog beyond the usual advice--comment on related blogs, put the URL in your email signature, and sign up with a service that automatically published your new posts to Facebook and Twitter (I use Networked Blogs).
11. Have fun! When blogging begins to feel like a chore, your days are numbered. (See #9.)

Do you have an academic blog? Tell me about it in the comments.

Disappearing Jobs in the Humanities

Another reason to study public history in this piece from Inside Higher Ed: Disappearing Jobs: "The Modern Language Association's annual forecast on job listings, being released today, predicts that positions in English language and literature will drop 35 percent from last year, while positions in languages other than English are expected to fall 39 percent this year. Given that both categories saw decreases last year, the two-year decline in available positions is 51 percent in English and 55 percent in foreign languages." The article goes on to note that "the declines in each of the last two years are the largest ever recorded by the MLA, since it started tracking the trends in the association's Job Information List 35 years ago. The list has also never had fewer notices of openings."

Though the MLA is about English, the academic history job market tracks quite closely with the broader humanities market. And it should be remembered that these markets were terrible before the current economic crisis, with literally dozens and occasionally hundreds of qualified applicants for every opening. Now the market is at least twice as bad as that.

And there is no reason to expect it ever to improve very much. The end of mandatory retirement means that many teach on much longer than in previous generations (in part to keep the health insurance). Those that do retire are more often replaced by adjuncts and other contingent faculty than by tenure track positions. And the number of undergraduate history majors continues to decline. 

As a professor it is flattering when a student wants to follow in your footsteps. But that path has so narrowed in recent decades that it is effectively closed. Those of us who teach in the humanities have an obligation to firmly tell our charges to forget it. We need to steer them towards alternate careers, such as public history.

[Image via The Tombstone Generator.]