I just read a report on the supposedly abysmal job market for recent college graduates. Apparently, I’m supposed to feel sorry for them because their median income has dropped to $47k.
Boo hoo. I got news for those whiners: I had a freaking PhD, I was working for a world-class (or at least very expensive) university and I wasn’t making $47k. So they can suck it.
The article also concludes that humanities graduates end up in the lowest-paying jobs. Well, that would explain my situation. But I got more news for y’all: you’ll be sorry.
Clio, the Muse of History. Ironically, her name means "to make famous." Yeah....
History, for example, is the only discipline that teaches media literacy (which we used to call “source criticism” ) as a basic skill. Undervaluing history, monetarily or otherwise, would explain why most people can’t figure out the difference between an article and an advertorial. And why most adults don’t understand the need to be skeptical about information found on the internet. And why nobody ever reads labels (the equivalent of footnotes, really.)
Hell, even Ann Curry screwed this one up. She (or one of her research interns) must have done the ol’ half-ass Wikipedia search, which is why she ended up mixing up Wheaton Colleges in her address to Wheaton College (MA). Lemme guess, everyone involved had a journalism degree — ah, journalism, history’s retarded half-sibling in the research arena. Seriously, even a mediocre history major could have caught that one.
And a historian might help the well-intentioned but misguided Obama campaign to make government information accessible. What that project needs is someone who understands how people deal (or don’t) with large amounts of information, and how to sift through it. So I dunno, maybe they should ask a history professor for help with that? And offer an income that at least matches the median for clueless 21-year-olds? Is that too much to ask, do you think?
Clever blog, and I appreciate your insight.
The Mrs. loves the teaching aspect at the university level but the rest of the job makes her vomit.
Well, thanks, Mr. Slamdunk, and kudos to you for marrying an educated gal. I’m sure her students love her if she loves teaching; they can always tell. I got to take a look at your blog this morning, and really enjoyed it — which is saying a lot as I am not an immediate fan of blogs involving kids. Keep up the good work!
I teach community college beginning English night classes, to the left-over and second-hand and alley-oop crowd. And just for the record, I am doing my part to instill the need for media literacy and source criticism in my students. Love your blog.
Thanks — and thanks for being a good teacher at community college, the institution that allowed most people I knew to go to college. English can definitely do media literacy well, it’s just that at “prestige” institutions that’s not often rewarded. But thanks again for reading!
Yes, which is exactly why I have no interesting in teaching at the “prestige” level of higher education. So much good can be done at the lower levels, with students who 9/10 really want to be there–usually on their own dime.
Interesting phenomenon, however: it is as hard as the devil to get a full-time gig at a community college, because of the plethora of PhDs who can’t cut it at the university level who inevitably trickle down to the community/junior college level, snagging all the tenured jobs. This creates an entire substrata of permanently disenfranchised “at-will” adjunct faculty, an echelon which I have inhabited for nearly two decades–and yes, you may call me an academic serf. Because of this situation, I will never probably be more than just a serf, without going back to finish that doctorate. But I really, really, REALLY don’t wanna. You can’t make me.
In the meantime, I tend the fields. And read your blog.