Mastodawn

I don't regret my doctorate. I don't.

But if I had everything to do over again, I would *never* get a PhD.

It narrows your options in ways you'd never imagine. But that's not why.

The process of getting a PhD--at least, at this point in time--is inherently abusive. It's cruel. And it demands that you accept the abusiveness, the capriciousness, the lack of control over your own life and your own destiny, as both appropriate and inevitable. That you internalize the abuse and perpetrate it against yourself, without end. That service to others is everything, that you don't deserve time to yourself, that you never,ever deserve a vacation from your work, that your only human value is in whatever knowledge you have--knowledge which is constantly devalued and denigrated by others.

The PhD process is nothing short of hazing.

I love teaching at university. It is a great joy in my life. But it wasn't worth the price of admission, and I can never get off of this ride now.

Think twice before you walk this path.

Doc Impossible Feb 12, 2023

And, for the record: my coworkers and my department are wonderful. I *love* working with them.

The work-above-everything culture is a problem at every American college and university. We're all crushed by it.

Woozle Hypertwin Feb 12, 2023

@Impossible_PhD I could probably ramble-rant in several different directions on this topic.

I'll just say, for now: The ethos I got from my parents was that your entire worth as a human is how successful you are at your career -- which means that as a kid your entire potential worth is represented by your grades, starting with middle school (because that's where you establish the patterns that will be with you in high school) and going through high school (which will determine whether you get into a good college) and finally, of course, college (as being the ultimate determinant of your future career trajectory as they launch you out into the world like a cannonball).

This ethos literally almost killed me.

I was increasingly depressed through the later grades (dysphoria and ADHD and autism, all leading to social isolation) and it was only when I consciously rejected the impossible weight of those implied obligations that I could see a way forward.

Gerty Steinblatt Feb 12, 2023

@woozle @Impossible_PhD
<3

Doc Impossible Feb 13, 2023

nic_colley Feb 13, 2023

@Impossible_PhD would you be willing to elaborate on how the phd path has limited you?
I am aware personally of colleagues who hide the fact that they have a phd to improve their chances of landing jobs and not appear “overqualified”. Are there other limitations/downsides that people aren’t aware of?

Doc Impossible Feb 13, 2023

@nic_colley That's the main one. With the time I spent getting the doctorate and the eight years teaching after, I literally cannot hide it--I'd be facing coming in at the entry level, and I'm nearly 38.

SleepyCatten Feb 12, 2023

@Impossible_PhD *offers supportive hugs*

Doc Impossible Feb 12, 2023

@SleepyCatten This message brought to you by me feeling guilty about needing to take time off in October *for my vow renewal, which I've been planning for three years*.

When I have almost *four months* of time off banked.

Because academic culture says it's Wrong to take time off.

@Impossible_PhD @SleepyCatten I feel you on this, I have to drag myself out of work sometimes. I work in the public sector, and definitely get the feeling that I'm failing by taking time off.

@Impossible_PhD @SleepyCatten Also a side point to that: I've been part of organising strike action unofficially, and it's a big feel people get/management try to play on.

Doc Impossible Feb 12, 2023

@twofirstnames @SleepyCatten I mean, where I work, were allowed to have a union, but we're literally not allowed to strike.

By law.

@Impossible_PhD @SleepyCatten what the heck. (I mean the Tories are trying to make that the case for government workers too, sooooo)

Doc Impossible Feb 12, 2023

@twofirstnames @SleepyCatten Yep. When my union tried to strike, the admin had a lawyer waiting at the courthouse. The judge issued a summary judgment on the spot, ordering us back to the classroom.

Our work stoppage lasted less than three hours.

@Impossible_PhD @SleepyCatten We had civil servants, teachers, university staff, paramedics, train engineers, all on strike the other week.

Lady Helen "Bio" Rodriguez Feb 12, 2023

@Impossible_PhD I've heard horror stories from a friend who is about to get a PHD. Yeah no thanks I couldn't handle all that misery and I'm sorry so many people need to go through. Although I will say Ms Impossible isn't as fun as Doc Impossible.

Doc Impossible Feb 12, 2023

@BioWD The account name would've been Dreadnought in that case, or something like it.

Lady Helen "Bio" Rodriguez Feb 12, 2023

@Impossible_PhD Dreadnought? Wow thats a great choice, ooooh I don't know which one I like more. But in all seriousness I'm sorry you went through living hell for that doctorates.

Doc Impossible Feb 12, 2023

@BioWD Hun, have you not read Dreadnought, by April Daniels? My account name is a reference to it! It's a fantastic book!

Lady Helen "Bio" Rodriguez Feb 12, 2023

@Impossible_PhD Oh no I have. Wonderful book. Its been a while, didn't realize Doc Impossible was a nod to it. April did a damn good job.

Nikkileah 🎮🚄🏳️‍⚧️🇬🇧Feb 12, 2023

@Impossible_PhD *sends the ninja squirrels with a further care package of hugs. And cookies*

Patrick Stewart Feb 12, 2023

@Impossible_PhD my cousin in law would def agree with this

@Impossible_PhD 🫂 I understand completely. I had initial aspirations to pursue academics and ended up in public service (not that that’s much better).

💝❤️ abejaclaustro ☃️❄️Feb 12, 2023

@Impossible_PhD thank you. what you wrote is among the closest descriptions of the process i’ve heard or read

it’s been decades since i earned my title. i’m proud of my accomplishment, despite it feeling “phyrric” in nature. but, i wouldn’t do it again

also, w just 1% of the population holding phds, unless one’s in academia, the chances of meeting others who also hold a phd, or finding a social circle that’s similarly affected … is painfully rare. it’s like being an alien in the wild

flag_transgender

@Impossible_PhD Yes, you're absolutely right. I was talking to a neighbor who had just defended his PhD. He was still decompressing from the whole thing. He had been a Marine before...

He said that the PhD process was much more abusive and horrible than anything he had to do as a Marine.

And, I was the only PhD at my work for quite a long time. Even when it's not true, I get told that I'm an "out of touch academic" all the time.

flag_transgender

@Impossible_PhD All of that said... Parts of it were great. It felt like a very decadent thing to get to spend years working on my own problem, and just getting to dig deep on it.

That's not true for everyone, of course, some programs are setup that you just work on your advisor's project and defend on a tiny piece of it.

Gerty Steinblatt Feb 13, 2023

@imwillow @Impossible_PhD
"Out of touch academic"?

Even when it is true they should just keep their bitter jealous yaps shut.

Next time you can ask them whose touch are you out of, exactly, becos not theirs, apparently.

flag_transgender

@GertyBz @Impossible_PhD It's mostly a way to knock me down a peg when I get "uppity" about things like best practices, lol.

Gerty Steinblatt Feb 13, 2023

@imwillow @Impossible_PhD
Right, because "downity" was what saved those Ohio people from that train, amirite?

Zeb Larson Feb 13, 2023

@Impossible_PhD I feel like all I do anymore is warn people away from getting a humanities PhD. The only thing it qualifies you to do is be a professor, and there are a vanishingly small number of professorships. If you're interested in literally anything else, there are more direct ways to do them, and like you say, the whole process is abusive. Decent mentorship is a crapshoot.

Doc Impossible Feb 13, 2023

@Zeb_Larson Ehh... there are a few specialties where you can do things. Technical writing, for instance--if you like managing major teams at like Google or whatever, there's a very solid career path.

Zeb Larson Feb 13, 2023

@Impossible_PhD Look, I've had a successful side-hustle as a SME and writer doing curriculum development. I bill at a very competitive rate, and I've got it to the point where my clients send me work without me having to apply constantly (though if I wanted to live on it...different story).

But the truth is, while my PhD did help me get that work, getting a PhD wasn't the easiest or most direct way to break in. I could have just gotten a degree in instructional design.

Zeb Larson Feb 13, 2023

@Impossible_PhD It's not that you can't do things with a humanities PhD; I've done a little buffet of them. But it was a lot of extra work to do something I probably could have done with just a terminal MA.

Kofi Loves Efia

@Impossible_PhD We will take you in the private sector. Your degree is in the humanities? Great! We need directors of: training, style, marketing, branding, librarians, hr, risk, etc.

The idea that you are trapped is part of the abusive cycle.

Walk out the door! We have unlimited pto, 401k matches, yearly/quarterly bonuses, profit sharing, healthcare, and petty office politics just like .edu.

You have nothing to lose but chains, nothing to gain but dignity and enormous sums of $.

deilann v -0.2.1.

neodog_nom_verified

@Impossible_PhD I watched my mom go through it, while parenting me, a special needs child, and heard her get to talk about a lot of this and the mmm, frustrations at watching her male colleagues get to do all of this without ... also having to do all the homemaking work. She recently asked me how I could want to go to grad school considering that and how much I know about academia and I think the problem is that for her, she can't see an alternative - the price of admission is wrong, but she'd redo it if she had the option because she never really saw any other eventual choice. It's her passion.

rapaz Feb 13, 2023

@Impossible_PhD I dunno if we've studied in the same country, but you just described what highschool was for me

jollyrogue Feb 13, 2023

@Impossible_PhD 😶😬That sounds way too familiar, and I don’t have a PhD for the trouble. 😒

jonny Feb 13, 2023

@Impossible_PhD
cosign this. I value where I am and got very lucky all things considered, but both my experience and I think the lions share of people I know who had it harder suggest that me and anyone on the other side of that path has a lot of work to make it something I'd feel good recommending to anyone else.

Ian Sudbery Feb 13, 2023

@Impossible_PhD

I think the PhD experience is often abusive, but I'm not sure I'd go as far as to say it is *inherently* abusive. Or, at least, not any more inherently abusive than, say, employment.

In my PhD, I came in at 9, went home at 6:30, and didn't work many weekends, at least for the first 3 out of 4 years. I went on at least 4 weeks of holiday every year.

I'm aware this was 15 years ago, but I try hard to replicate that experience for the students I supervise today.

Doc Impossible Feb 13, 2023

@IanSudbery I was expected to be a full-time student, teach two classes a semester, contribute to service at the department, and have notable scholarly output.

My doctoral stipend was $9000/year.

At an R1 university.

Ian Sudbery Feb 13, 2023

@Impossible_PhD And I wouldn't dream of telling you that your experience was exploitive.

I've no doubt that many PhD or even most PhD students do experience exploitation.

But that doesn't mean that a PhD is, or has to be inherently exploitative. It's not baked into the whole concept of a PhD. We can, and should work to create non-exploitive experiences.

rooktallon Feb 13, 2023

@Impossible_PhD Yeah definitely not for me. I'd rather just get a Bachelor's and be done. I'll make more money not doing it.

Brian Schwarz Feb 13, 2023

I abandoned my original goal of getting a PhD due to burnout and other reasons, in retrospect the best thing that could have happened based on what I've seen my cohort experience in the years since.

The Seven against Dweebs Feb 13, 2023

@Impossible_PhD This is way too broad of a characterization. I don’t doubt your experience, but programs vary widely by school and discipline, and I don’t think all graduate study qualifies as “abusive” or “hazing.”

The Evil Microwizard Feb 13, 2023

@Impossible_PhD I'd say similar, out of personal experience, for those getting an MD degree as well. It's almost all toxicity and hazing, all the time, with the added 'bonus' of lives being at risk as well. 😫😔

Doc Impossible Feb 13, 2023

@evilmicrowizard I have a *whole other* rant for the way healthcare workers, and especially doctors and nurses, are treated. It is beyond unconscionable.

Jennifer Slack Feb 14, 2023

@Impossible_PhD I have been thinking about this post all day. It makes me so sad. I received my PhD in 1981 and am just retiring from a university professorship this spring. The PhD was hard but not brutal. But so much has changed - especially (but not only) for us in the humanities. I cannot fathom all that it would take to fix the mess. But I do know we desperately need the knowledge one gets and gives from a PhD! I am so sorry it was so hard on you.

Doc Impossible Feb 14, 2023

@JenniferSlack I appreciate it.

But the absolute backbone of running the university is now dumped on junior faculty, often pre-tenure or entirely untenured. Assistantship stipends have disintegrated over time, and are now largely vestigial in many places. The politics of a research subject are now more important than the study of it--and I don't mean left/right politics, I mean whether it's the going fad of the moment, and who has decided to beef with who in a given department. There are virtually no tenure lines remaining.

All of that gets dumped on assistants, junior faculty, and non-tenure track faculty. All of it.

Jennifer Slack Feb 15, 2023

@Impossible_PhD Where I teach things have not progressed this far, but things are well on the way. As a full (distinguished actually) professor, I had a greater teaching load than pre tenure faculty and most of that was treaching undergrads. Senior faculty do most of the department’s administrative work. “Teaching faculty,” are gradually taking our places: larger treaching loads, no tenure, less pay. Grad students teach less than tenure track faculty, but with horrible pay.

J blue Feb 14, 2023

@Impossible_PhD Thank you for this post. I try to put that experience far out of my mind as possible but I still get tachycardia from email alerts.

There was just a smidgen of catharsis when the panel OK'd my introduction. The introduction to my thesis was structured around all the ways my PhD supervisor was abusive and how his ideas were completely unethical. The main body of the PhD then lept off on how to approach my topic ethically.

Doc Impossible Feb 14, 2023

@jblue Oh god. 🫂

J blue Feb 14, 2023

@Impossible_PhD The school probably couldn't put up much of an argument against it because there was a paper trail. He tried to get the PhD program to force into doing a project I had extremely strong moral objections to. I have his letters and I have my responses. I would never be able to sign my name to such a project, I'd be so embarassed by association to it and the thought of it makes me want to vomit. My new supervisor agreed that my objections were valid and voided the assignment.

Dr. Sasha Göbbels Feb 14, 2023

@Impossible_PhD 24 years ago I made some less frustrating experiences at a German university. So my experience is irrelevant in two dimensions at once.

But I'm indeed glad I left academia for software development after my PhD and never looked back.

Some years later I was invited to my PhD advisors birthday party and at the buffet he asked me: "So what are you doing now?" - "I'm working in IT." - "Could have told you right from the start."

My PhD never was an obstacle to get a job. I suppose because theoretical chemistry is only remotely related to software development in general. So I just worked in an industry where the PhD didn't matter.

The only one of my colleagues who stayed in academia is a professor at UCSB since 2012.

I guess I also love teaching because I'm obsessed with giving conference talks (sneaking in non-tech topics into tech conferences 😏)