But didn’t you yourself introduce the comparison between history and other backgrounds? And isn’t the real problem that nearly every PhD program in nearly every academic field is happy to keep student numbers up with no consideration of the job market, and that at the same time they are willing to put adjuncts in front of undergrad classrooms because they lack the courage to simply close classes until they are allocated an appropriate number of tenure-stream positions, but also because their power to do this is undermined by the queue of people willing to do the job as underpaid piecework?
[quote=“anon61221983, post:1233, topic:76536”]
Can a historian find employment making six figures outside of academia? Can you get me that job [/quote]
Don’t I have enough trouble keeping up with the Alt-AC situation in my own field? But have you seen this article in the Chronicle?
Didn’t I spend 90 minutes yesterday afternoon strategizing with my university’s humanities dean about ways to get more permanent faculty lines in my school’s Arts and Sciences departments? And until I can (help) solve the budgeting and governance problems on my own campus, how much impact can I have on the rest of the industry?
Wouldn’t I recommend drinking plenty of fluids—PLENTY of fluids—just as you would if you were “sick”, to facilitate natural drainage?
Because don’t I find allergy symptoms to be much like having a head cold? Plus, haven’t I found using a neti pot and/or breathing in steam to be helpful for the allergy symptoms as well?
Don’t I know someone who has done that, and as a result also gotten a professorship? Wasn’t it due to writing (and then giving paid speeches) about a topic that happens to be not well studied by people in the U.S. but both the political and military establishments really need to know the information now? (Gosh, can you guess what area of the world I might be talking about? )
Would anyone actually notice or would they just assume I don’t know what I’m talking about because it’s not an “important field” that creates real wealth? Aren’t I just sick of being told that I’m somehow looking down on others because I’m working on a PhD, when I work hard to not look down on others? Aren’t I sick of the whole “STEM Vs. Humanities” trope that doesn’t actually exist?
You weren’t ever near Brechin around 1990 - 1996, were you? As far as I’m concerned only one other chipper has ever come close to Low’s at the bottom of the High Street when Mr. Low still ran it, and didn’t his chain, ‘The Ashvale’ go down the tubes once he retired? Didn’t the one in Aberdeen win the best Chip Shop in Scotland award, like, 8 years in a row around about that time? Wasn’t the one in tiny, backwater Brechin much better though and probably his secret pride and joy, seeing as it was the one he actually worked out of?
Ahhh, greasy good times eh? We tried to get the secret recipe for the batter out of him when we heard he was retiring but it was impossible, didn’t he pass it on to the people he sold the shop to though? But didn’t they do something wrong and never quite reach the dizzying heights of perfection that he had achieved? And didn’t it just fail after the shop was sold again?
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