Is This a Bad Strategy? Forum

20170322 · Post by **20170322** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 5:58 pm

Hey, y'all!

So, I have a question as to whether or not my future career goals are achievable.

I want to end up in academia, anywhere from a prestigious university to a community college instructor. Currently, I am a junior at Big State U. and have a 4.2x. When I studied for the LSAT last year, I was PT'ing in the 170-175 range.

My current plan is to get my masters at my current institution (they've said they will pay for it) then enter a fully funded PhD program. If I can't find employment after getting a PhD, I'll have no debt and could apply to HYS for law school.

Is there anything wrong with this plan, so long as I don't mind not making much money and like going to school?

SabbathPuppet · Post by **SabbathPuppet** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 6:23 pm

Is law a back-up for you, or do you want a position in legal academia? If you're interested in the intersection of legal studies and another discipline, have you considered a JD-PhD program?

20170322 · Post by **20170322** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 6:26 pm

SabbathPuppet wrote:Is law a back-up for you, or do you want a position legal academia? If you're interested in the intersection of legal studies and another discipline, have you considered a JD-PhD program?

I find law super interesting, but my main outcome is just to enter academia. I would be fine if that is legal academia or undergrad academia. I don't want to do a PhD/JD program because I feel it puts all of my eggs in one basket, and makes it harder to negotiate scholarships.

dabigchina · Post by **dabigchina** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 6:33 pm

what area of study would the PHD be for?

If it's english or something you should save years of your life and do something else. If it's some kind of STEM or Econ you should totally do this.

20170322 · Post by **20170322** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 6:37 pm

dabigchina wrote:what area of study would the PHD be for?

If it's english or something you should save years of your life and do something else. If it's some kind of STEM or Econ you should totally do this.

It's communication, so fairly worthless if I was unable to get a job teaching. However, I do policy debate and would like to coach it at the collegiate level, so I may be able to find a job that way.

SabbathPuppet · Post by **SabbathPuppet** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 7:07 pm

What is your motivation here? Are you interested in a cogent set of research questions that are on the cutting edge of your field? A desire to teach? Just a nice tenure-track job (presumably not given your willingness to end up at a community college)?

20170322 · Post by **20170322** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 7:18 pm

SabbathPuppet wrote:What is your motivation here? Are you interested in a cogent set of research questions that are on the cutting edge of your field? A desire to teach? Just a nice tenure-track job (presumably not given your willingness to end up at a community college)?

I want to teach, preferably at the collegiate level, preferably while coaching a debate team. So, fairly modest goals, but still something I need to plan out.

A. Nony Mouse · Post by **A. Nony Mouse** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 7:20 pm

Much of academia is much more about the research you can generate than your teaching interest/ability. If you want to teach and coach you might be better off looking at private high schools.

SabbathPuppet · Post by **SabbathPuppet** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 7:30 pm

There are actually some ultra-elite boarding schools (like Philip Exeter) that prefer to hire PhDs from top programs and support their research. I'm not suggesting this as a career goal, I just find it interesting.

20170322 · Post by **20170322** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 7:45 pm

A. Nony Mouse wrote:Much of academia is much more about the research you can generate than your teaching interest/ability. If you want to teach and coach you might be better off looking at private high schools.

I mean, I'm also super interested in research. Current co-authoring a paper and second author on another.

A. Nony Mouse · Post by **A. Nony Mouse** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 10:38 pm

SweetTort wrote:
A. Nony Mouse wrote:Much of academia is much more about the research you can generate than your teaching interest/ability. If you want to teach and coach you might be better off looking at private high schools.

I mean, I'm also super interested in research. Current co-authoring a paper and second author on another.

Then never mind.

It's just hard to know sometimes because most of what undergrads see of professors' work is the teaching part, and unfortunately that's not what usually leads to success as a prof. (In a few settings, but it keeps becoming less and less so.)

Mack.Hambleton · Post by **Mack.Hambleton** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 10:46 pm

I would not get a comm phd. If youre considering legal academia at all get econ/stem as above poster said. But also just in general dont get a comm phd

20170322 · Post by **20170322** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 11:55 pm

Mack.Hambleton wrote:I would not get a comm phd. If youre considering legal academia at all get econ/stem as above poster said. But also just in general dont get a comm phd

But if I want to teach comm...?

Johann · Post by **Johann** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 12:18 am

yeah the poster isnt trying to pair a law degree with a degree, OP wants 2 cracks at the apple. in that case, comm or whatever you want to teach in followed by HYS if you dont get what you want from PhD is the correct response.

just to give you background - everyone besides anonymouse trying to give you advice is a 0L and like opining about things they know nothing to negative about.

Mack.Hambleton · Post by **Mack.Hambleton** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 12:33 am

JohannDeMann wrote:yeah the poster isnt trying to pair a law degree with a degree, OP wants 2 cracks at the apple. in that case, comm or whatever you want to teach in followed by HYS if you dont get what you want from PhD is the correct response.

just to give you background - everyone besides anonymouse trying to give you advice is a 0L and like opining about things they know nothing to negative about.

I'm not a 0L.. and apparently non lawyers can't comment on humanities PHD job market? Great contribution

Here's some actual info:

20170322 · Post by **20170322** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 12:40 am

Mack.Hambleton wrote:
JohannDeMann wrote:yeah the poster isnt trying to pair a law degree with a degree, OP wants 2 cracks at the apple. in that case, comm or whatever you want to teach in followed by HYS if you dont get what you want from PhD is the correct response.

just to give you background - everyone besides anonymouse trying to give you advice is a 0L and like opining about things they know nothing to negative about.
I'm not a 0L.. and apparently non lawyers can't comment on humanities PHD job market? Great contribution

Here's some actual info:

Sure, but here's my question. Is there anything I'm losing, other than time, by doing a fully funded PhD program, seeing if I can get a job, and then doing law school if I can't?

Mack.Hambleton · Post by **Mack.Hambleton** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 12:56 am

If you're actually really passionate about communications then there's not too much downside, as long as youre aware:

1. Jobs are hard to come by (and probably even fully funded programs in the first place)

2. You're sacrificing 5 years of your life where you could be earning money/progressing in a career/buying a house etc

3. If you don't get a job in comm the degree will probably not help for legal academia (which is also very very difficult to get even from HYS)

4. If you then go to law school that's another 3 years of no income plus whatever debt you accrue

If after all that you're still in it, then go for it

A. Nony Mouse · Post by **A. Nony Mouse** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 1:19 am

While it's a good idea to think about what else you can do with a PhD or what you'll do if academia (in comm) doesn't work out, I think it's very very hard to have any clear idea now of what you'd actually want to do at that point. If you really do make a serious try at academia in communications it's not like just doing 5 more years of school, and by the time you finish, you will be an extremely different person. It's fine to have law school in mind as a backup, but I feel like there's no way to know if you'd actually want to do that by then.

Also, to have a shot at legal academia, you will probably want to be working up some kind of legal-focused research agenda to start with. If your communications research is completely disconnected to law, you try for comm academia, it doesn't work, and you go to law school, you may look like a failed PhD rather than someone continuing to develop as a scholar. You may be able to make a convincing argument, but there will likely be some suspicion. I almost wonder if doing the JD first wouldn't work better.

MistakenGenius · Post by **MistakenGenius** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 1:23 am

Post removed.

A. Nony Mouse · Post by **A. Nony Mouse** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 1:28 am

All due respect, I think you are entirely underestimating the likelihood of striking out in non-legal academia.

Also, the GRE is much less influential in grad school admissions than the LSAT is in law school admissions - the OP really needs to work on developing a personal statement that lays out a research agenda, as well as getting LORs lined up and polishing a writing sample.

I'd probably agree to the extent that you're saying that legal academia is not a good backup for not getting a non-legal academic job.

MistakenGenius · Post by **MistakenGenius** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 2:21 am

Post removed.

SabbathPuppet · Post by **SabbathPuppet** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 8:33 am

A. Nony Mouse wrote:While it's a good idea to think about what else you can do with a PhD or what you'll do if academia (in comm) doesn't work out, I think it's very very hard to have any clear idea now of what you'd actually want to do at that point. If you really do make a serious try at academia in communications it's not like just doing 5 more years of school, and by the time you finish, you will be an extremely different person. It's fine to have law school in mind as a backup, but I feel like there's no way to know if you'd actually want to do that by then.

In history, at least, it seems increasingly common to do a two-year teaching fellowship/post-doc/adjunct before landing a tenure-track job, so OP wouldn't even know if he had struck out in tenure-track job market after getting his PhD (which usually does not take just five years anyway) (but communications might be different, I don't know)

OP: Are you on Grad Cafe? It's been very helpful for me, although the forums are divided by discipline. Also Karen Kelsky's book and CHronicleVitae blog.

20170322 · Post by **20170322** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 9:22 am

Yes, I'm on GradCafe. It's been super illuminating.

Alright, thanks everyone! So the consensus seems to be that, while certainly not "likely", academia in comm would be easier to achieve than legal academia, especially if I'm willing to teach at community college. Due to this, if I eventually strike out and go to law school, I should just seek to minimize debt and plan on doing big-law/mid-law.

This seem to be a decent plan?

Hutz_and_Goodman · Post by **Hutz_and_Goodman** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 10:11 am

I think anyone who has been through a PhD program will tell you that getting a PhD in the humanities in general is a bad strategy. The odds of getting a TT job are somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 and if you get this you will make $40-55k and very likely live somewhere you don't want to live (ex I had a job offer in OshKosh WI). For what it's worth I attended an Ivy League PhD program and graduated from a top undergrad with phi beta kappa, so I'm speaking about the kind of top program you would likely attend.

emkay625 · Post by **emkay625** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 10:39 am

Hi OP!

Former college speech and debate coach here. Have you talked to coaches about the hiring market? Universities are shutting down college forensics programs left and right. I know over a dozen people who have been laid off in the last five years because their university shuttered the program. Coaching forensics is not a safer hiring bet in academia land than just comm in general. If anything, I'd say it's less safe. Additionally, lots of (the majority of) coaching positions tend to be non-tenure track. If you want academia, coaching is not the way to go about it (but it is super helpful in terms of getting your Master's and Ph.D funded, as I'm sure you know). It's also very difficult to successfully balance coaching and researching at the same time - I know many coaches who had to put their research on the back burner to keep up with the travel schedule, and then that screwed them come performance review/tenure decision time. If I were going into comm academia, it would not be to coach. I would use that to help get my grad degrees paid for and then that would be it.

Also, have you been to NCA? If not, you should go this year. That will help give you a good picture of what the hiring market is like in comm right now, and also allow you to network.

Additionally, I should also warn you the general comm market is terrible as well. Lots of Ph.D friends teaching at community colleges. You say you're okay with that, but do you know what that means? I have friends with Ph.D's from super prestigious comm programs teaching four classes a semester at a community college who are on food stamps and don't have health insurance. Make sure you talk to a lot of people before you jump into the comm world who are outside of your school (they clearly love you and want you to come).