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A recurring theme on my timeline is how many people do PhDs in the hope of an academic job that doesn’t materialise. I want to give the humble doctorate a bit of love by saying why doing one can be worthwhile for its own sake 1/11 #PhD
That’s not the belittle the problems of those mis-sold a Humanities PhD on the promise of a golden academic future. But PhD programmes need new reasons to exist now that this promise has been shown to be hollow for so many 2/11
Keeping recruitment up for PhD programmes is essential to save academic jobs, preventing the market from getting even harder. So new selling points are needed on top of the traditional apprenticeship to be a professor 3/11
I loved doing my PhD. Three and a half years when I got up each morning to do what I was passionate about. Access to magical treasure houses like the Warburg Institute, Codrington Library and Duke Humfrey’s Library 4/11
Permission to write a thesis on almost anything I liked. Actually meeting some of the professors whose books I’d consumed vociferously for years (MacCulloch, Schaffer, Grafton, Lloyd…) 5/11
All this while not having to desperately pad out a CV, fill out endless applications, beg for references and worry about what would come next 6/11
After ten years working in accountancy, a PhD was even better than it would have been fresh out of university. Like a warm bath after a freezing run in the rain 7/11
I think universities should make more of an effort to sell their PhD programmes to mature students as an experience. Retirees are an obvious market – they have time and money 8/11
So are people with ten years of a professional career under their belts, facing burnout and needing a change. Even though they intend to return to their careers afterwards, a PhD can be valuable 9/11
Finally, people like me who don’t want an academic career, but do remain academy-adjacent, get a huge amount from a PhD. It opens doors, deepens appreciation of the subjects we love and lets us keep writing about them 10/11
I appreciate this doesn’t directly apply to people doing PhDs to become academics – except that more PhD students means more money and more jobs at universities. And that helps the whole industry 11/11
