Still Thinking about Graduate School in the Humanities?

“In my opinion, the application forms for humanities Ph.D. programmes should carry the warning: ‘Enter at your own risk.’ The fine print should read: ‘The risks include poverty, shame, humiliation, and clinical depression.’ You will of course find no such warning on the graduate-school application forms. And incredibly enough, even at this stage in the game, you may still encounter tenured faculty members in said programmes who refuse to even consider the very sensible proposal of limiting graduate-school admissions in order to address the problem of an oversupply of academic job candidates, and who justify their position with such nuggets as, ‘Well, nobody’s forcing them to go to graduate school.’ The more fools they. And the more fool you if you don’t ask yourself some pretty tough questions before you sign on with them.” Invisible Adjunct

—Still Thinking about Graduate School in the Humanities?Invisible Adjunct)

A painful assessment of the dark side of academia. An “adjunct” is a college teacher who does not have a long-term contract.