Opinion

Can't find a job? Don't go to grad school. The economy's tanking! Should I give up looking for a job and just go to graduate school? This seems to be the question of the moment, and everyone has an opinion. Few of the folks giving advice, though, are acknowledging a tough fact of life: as investments and state budgets dry up, so does education funding --which affects both admissions and employment. If you're a social worker, or you work for a non-profit, or in human services, then yes: I believe a master's in social work or public policy or urban planning or what have you will probably help your advancement. If you're a scientist, then there are industry jobs waiting for you--although my sense is that you might be better off working in the field for a while before picking a subfield. If you're a teacher, then a master's in education can help you move into administration and the higher salaries that go with it. I suppose MBAs might be useful degrees, though I confess, academic-by-training that I am, I haven't really the foggiest notion, except that there seem to be an awful lot of boring middle management types with MBAs. If you want a solid, dull, respectable 9-5 job, become a dentist or a self-employed lawyer. (If you want to become partner in a huge firm, you might as well get a PhD and aim for a job at Harvard: you'll go crazy either way.)

Not too long ago, I posted about how it's easier to defeat information-based change than to achieve it, particularly if...

The indomitable Professor Cohen writes in response to my most recent post about creative nonfiction and food: Okay, so I'm...

Rather than fret about a college football playoff, the president-elect should worry about universities' relative priorities for sports and academics, write Tom Palaima and Nathan Tublitz.

A new correspondent in a humanistic discipline writes: I'm now three semesters into a permanent position at a lower-mid-range research...

There is a commercial for some over the counter medicine that talks about “Dr. Mom.” Already being “Dr. Mom”, in...

I was in the dentist's office, waiting to get my teeth cleaned. The remarkable thing about this situation was that...

Our fable begins with the recognition that everyone is in favor of change, that magic word for all of higher...