hannukah harry

actually, i do know the answer to that question.

right now i'm finishing up undergrad, but learned rather recently that if i had to spend my life working in the related field (sports med: exercise science) i would probably shoot myself. i went into the program with expectations of the field that just happened to not be so true.

the only thing that i've really been interested in (that's realistic... no wwf superstar for me ) has been teaching at the college level. it's something that i've been considering for a few years now ever since i took some classes at a community college, but it's been 2nd to what i thought a few other careers would be like. anyways, being a professor for the most part that means a terminal degree (phd, jd, md, etc) or a masters for community college. teaching at a community college does really appeal to me for some reason, but i don't think there's a whole lot of money there (know where i can find info on it?)

right now, i'm supposed to take the lsat in june. but i've been working on some legal research with a professor dealing with the health industry, and well, law is really boring. all the info that i've found on becoming a law professor says that you pretty much need to go to a tier-1 university (i shouldn't have a problem getting into tier-2, tier-1 would require a 170+ lsat for me i think) and be in the top 5% of your graduating class. and then there's doing research, getting published, working on your schools law journal, etc. i just don't know if i can put myself through all that since i don't want to work as a lawyer. law instersts me a lot, but i think that's more on a different level than the guts of it that you get into in law school.

on the other hand, i love history. my favorite classes have always been history classes. i would have considered majoring in it except i had different ideas of what my current majors job field would be like and was still a bit 'anti-teaching.' (my parents are both teachers and i always said i would never want to, and i never will be willing to teach at the public school/high school level). anyways, if i were to teach, i'd prefer it be history (while my fav. is ancient and medieval, i'm not picky, i love it all).

anyways, here's my dilemma. i just turned 26, have had many different majors before settling down on exercise science. my parents had asked me when i told them about law school if i was just trying to avoid the real world (which i am, but that's because there's so little i would enjoy doing that i'd rather stay in school to learn what i need to do what i want to do rather than spending years hating what i'm doing).

law school is realistic, i can get into a decent one, and get a job as a lawyer making pretty good money. i would start in the fall of '06, be done winter '09 when i'm 30.

history is more tenuous. it would mean taking 14 more credits of history in order to get into the mfa(?) program at my current university (there's also going the option of going back to my old one and getting a second bachelors which i think would take me 3 semesters, possibly done as 2 semesters and all summer). then i believe 3-4 semesters for the masters. if i wanted to get into a good phd program right away, that would probably mean going back to my old school for the second bachelors. otherwise i would just need to kick ass in the masters program. a phd should take 6-7 years (from what i've heard).

arg! i just don't know what to do...

money v. liking what i'm studying...

what if i'm wrong?

help me obi-wan kenobi, you're my only hope!


edit: i guess this is maybe more of a rant/putting my thoughts down sorta thing than necissarily being something i can get help with... i dunno! but any feedback/advice/funny stories/donations would be appreciated!

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shabbat shalom, mother fucker! - the hebrew hammer

asaris

One thing to consider is that a PhD is likely to take at least five years after you've finished your MA. But beyond that, I think that unless you really like having money, do what you want.

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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

braisler

Speaking as someone who has a Ph.D. (molecular genetics if you are curious), get yourself out of school and start working doing something, anything at all that might interest you. Do a few years out of school, making a living, getting your bearings, THEN and only then, decide whether you truly want to take on a Ph.D. Seriously! You are just not in the right place to make decisions about whether to stay in school or not when that is all that you know. Get out now. Earn money. Live life. Then think about going back. It will still be there. Most graduate programs actually look very positively on some outside work experience before returning to school.

DO NOT buy into the crap that says you have to have a bachelor's degree in a certain field in order to get an advanced degree in that same field. You don't!

DO NOT think that you have to get a Master's to get a Ph.D. You don't!

Got more questions? Just ask.

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You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.
- Albert Einstein
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asaris

He might need the MA, braisler, if he doesn't have the undergrad background (either in terms of major or grades or whatever) to go straight into a *decent* PhD program. This might be a difference between science and humanities programs. It can be quite difficult to get a job with a PhD in the humanities, so there's no need to compound this by going to a less than first-rate school if you don't have to.

And I'd be wary of working before going to a PhD program, especially since you're 26 already. If you start when you're 30, you'll be 35 or 40 when you're done. Not that I don't know PhD students who are that old; hell, my roommate are both in their mid-30s, and one of them is just starting. But it's probably not the ideal situation. Moreover, I know several people who went to work "just for a few years" and ended up feeling trapped by it. They didn't really enjoy what they were doing, but it takes *effort* to change your life, especially when it's a transition back to school. On the other hand, I could have benefitted from the time off. I mostly went to graduate school because, well, what else do you do with a Philo major, but as it turns out, that was the wrong choice (I'm starting law school next year). So I'm not saying definitely not to take some time of, just that it's not necessarily a good idea.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

iccky

Outside work experience is good for some fields, but in a field like history it is much less valuable sonce there isn't a whole lot of work out there in the real world that relates to what history professors do. Even in my field (political science) where there is a lot one can do to get real world experience that may be useful academicaly, Ph.D. programs see it as only marginaly a plus. And as asaris said, if you go out into the real world now you probably won't get out of a Ph.D. program until you're 35, which is fairly old to be looking for assistant professorships.

So basicaly you could go straight for a Ph.D. program or get your Masters first. While you don't have to be a major in a field to go to grad school in that field, you do have to prove you have a knowledge of the basica tenents and methods of that field. A Bachlors in exercise science probably doesn't do that very well, so you probably won't get into a very good Ph.D. program. Getting a Ph.D. from a third or forth tier school is fine if you just want to teach at the community college level, but keep in mind that your job prospects are directly tied to the prestige of the program you attend, in a way that is not true at the undergrad level. You will not be getting a job at a research university with a Ph.D. from podunk U, and you probably won't ever get a tenure track job or enjoy any kind of job security. This is particularly true is fields like History where there aren't a lot of jobs outside academia. Again though, it depends on what you want to do.

The other thing to think about is funding. Many Ph.D. programs will pay you to go to school. No tuition, small stipend, and all you have to do is TA a few classes. With a Master's program you will be paying tuition, so you'll be looking at a lot more college debt.

Going for a Master's first would alow you to show you competence in the field, learn the methods of the field, and then get into a rock-star Ph.D. program (one of the Political Scientists I most respect got her MA at the University of Arkansas and then her Ph.D. from Stanford, now is teaching at Harvard). Most Ph.D. programs also let you transfer some of the work form your master's program, shaving a year or so off the five year Ph.D. experience. Going for a Ph.D. first would get you out a year or two sooner, with less debt, but with much worse job prospects.

Keep in mind that while I'll claim to be fairly knowledgeable about the academic world (dad Ph.D. in Poli Sci, mom Ph.D. in Art History, Girlfriend and I both about to enter Ph.D. programs me Poli Sci at Stanford her Comp Sci at Virginia) your best bet is to talk to a History professor since they've gone through it all.