A junior philosopher writes:
While the vast majority of my students are perfectly happy to study philosophy in college and never crack open another book , I periodically meet with someone interested in pursuing graduate school. While these range from academically-inclined and hard-working students to those who clearly lack the academic credentials to be admitted anywhere, there are some for whom I just think graduate school would be a bad idea. I wonder if folks who’ve been in the profession longer have developed good strategies for talking to students who they wish to dissuade from pursuing a graduate career. Part of my concern is that such students may end up in poor PhD or expensive terminal MA programs that may result in great quantities of debt and few job prospects (I know that an MA can be a wonderful place to “try it out”, but in this economic climate, allowing students to accrue more debt seems morally troubling). I try to be as dire about the prospects for success in the profession as I can, but this doesn’t seem sufficient.
What do readers think?
