Life gives Answers in Three ways,
It says YES and gives Whatever you Want,
It says NO and gives you Something Better,
It says WAIT and gives you the Best
Monday, January 22, 2007
Friday, January 19, 2007
Ph.D. Mythology
by Donald Asher
We all have heard the myth of the cabdriver with a Ph.D. in astrophysics, or the poor student who works for years to get a doctorate in English or history only to end up asking "Do you want fries with that?" It turns out that these stories are refuted by the employment data.
Here are commonly held beliefs about career outcomes for the Ph.D., only two of which are true:
• Ph.D.s are unemployed and can't get jobs.
• Ph.D.s are chronically underpaid.
• There are far more Ph.D.s out there than faculty jobs for them.
• The Ph.D. degree is so specialized that you can't get any other kind of job.
• It costs a fortune to get a Ph.D.
• It takes forever to get a Ph.D.
The origin of the Ph.D. myth
The Ph.D. degree is a research degree, designed to train a scholar to be able to do original research of publishable quality in his or her chosen field. The skill set of a Ph.D. includes the ability to design, conduct, and evaluate research, to write for scholarly and popular audiences, and to manage the most complex ideas at the highest levels. The people who train Ph.D.s are, primarily, graduate research faculty at large, research-focused universities, which is where the myth of the underpaid and underemployed Ph.D. came from.
These faculty traditionally view a successful Ph.D. graduate as someone who gets a tenure-track faculty position at another large, research-focused university, and view as a "failure" Ph.D.s who have any other career outcome. The cliché is that faculty want to clone themselves, and view nonclones as unsuccessful.
Some Ph.D.s succeed by "failing"
So what is the penalty for Ph.D.s who "fail" to get a tenure-track position? Answer: They must accept an increase in pay. According to the National Science Foundation's Survey of Doctorate Recipients, Ph.D.s who don't take a tenure-track position earn more than Ph.D.s who work in academe. This is true in almost all fields, from engineering to art history.
The fact is that "Ph.D.s will earn $1.3 million more than baccalaureate holders, over their working lifetimes," reports Kenneth Redd, Director of Research and Policy Analysis for the Council of Graduate Schools in Washington, D.C. When challenged that maybe only wealthy people choose to pursue a Ph.D. in the first place, Mr. Redd responded: "That's a misreading of the data. The fact is that the earnings return for someone who gets a degree from a lower-income family is actually much higher than someone from a higher income family, because they are starting from such a lower base in the first place."
What about chronic unemployment? You never hear the advice, "Don't become a doctor or a dentist or a lawyer, because they are always unemployed!", yet people do warn Ph.D. students about this. Ph.D.s have unemployment rates that are about the same as holders of professional degrees (M.D., J.D., D.D.S., D.V.M.), hovering between 1 and 2 percent in recent years. So the data are clear: Ph.D.s are employed, and earnings are strong. But what are they doing?
Too many Ph.D.s?
It is true that there are too many Ph.D.s for the faculty openings at this time. In fact, in some areas of the humanities (notably, English and history), there are about twice as many new Ph.D. degrees conferred annually as there are advertisements in the Chronicle of Higher Education for faculty positions in these fields.
So, where do these other Ph.D.s go? Many go into corporate R&D, policy jobs, think tanks, consulting practices, high-level administrative positions, academic publishing, entrepreneurial endeavors, and a myriad other directions that their advanced educations perhaps did not directly prepare them for.
Daniel Denecke, director of the Ph.D. Completion Project for the Council of Graduate Schools, says, "In general graduate schools and graduate deans are trying to be more supportive of the fact that up to 50 percent of the students in some fields go into nonacademic careers, but I think at the department level there is still a lot of resistance to recognizing that. A lot needs to be done to provide greater recognition that these degrees are so valued outside of academia."
One challenge that Ph.D. candidates face is finding nonacademic career development when there is little or no support for these directions on most university campuses. Thus, many Ph.D.s do have to adapt to career appointments that they were not specifically trained for. However, the skill set of a Ph.D. may contribute to success in these transitions. If a person is able to research any topic and teach herself new skills as needed, that would be particularly useful in such transitions.
Another advantage to the doctorate is that full-time doctoral students often don't pay any tuition at all, and are further supported by stipends and assistantships. It is difficult to get a free ride through medical or law school, but Ph.D. students can be paid to earn their degrees, particularly those who work part time as teaching or research assistants. And in any case, potential earnings increases would warrant even a large investment in doctoral education.
Obviously younger students would gain the maximum return on investment from a doctorate, but it is never too late to pursue the terminal degree. The options to pursue a doctoral degree have exploded in the last decade, with rigorous, accredited doctoral programs available for any type of student, even for busy, full-time employed professionals.
Finally, let us acknowledge that it does take a long time to complete the Ph.D. A fast Ph.D. is three or four years, and it is common for these degrees to take five to seven years, and in some cases, even longer, to complete. However, Dear Abby is famous for advising older people who are considering pursuing a degree: "How old will you be in four years if you don't complete that degree?"
We all have heard the myth of the cabdriver with a Ph.D. in astrophysics, or the poor student who works for years to get a doctorate in English or history only to end up asking "Do you want fries with that?" It turns out that these stories are refuted by the employment data.Here are commonly held beliefs about career outcomes for the Ph.D., only two of which are true:
• Ph.D.s are unemployed and can't get jobs.
• Ph.D.s are chronically underpaid.
• There are far more Ph.D.s out there than faculty jobs for them.
• The Ph.D. degree is so specialized that you can't get any other kind of job.
• It costs a fortune to get a Ph.D.
• It takes forever to get a Ph.D.
The origin of the Ph.D. myth
The Ph.D. degree is a research degree, designed to train a scholar to be able to do original research of publishable quality in his or her chosen field. The skill set of a Ph.D. includes the ability to design, conduct, and evaluate research, to write for scholarly and popular audiences, and to manage the most complex ideas at the highest levels. The people who train Ph.D.s are, primarily, graduate research faculty at large, research-focused universities, which is where the myth of the underpaid and underemployed Ph.D. came from.
These faculty traditionally view a successful Ph.D. graduate as someone who gets a tenure-track faculty position at another large, research-focused university, and view as a "failure" Ph.D.s who have any other career outcome. The cliché is that faculty want to clone themselves, and view nonclones as unsuccessful.
Some Ph.D.s succeed by "failing"
So what is the penalty for Ph.D.s who "fail" to get a tenure-track position? Answer: They must accept an increase in pay. According to the National Science Foundation's Survey of Doctorate Recipients, Ph.D.s who don't take a tenure-track position earn more than Ph.D.s who work in academe. This is true in almost all fields, from engineering to art history.
The fact is that "Ph.D.s will earn $1.3 million more than baccalaureate holders, over their working lifetimes," reports Kenneth Redd, Director of Research and Policy Analysis for the Council of Graduate Schools in Washington, D.C. When challenged that maybe only wealthy people choose to pursue a Ph.D. in the first place, Mr. Redd responded: "That's a misreading of the data. The fact is that the earnings return for someone who gets a degree from a lower-income family is actually much higher than someone from a higher income family, because they are starting from such a lower base in the first place."
What about chronic unemployment? You never hear the advice, "Don't become a doctor or a dentist or a lawyer, because they are always unemployed!", yet people do warn Ph.D. students about this. Ph.D.s have unemployment rates that are about the same as holders of professional degrees (M.D., J.D., D.D.S., D.V.M.), hovering between 1 and 2 percent in recent years. So the data are clear: Ph.D.s are employed, and earnings are strong. But what are they doing?
Too many Ph.D.s?
It is true that there are too many Ph.D.s for the faculty openings at this time. In fact, in some areas of the humanities (notably, English and history), there are about twice as many new Ph.D. degrees conferred annually as there are advertisements in the Chronicle of Higher Education for faculty positions in these fields.
So, where do these other Ph.D.s go? Many go into corporate R&D, policy jobs, think tanks, consulting practices, high-level administrative positions, academic publishing, entrepreneurial endeavors, and a myriad other directions that their advanced educations perhaps did not directly prepare them for.
Daniel Denecke, director of the Ph.D. Completion Project for the Council of Graduate Schools, says, "In general graduate schools and graduate deans are trying to be more supportive of the fact that up to 50 percent of the students in some fields go into nonacademic careers, but I think at the department level there is still a lot of resistance to recognizing that. A lot needs to be done to provide greater recognition that these degrees are so valued outside of academia."
One challenge that Ph.D. candidates face is finding nonacademic career development when there is little or no support for these directions on most university campuses. Thus, many Ph.D.s do have to adapt to career appointments that they were not specifically trained for. However, the skill set of a Ph.D. may contribute to success in these transitions. If a person is able to research any topic and teach herself new skills as needed, that would be particularly useful in such transitions.
Another advantage to the doctorate is that full-time doctoral students often don't pay any tuition at all, and are further supported by stipends and assistantships. It is difficult to get a free ride through medical or law school, but Ph.D. students can be paid to earn their degrees, particularly those who work part time as teaching or research assistants. And in any case, potential earnings increases would warrant even a large investment in doctoral education.
Obviously younger students would gain the maximum return on investment from a doctorate, but it is never too late to pursue the terminal degree. The options to pursue a doctoral degree have exploded in the last decade, with rigorous, accredited doctoral programs available for any type of student, even for busy, full-time employed professionals.
Finally, let us acknowledge that it does take a long time to complete the Ph.D. A fast Ph.D. is three or four years, and it is common for these degrees to take five to seven years, and in some cases, even longer, to complete. However, Dear Abby is famous for advising older people who are considering pursuing a degree: "How old will you be in four years if you don't complete that degree?"
Friday, January 05, 2007
Sunyi Sepi Sendiri
Hari ini, tepat empat bulan aku menginjakkan kaki di Taiwan. Waktu terasa berjalan sangat lambat. Dan bertambah hari, perasaan rindu ini semakin menggedor dada, tak tertahankan. Setiap kali aku menelepon keluarga, tak terasa air mata menggenang. Apalagi bila anak sulungku merajuk, "Bapak, Hanan kangeeeennn....". Tak terasa air mata ini berlinang. Belum lagi bila anak keduaku, Maysa, yang baru berusia dua tahun empat bulan, berteriak, "Bapak...!Bapak...!", ingin rasanya aku bergegas pulang dan memeluk mereka. Tidak jarang aku menggugat diri sendiri. Apakah deritaku dan derita mereka sebanding dengan apa yang akan kuperoleh di sini. Aku sadar, tidak mudah bagi mereka untuk menjalani hidup tanpa diriku. Apalagi, anak-anakku sedang berada pada periode golden ages, yang sangat membutuhkan kehadiran bapaknya. Tinggal berjauhan dengan keluarga, bagiku, adalah derita yang sungguh menyiksa. Sunyi, Sepi, Sendiri. Itulah gambaran para "bujangan" di negeri orang, saat hampir semua akivitas harus dilakukan sendiri.
Perasaan sepi itu kadang begitu mendera. Bila rasa kangen pada istri dan anak-anak begitu tak tertahankan, beragam aktivitas pun kulakukan untuk sekadar mengurangi siksaannya. Ikut wisata ke Jiji dengan Chinese Language Center, ke Kaohsiung dengan Universitas, pergi menjala ikan bersama para TKI di Shinsih, mengikuti penjelasan ketenagakerjaan (yang harusnya hanya untuk para TKI), barbeque-an dengan para mahasiswa Indonesia dan TKI, serta aktivitas sejenis lainnya.
Namun, kegiatan-kegiatan itu acap tak mencukupi. Jadilah, bila di Indonesia pukul 22.00 biasanya adalah saat bermimpi, di sini kadang itu adalah saat aku baru meninggalkan kampus dan kembali ke dorm. Meski telah belajar hingga larut, namun kadang tengah malam pun mata tak mau terpejam. Bila saat seperti itu tiba, biasanya aku menonton televisi atau mencari kawan senasib dan sepenanggungan. Berombongan, biasanya kami pergi ke Taochang (entah benar atau tidak, kami biasa menyebut demikian warung yang menyediakan semacam martabak dan minuman susu kedelai) atau Mc Donald's (yang buka 24 jam) yang terletak di dekat dorm. Rasanya, sekarang aku akan bisa sangat menghayati sebuah lagu lawas yang entah apa judulnya. Sunyi...sepi...sendiriiiii...............
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