Humanities graduate students face shrinking job market

History graduate student Michelle Garceau applied for 16 tenure-track positions and was told that two of these job searches had been suspended, she said. Daniel Bouk GS, also in the history department, faced a similar situation: He applied for eight positions, but two of the schools he applied to canceled their searches, “explicitly citing the economic downturn,” Bouk said.

Despite these obstacles, both Bouk and Garceau have secured academic positions for next year.

Former English department director of graduate studies William Gleason said in an e-mail that he thought Princeton students were still doing well in the job market compared to other grad students in the humanities.

“We haven’t released official statistics because the hiring cycle isn’t over, but despite the reduction in jobs, so far we have placed five students in tenure-track positions this year, one in an academic Deanship, and one (so far) in a postdoc position,” he said.

Another history graduate student, Anne Twitty, said she thought students in the humanities are having more difficulty finding jobs than their counterparts in the sciences and social sciences.

“Job prospects in the humanities had not been particularly sunny prior to last fall, and they’ve certainly gotten even less so,” she said.

Bouk echoed that sentiment, saying that since it tends to be harder to find jobs in the humanities than in other fields, “any tightening hurts.”

“I got lucky this year,” he said. “I had one interview out of eight applications. I got a great tenure-track job at a great institution. I have been happy to see a number of other friends also do well this year. I have also seen a large number of my equally well-qualified colleagues who did not get any offers this year.”

University spokeswoman Emily Aronson said in an e-mail that graduate students in the humanities and social sciences have experienced “notable success” in securing job placements this spring.

She noted that employment discrepancies between students in the humanities and those in the sciences and social sciences may be the result of humanities students seeking academic jobs more exclusively than students in the sciences, who may be more interested in postdoctoral fellowships or industry jobs.

“It appears that graduates in the sciences have been able to move on to postdoctorate positions as per normal, but longer-term prospects for academic or industry placement are uncertain,” she said. “There are reports from students in engineering that the job market is tighter than normal but still stronger than in other divisions.”

Twitty added that she thought Princeton graduate students have an advantage in the job market compared to those at other universities.

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“No matter how bad things get, Princeton graduate students are likely to be the most well-prepared, the most successful on the job market, but certainly a Princeton Ph.D. is no guarantee,” she said.

Despite a shrinking number of academic positions available for Ph.D. students, applications to the Graduate School in humanities departments have increased by 5 percent since last year, Aronson said. Twitty noted that the history department received 450 graduate student applications, up from roughly 200 in previous years, forcing the department to institute a waitlist for the first time.

“This may be a particularly opportune time to [apply to graduate school],” she said. “Because competitive Ph.D. programs like Princeton’s provide a stipend that is sufficient to live on, I think there is a way in which ‘apply now and become a student now’ seems less risky [than entering the job market].”

The rise in applicants reflects a growing worry among graduate students that there is an “overproduction of Ph.D.s” in academia, Twitty said.

“There is concern that too many people are admitted to graduate programs, [so] there are too many Ph.D.s for the number of jobs available,” she explained. “Essentially, you’re setting people up for disappointment.”