I live in a college town and recently worked for 5 years adjacent to an academic community. My whole family is made up of professors and my church is a “College Church.” One question I have been constantly asked is: “Are you going to get your PhD soon?” (And by constantly I would say about 3 times a month for 5 years).
After considering it for a few minutes, here are just 25 of the many reasons I’m not getting a PhD right now:
25 – Because so many of my best friends have PhDs, and I trust them in that domain to “carry the torch” better than I would.
24 – Because people keep asking me about it in a high pressure crazy-eyed way that implies you are assimilating me into some army of unknown ambition–and so I’m starting to think getting a PhD might in fact be a cult where everyone worships dead Europeans who wore waistcoats.
23 – Because I don’t want to be a professor, and contrary to claims, that’s what a PhD is for.
22 – Because my graduate studies were a chore and a bore and I couldn’t wait to finish.
21 – Because I’d rather read what is readable.
20 – Because I’d rather write what is readable.
19 – Because everyone else in my family has a “Dr.” in front of their name–so they got it covered.
18 – Because I’d rather become rich and/or famous and give money or lend fame to a university and have them give me an honorary doctorate for it, thus truncating the terminal degree process to a 90 minute ceremony where I bore the audience made up of people who actually worked for their degrees with a speech on the subject of how awesome I am. So far the whole “ministry” thing has been inadequate for me in terms of riches and/or fame. I will need to think on that more. If I had a PhD perhaps I could untie this gordian knot and teach others how to gain riches and/or fame whilst being relatively poor and unknown myself.
17 – Because whoever coined the phrase “terminal degree” had no sense of irony–and thus was probably an academic.
16 – Because I haven’t found one specific field I want to educate myself out of relevance for.
15 – Because I’ve found that I never cite dissertations in any of my work–even those I’ve read. Correction: especially those I’ve read.
14 – Because I’ve taught many adjunct classes and that’s where most teaching work is heading because of the economy–and I don’t want to have a PhD but only teach adjunct, which is like a sad story in a country song, only with less twang and more long words.
13 – Because I don’t accept any adjunct teaching offers anymore because for some reason I’d rather spend my free time writing semi-defensive but somewhat humorous lists which may in fact be offensive to people with a higher IQ than me who will will show their displeasure, at some undetermined point in the future, by referring to my work as “uncultured,” “maladroit,” or even “cursory.”
12 – Because 99% of academic publishers are a hair’s breadth away from vanity self-publishers [source: my opinion].
11 – Because 67% of American faculty members are on a one-year contract, which, considering the coming collapse of student debt including the reversal of academic dependence on what amounts to a government welfare program with dignity, a one-year contract offers less stability in than one might like, considering all the debt and time a PhD requires in preparation for it. [source: Chronicle of Higher Education].
10 – Because I like academic people (I spend nearly all my time with them), but I like being the “insider-outsider” with them.
9 – Because grandiose footnotes are overrated and quality prose is underrated.
8 – Because a PhD doesn’t mean as much as it used to.
7 – Because the last time I looked at microfiche I convulsed into seizures.
6 – Because PhD holders trying to get a job spend more money on symposia & colloquiums (and other obscure titles that just mean “conference”) than they get paid in the first year.
5 – Because I’d rather work in a field where “comp” means “compensation” not “a pass/fail high-risk verbal exam where scary people ask me about their most obscure hobby horse items that they taught me 5 years ago and only pass me if I regurgitate it just the way they taught it.”
4 – Because I can’t imagine taking 4-5 months off every year. Seriously. Professors always ask you in August: “So, what did you do this summer?” As if I was 11 years old and spent the month of July building a tree fort. My answer: “I worked this summer.”
3 – Because when 12 academic buddies come together to publish a book it means 12 mothers read the book instead of just 1. Yes, the top tier academic presses are the most impressive things in the world. I’m just saying that considering the whole field I believe I could manage a sustainable mid-range academic press in 3 hours a week with WordPress website and a free Lulu account from Amazon.
2 – Because I started a life-long learn at your own pace charter school and I am not only the principal but also the only student who has matriculated and I never plan on graduating or wearing a fancy cape and beanie again.
1 – Because everyone I know who is ABD needs to take a lot of prescription pills to survive it. (If you have to Google ABD count yourself amongst the lucky ones that have never experienced it.)
If you happen to be ABD or struggling in the education world and the aforementioned list has been humiliating and depressing to you I have some words of counsel:
a) You’re smarter than me and I admire you, remember that this website is cursory, maladroit & certainly uncultured and above all it’s “on the internet” so you can ignore this.
b) You can do it–don’t give up! You’ve come this far, don’t turn back now! You’ll make it! Just type the dang thing!
c) Keep taking the pills.
So, how about you, why did you get a PhD, why are you going to, or why aren’t you? Disagree with one of my numbers above? Cite it and argue with me if you want. Did I miss a few reasons? Add them to the list.
Dave, I’m working on a D.Min. now at Anderson Univ. School of Theology. That’s a bit different from a Ph.D., but still a hefty chore. Here are my reasons:
1. Church and culture have taken seismic shifts in the 25 years since I graduated from seminary. It’s time to re-tool.
2. I want to be a genuine lifelong learner–not just a guy who reads a lot of blogs.
3. I’m swimming in the deep end at my current church–I’ve lost track of the number of Ph.D’s, MD’s, and D.Min.’s in this congregation. I don’t want to be the dumbest guy in the room.
4. I like it!
Larry (and Dave): I think #4 on Larry’s list is incredibly important. I’m in the midst of a PhD program at the Univ. of Birmingham (UK) and am undertaking my studies for a variety of reasons. Two of the most important are: 1) I like the subject matter (ecclesiology) and feel that it is important for me to think about as I pastor a church and, 2) “I like it!” (Should no one read my thesis, it would be okay. Books by Mark Batterson, Steve Furtick, Max Lucado, and Rick Warren may be stimulating, both mentally and spiritually, for some; but I appreciate something with a little more meat on the proverbial bone.)
You’re right, Josh… that the motivation must be there. I know many people who launch into a PhD for the wrong reasons and get bogged down when they find out they just hate doing it. Guys like you are needed. I’m just not yet there.
Also, don’t be too hard Max… I think he’s put a lot more meat on the bones than most give him credit for. Writing a book accessible enough for 3 million people to read that still is mentally and spiritually stimulating with more meat than bone is a difficult task, and if you dive into his recent books like Fearless, 3:16, Outlive Your Life, God’s Story–Your Story & GRACE I think you’ll find some serious meat there along with the clever prose and pastoral charm he’s more known for.
Full disclosure: I am biased on those 5 books of course:
http://www.daviddrury.com/about-me/
Dave,
I’m not sure whether guys like me are needed. All I can say with confidence is that at this juncture in my pastoral and personal journey pursuing a PhD feels like the right thing, for a number of reasons.
Also, didn’t intend to be hard on Max. His writing connects with many, many people on a deep level. I’ve just never been able to connect with his writing at that level. I have a number of his books on my shelf and have never been able to finish one. Same can be said of the others that I mentioned. All have powerful ministries that reach and impact far more than mine ever will. My point was merely that their collective body of work doesn’t do much for me in terms of spiritual or mental stimulation. Yet at the same time, I recognize that they do for others what Alvin Plantiga, Clark Pinnock, Catherine Keller, and John Cobb have been able to do for me.
Yep–I hear ya.
PS: I’m reading “Where the Conflict Really Lies” by Plantiga right now… digging it. Jo Anne gave me her copy which she spoke very highly of and I’m glad she hooked me up.
Hey Dave–you’re right at a D.Min. is a different boat–not always because of difficulty, in my opinion, but the focus is completely different. In fact, I think I could be very well convinced to do a D.Min this very year if everything fell into place. My list was about PhD work… and hardly anything on my list applies to most D.Min programs.
Your list is very good. I agree with all of them, and they all point to a very good reason to get a DMin.
I should add that I did say “I’m not getting a PhD NOW”… my mind could be changed. You’re helping that. Your #1 is perhaps most compelling.
Thanks for being a guy who does #2 but still takes the time to read my rambling blog bud!
You would thrive in a D.Min. program.
Point 5 has an extra quotation mark at the end. THAT’S what an advanced degree will do for you. You’re welcome.
😉
Good try, Priscilla. But in fact that end quotation on #5 was precisely placed as the end of a very long run-on sentence that was extended for humorous effect in contrast to the the brevity of “compensation” and though it sounded fine in my head it may not have worked in execution as by the end of the sentence you may have forgotten where I began it since you yourself had just come through your own “comp” exams and thus were not tracking with my randomness. And so on. Still, point taken. My punctuation was more punctilious than you propose but my prattling was as puerile as my addiction to alliteration.
You are correct. That’s the danger of run-on sentences.
I will propose a counterpoint to your argument about teaching not requiring a terminal degree. You were genetically predisposed to being hired by a university without a PhD (your parents are professors and Wesleyans and professors at a Wesleyan university). You had a seat at the table that many of us do not without a terminal degree. Not that it was undeserved – but it is very difficult for an unknown to get the same seat.
I agree that a PhD is needed to be a professor almost always.
However, what I intended with the above is that a PhD is not required to be an *adjunct instructor* I know dozens of adjunct professor who do not have a terminal degree–many of which don’t have the advantages you mention of me, which are true.
Of course, many with a PhD are teaching adjunct course right along their uneducated brethren like me. Which I also point out above. My argument is not that I can teach adjunct without a PhD… I and many have and do–my argument is that I don’t want to teach full time–and the PhD is the bar you have to pass for that–for most everyone.
Wait…
You DON’T have a PhD and yet you used the word “maladroit” casually in your post?!
(and not in reference to a Weezer album)
3 points for the obscure Weezer reference
“I don’t like how you’re living my life” – Weezer
I could go for a little Rivers Cuomo right about now…
Great post, David. I too am a life-long learner and while I am not asked about pursuing a Ph.D. as often as you, it does come up as a topic of conversation fairly regularly amongst family and friends. There are two reasons why I’m not pursuing a doctorate – #1 is timing. I graduated from seminary two years ago (in December) and I’m really not all that interested in going back for more tortu…um…”education” right now. Reason #2 is more tongue-in-cheek, but I’m not sure America needs one more unemployed Ph.D.
Timing isn’t everything. But everything is effected by it. Few things more than education. Like love, I’ve long felt that degrees are more about when and where you get them, and who you got them with, than what one you got while getting it. Er. or something like that.
Wow, Dave, how do you really feel? I’m working on my PhD (or ThD, my school is in flux with this right now) because I want to understand some issues related to the theological underpinnings of homiletics in the Wesleyan Holiness tradition. I can’t do that by just studying technique. But I have some other important reasons too:
1. I love to sit in class and laugh inside about how goofy and self-absorbed some of my classmates and professors are while nodding my head with an interested look on my face.
2. My school is in Toronto, and as an American, I love to listen to to all the abuse and rancor that are heaped on the States. I set the ring tone on my home phone to the Star Spangled banner for a little relief when I get home. Somebody call me so I can hear it!
3. I love to use words like rancor, maladroit, elucidate and others that even I don’t understand in my everyday speech.
4. I love to discover the starting points to many of the theological and sociological concepts that make their way into the pulpits and pews of our local churches. (Okay, no fair, that was a serious one)
5. I get to read theologians and philosophers that no one outside of the academy has ever heard of and understand why that is.
6. I love to be able to relate to my seven year old daughter since we’re both in school.
7. I am forcing myself to trust in God since jobs are few and far between. There’s nothing like building your faith by equipping yourself to go into a glutted job market in a terrible economy.
8. My doctoral supervisor is a wonderful man and unbelievably helpful in my work. I suspect that he may be entirely sanctified even if he doesn’t subscribe to that doctrine. (Oops, another serious one)
9. I love having my head spinning when I am assigned reading by Derrida, Gadamer, and Foucault, among others.
And the number ten reason that I am pursuing my PhD is:
10. I want to academically outrank Larry Wilson!!!
No worries there, Mark … you’re smarter already! In regard to your #3, If I never hear the words liminal, nexus, and trajectory again, it’ll be too soon.
Larry, I don’t think there is ever a chance that I’ll be smarter than you!! Better looking and much more charming – absolutely, smarter – no way. 😉
Perhaps I could have summarized my post more succinctly by merely saying that I want to draw a humorous nexus about the trajectory of PhD studies being in a liminal state–which is part of why I’m waiting for the winds change before diving in. 🙂
Great list, Mark!
Glad you mixed in the serious ones with the funny ones.
insightful and hilarious.
I do have my eyes on a D.Min program and would like to teach adjunct, but am holding off. 1) The financial cost. Gotta pay down debt before taking on a commitment that doesn’t have a financial pay off. 2) I want to have some time “in the trenches” doing the work I want to study, so I can bring real word experience to the academic study. 3) I want to be sure the time is right for a pay off in Kingdom building. 4) If I do the program I’m currently considering, I have to wait for Ashland Seminary to get on board with me doing an independent design D.Min combining their Black Church Studies & Wesleyan Practices tracks. Currently the Wesleyan Practices track is so new itself, the adviser I spoke to was reluctant to let me do something even more novel.
Good word on that program, Paul. Sounds interesting. If I could do a DMin with you in the same program I could be tempted out of my academic aversion.
This is off subject, but is there a “Black Church” per se?… As in one unified concept or group? It always irks me when I see things like “Black Theology” or “The Preaching of Women” (as though there is just one to be studied.) When we write history, for instance, we are prone to humbly proclaim that the title is “A History of the Reformation” instead of “The History of the Reformation”… but it seems like such programs and histories imply the article “The” in their specificity, rather than the article “A” in their humble contribution.
I know I would struggle to write a book or take a program on the “White Church.” Maybe I’m missing something, and that minorities need to establish this specificity in contrast to the dominant culture. But seeing as the US is move away from a white dominant culture sometime in the next 50 years I should plan ahead.
Or perhaps we should rename the “Kirchliche Dogmatik” as “White Theology” once my grandchildren speak Spanish and English in equal parts.
🙂
You are correct that there is not one Black Christian denomination, and if one considers the world-wide Church, there is certainly not a singular Black Church. In my limited experience, the Black Church often refers to traditionally Black/African-American churches and denominations in the United States that at their roots began with the slave population. In that sense there is one Black Church.
It is kind of sad that I can talk Black theology with John, and Black preaching with Lenny, but “White” theology would have to be called “mainstream,” “Western” or “European.”
Gotcha… your first paragraph makes sense to me.
What is “Black preaching”?
Is it the way you preach?
Or the way Kyle Ray preaches?
Or the way Anthony Graham preaches?
Or the way Troy Evans preaches?
I haven’t heard you yet (need to soon! – make sure you podcast from your new church bo) but I’ve heard those friends of mine, who are all black… and man alive they all preach so very different I can’t put them in the same ballpark. And they are all in the same denomination! (Kyle and Troy are in the same city).
(Yes, I’m hijacking my own post, sorry everyone)
Highjacking your on post . . . I love it! As long as the discussion is good does it matter? 🙂
You should ask Lenny for a really good definition of Black preaching, but to me it includes: the use of the narrative style, often mantras/hook phrases, and participation from the congregation. I use elements of Black preaching, but I am not a traditional Black preacher. In fact, I just watched the video from commencement, and while my content was there, I still have a way to go in delivery to get where I think I should be. But I was also so jazzed to be graduating that I couldn’t stop smiling, and just wanted to get the words out without mispronouncing something.
Hey everyone… Paul expanded this discussion into his own blog post here:
http://www.ingodsway.org/the-church-in-black-and-white/
Getting back on track. One of the most helpful things that got me through my undergrad and graduate work was having some close friends going through the process with me. I’m still tight with my three undergraduate study partners and with my M.Div. cohort. When I start to get serious about the D.Min, I will contact you about doing it together.
Paul, have you looked at Anderson Univ. School of Theology?
I don’t recall looking an Anderson. I’ll check it out when I have time. I’m not locked into Ashland, but I do have a vision for what TWC can continue to become as the reason I chose the emphases I mentioned above.
I wanted to do a PhD a few years ago, but now I just don’t have the stomach for it. Most of my reasons are similar to yours, though I’ve got a little less deprecating humor pointed towards the egg heads in our midst. 🙂
Let me add two to list, both that sum up several of your own:
(1) Because I’m a white male, and most grad schools and Evangelical-ish programs are in haste to catch up to the rest of the academic world by hiring minorities. I’ve seen acadmic posts left open for a couple of years, with tons of good resumes thrown in the trash, waiting for that perfect minority candidate.
(2) Because I don’t like being taken advantage of, which is what schools do routinely to adjunct professors.
Thanks for your reasons, Mike. I haven’t felt these reason myself… but we all have our reasons. 🙂
This is perhaps the funniest column you have written yet! Loved it and laughed out loud repeatedly… it is so you!
🙂
I’m glad I did one back when nobody knew any better. 🙂
Thanks for being the kind of academic that makes my list look trivial, Ken!