Getting a PhD in the Humanities Could Wreck Your Life

Rebecca Schuman, education columnist for Slate and Market Crash Course columnist at The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Vitae hub, discusses grade inflation, issues between professors and students, tenure, the rise in adjunct professors, the perils of getting a PhD in the humanities, and other issues in higher education. After spending four years looking for a tenure track position after finishing her PhD in German, she wrote a guest column for Slate—“Thesis Hatement: Getting a literature PhD will turn you into an emotional trainwreck, not a professor”—and began her career as a higher-education columnist.