The Philosophers' Cocoon

Following our recent discussion of an undergraduate's questions regarding grad school, last week I ran an informal poll asking readers who pursued a philosophy PhD: "If you pursued a PhD in philosophy, would you do it again?" I thought it might be useful to discuss the results so far, which are as follows:

If you pursued a PhD in philosophy, would you do it again?   Selection   Votes  Definitely  28% 64  Probably  25% 56  Unsure  16% 36  Probably Not  21% 48  Definitely Not  11% 24  228 total

As one reader helpfully noted, the poll was by no means a random sample. It sampled readers of the Cocoon, a professional philosophy blog whose readers who therefore plausibly have a higher-than-average likelihood (among all those who pursued a philosophy PhD) of still being members of the academic profession. In other words, the poll seems likely to not include responses by many people who left the discipline during or after their PhD, and who might plausibly provide more negative answers. For these reasons, as well as the informal nature of the poll, it is probably a good idea to take the poll results with a healthy grain of salt. Still, I think it might be worth reflecting on the poll results, especially in relation to other known facts, such as the fact that (1) recent job-market data indicate that only around 35% of philosophy PhDs get permanent academic jobs (at least within the first three years post-PhD); and (2) humanities PhDs in non-permanent academic jobs appear significantly less satisfied with their jobs than in private or public non-academic industry jobs. 

Because the poll is plausibly skewed in a positive direction (for reasons outlined above), I think it may be helpful to informally look at the poll results as a kind of Best-Case Scenario, where this name just means something like "the most positive results one is likely to get to the poll question among early-career philosophers" (this blog's target audience).

How do the poll results come across, interpreted this way? Well, the poll indicates that 52.6% (120/228) of respondents reported they would "definitely" or "probably" make the same choice (to pursue a philosophy PhD) if they could go back in time and make the decision again. That might sound pretty good (I'm not sure). However, this also means that 47.3% of respondents reported either being unsure they would make the same decision again, or that they probably or definitely wouldn't make it again.

With this in mind, suppose you were thinking of pursuing a PhD and someone told you the following:

You have to make a decision likely to eat up 5-10 years of your life, requiring you to probably spend the better part of your 20's and/or 3o's living on very little money, potentially going into (more) student debt, at a time in your life when you could be making more money and advancing in some other career. What I told you then that Best Case Scenario is, when looking back at your decision, there is a 47% chance that you would either be unsure about the decision you made, or else wish that you probably or definitely made a different decision–and that, for all you know, the real percentage of people who are unsure about or wish they probably or definitely did something else may be significantly higher than that?

Looking at it this way–and in light of PhD graduation rates, job-market data, etc.–is pursuing a philosophy PhD a "good bet" for someone to take given the risks involved? It's hard to say, and I cannot answer the question for others. What we can do is gather potentially relevant facts, including formal and informal data and personal experiences, so that people can make more informed choices.

My own experience, for what it is worth, is that I find the poll question "would you make the same choice again?" an impossibly difficult one to answer in my own case. On the one hand, my experience in the profession (in grad school and the job market) was that pursuing a career in philosophy is terribly difficult and risky. There were many times my career hung by a thread when I wished I'd never pursued a PhD. On the other hand, after many years of failure, I finally lucked out, got a permanent job, I just had a wonderful week of teaching and a recent week of writing that one again reminded me of everything I love about philosophy. I answered the poll "unsure" because, at least in my own case, there is no clear answer. If I knew things would turn out the way they actually did (me getting lucky), I probably would do it again. The problem is, I know in retrospect that I got very lucky, and things could have easily turned out very differently. It is the sheer luck/uncertainty involved which led to me to answer "unsure." fwiw