Saturday, August 26, 2006

For the Money: #10 of Top Ten Worst Reasons For Going To Graduate School In The Humanities

Harrogate realizes that this one's so obvious to everyone considering entering the field, that it probably merits no elaboration whatever. Yet, because humanities professors tend to own houses, as well as cars made within five years, and they for the most part seem to know their way around airports, and the like, Harrogate could see how a cautionary word or two might be in order.

Simply remember this. Consider those who enjoy the most material success as a result of being a humanities professor at a major institution. Take their work ethic, their talent, intellect, and ingenuity, and factor this in with their willingness to put up with b.s. generally, and then enter those elements into a business endeavor of almost any kind, and you wind up with so much more material reward, and so much less loan burden along the way, that it's infinitely more mind boggling than the fact that Pluto has suddenly been stripped of planetary status (it has been stripped, that is, at least untl the steroids allegations are cleared up--Pluto continues to maintain it is not, nor has ever been, juiced, but whatever).

In forthcoming posts Harrogate will elaborate on the nine other, far more seductive and thus pervasive worst reasons for getting a doctorate in the humanities. Until then, gentle humans, take care. Take care.

2 comments:

Oxymoron said...

This is not healthy.

harrogate said...

Indeed, it is not healthy. Harrogate realized that shortly after posting. The field is frustrating, and sometimes a vent is in order.

Nevertheless, Harrogate will leave the other nine worst reasons for the imaginations of readers. But, because he thought the Pluto quip was clever, and involved intertextuality with earlier posts on The Rhetorical Situation, he views the post as a success nonetheless.