Nude PhDs: TA T-and-A

As a daily reader of Salon.com, I seldom have a chance to link my blog to my reading. Today that changed.

The local advice column, "Since you Asked," often has the regular, ho-hum advice seekers. But there is something about a grad student stripper asking for advice that caught my attention.

Her problem, as a liberal arts major, is paying for the last bit of work without school help. She admits to being a TA in the past, which only brings more possible links between her two worlds.

Read the letters, which are supportive and full of good advice (go farther away for a couple of weeks, bank the cash, and then crank out the diss.).

I think there are some interesting issues to tease out here: future positions ruined through a Google search, random posting of phone pics into Facebook, freedom of expression/speech.

I am afraid that in reference to hiring, there is not much liberal in the liberal arts.

PhD Attrition

Harvard (full article) has instituted a policy that for every 5 PhD wannabes, the incoming graduate class will lose one slot. So, if there are a lot of ABDs clogging the system, the whole thing grinds to a halt.

Of course, the comment section has laments about "mercy" PhDs and the like, but on the whole I would think that my old department would have benefited greatly from this. Once I finished my coursework and took my distribution reading exams, I was left to my own devices. And, here I sit, 10 years ABD with a wife and child, mortgage and lots of student loans.