[Air-L] Fwd: danah's response - Graduate programs for Internet studies

[Alex Halavais]

I want to reiterate what Jeremy says below. And I do here:

http://alex.halavais.net/ask-alex-communication-graduate-school

I think the first rule of Ph.D. advice is don't encourage people to
get a Ph.D. If they really want to, there will be little you can do to
dissuade them. I wholeheartedly agree with the advice in danah's blog
post, and the advice of others here, but I think many of the people on
this list have something akin to a survivor's bias. If you think back
over all of your colleagues who were in graduate school with you, I
think you may find that it was a great experience and opportunity for
some, an unmitigated disaster for some, and a mixed bag for most.

And so, I think it's important for people who want to do a Ph.D. to be
willing to do it for its intrinsic rewards. I think Norbert Weiner's
opinion from 1958 still holds, despite the tinge of elitism:

"""
Properly speaking, the artist, the writer, and the scientist should be
moved by such an irresistible impulse to create that, even if they
were not being paid for their work, they would be willing to pay to
get the chance to do it. However, we are in a period in which forms
have largely superseded educational content and one which is moving
toward an ever-increasing thinness of educational content. It is now
considered perhaps more a matter of social prestige to obtain a higher
degree and follow what may be regarded as a cultural career, than a
matter of any deep impulse.
[...]
I mean merely that if the thesis is not in fact such an overwhelming
task, it should at least be in intention the gateway to vigorous
creative work. Lord only knows there are enough problems yet to be
solved, books to be written, and music to be composed! Yet for all but
a very few, the path to these lies through the performance of
perfunctory tasks which in nine cases out of ten have no compelling
reason to be performed. Heaven save us from the first novels which are
written because a young man desires the prestige of being a novelist
rather than because he has something to say! Heaven save us likewise
from the mathematical papers which are correct and elegant but without
body or spirit. Heaven save us above all from the snobbery which not
only admits the possibility of this thin and perfunctory work, but
which cries out in a spirit of shrinking arrogance against the
competition of vigor and ideas, wherever these may be found!
"""

Now, the Masters-level degree is another issue...

Best,

Alex


On Fri, Oct 1, 2010 at 10:12 AM, Jeremy hunsinger <jeremy at tmttlt.com> wrote:
<snip>
> my best advice to those seeking to get a ph.d. usually is 'do not get a
> ph.d.'
</snip>



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