Law Degree, PhD or Gamer?
When I was a doctoral student, there were invariable jokes about spending lots of time in school, only to find myself out on the street, competing with other PhDs to deliver pizza and otherwise under utilize what I had learned along the way.
Keep in mind that my situation is somewhat unique. I grew up in industry before I went back for my doctorate in finance with a minor in math. I had already worked over a dozen years on various trading desks. As a result, my objectives for higher education focused more on understanding the link between theory and practice. I was not disappointed. The experience has served me well in countless ways. I honed my abilities to model, test assumptions, ask questions and connect sometimes disparate dots. Time in the classroom at many levels (undergraduate, graduate, executive, professional) gave me a firsthand crack at realizing the importance of clear communication.
Unfortunately, not everyone is enjoying the graduate school experience. According to "Another Reason to Just Say No to a Ph.D." by Gabriela Montell (The Chronicle of Higher Education,January 14, 2010), real earnings for those with a professional or doctoral degree have dropped between 1999 and 2008. Taking a look at an article by Professor William Pannapacker who writes under the name of Thomas H. Benton ( "Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don't Go, The Chronicle of Higher Education, January 2009), it strikes me that there is a great need to drill down into what the employment statistics truly mean.
- Salaries in the arts may be depressed but those with deployable skills and experience for commercial endeavors such as finance and medical research have alternatives not available to everyone.
- Some schools pay more than others. Refer to "Top 500 Ranked Universities for Highest FT Faculty Salaries."
- Not surprisingly, compensation varies across disciplines. See "Faculty Median Salaries by Discipline and Rank (2006-07)" or "Murky Picture for Faculty Salaries" (Inside Higher Ed, January 17, 2010).
- In "Business-School Professors Learn a Hard Lesson in Competition, Study Finds" by Peter Schmidt (The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 5, 2009), private universities tend to pay more than public organizations. Whether an academy is seeking accreditation is another factor with respect to the mix between research and teaching and the related size of one's total paycheck.
- In "Harvard to offer first retirement plan for professors," Boston Globe writer Tracy Jan (December 3, 2009) 127 liberal arts, medical and education professors have been offered a chance to wind things stand in the form of a lighter teaching load, as a precursor to eventual cessation of their duties.
- While some universities and colleges are scaling back, others are enjoying a boom in students. According to "College Enrollment Hits All-Time High, Fueled by Community College Surge," Pew Research Center's Richard Fry (October 29, 2009), two-year colleges are beneficiaries of fears about being sufficiently skilled to get work in today's intensely competitive workplace. Their tuition has risen at a relatively modest rate of 4.9 percent per year "beyond general inflation."
In the legal world, associates share the glum factor with those in the humanities. New York Times reporter Alex Williams writes that changed expectations are the reality these days. With bad economic times unduly impacting industries such as financial services, real estate and high tech, legal professionals are hard pressed to keep driving the fee train forward. In "No Longer Their Golden Ticket," Williams cites a survey by the New York City bar association that found that one out of every two attorney respondents were "seeking counseling from its lawyer-outreach program list" for mental health reasons.
Returning to my December 28, 2009 post, entitled "'Up in the Air' - Stark Reality About the Employee - Employer Relationship?". work is a four-letter word. If we stay current with sought after skills, there is a good chance that angst may not ever come to visit. MSNBC reports that accountants and compliance officers are likely to win the jobs growth lottery. That includes financial examiners, with projected growth of "more than 40 percent from 2008 to 2018." Complexity, added accounting rules and new government mandates could contribute to a rosy future for some. Click to read "Next hot job? Keepings on financial firms" (December 11, 2009). Interestingly, salaries for game programmers are not too shabby either.
Of course, besides the ability to earn a living, some posit that doing what one loves and enjoying it at the same time is a worthy notion. As a European colleague once said to me, "Americans live to work. We work to live." Love what we do and get paid for it as well? La Dolce Vita indeed!
