Two days ago someone asked me about doing graduate studies.  He had a master’s degree and was wondering about whether to do a PhD.  I told him that if he could imagine doing something else with his life, he probably should do so.  Doing a PhD is just too painful.  It’s long (in my field it typically takes about 6-8 years *after* doing a Masters; lots of students take longer), it’s really hard, it’s really painful, and there’s no guarantee of a job when you ‘re finished.  If it’s your passion, and you can’t imagine doing anything else, you should do it (I told him).  But otherwise … not so much.

Looking back over old blog posts, I see that I talked about graduate studies almost exactly four years ago today.  Here is what I said then:

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I teach one undergraduate and one graduate course a semester. Teaching undergraduates is a passion of mine. I love doing it. These are nineteen year olds who are inquisitive, interested, and interesting. I enjoy lecturing to a crowd like that, figuring out what can make complicated material intriguing and compelling, keeping them attentive, helping them understand such important topics Some of my colleagues find teaching undergraduates a real chore; others find it very difficult. I find it to be a pleasure and it comes naturally to me. So I’m very lucky about that.

What is really HARD, though I enjoy it intensely too, is teaching graduate students. The graduate student seminar is a very focused experience. A seminar usually last three hours (meeting once a week) and it involves an intense pouring over texts in the original ancient languages (Greek, for my classes), discussion of heavy-hitting scholarship, critique of students’ work, and so on.

But even though it’s hard, it is very rewarding.  And there is nothing – absolutely nothing – that can substitute for….

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