[drewmassey]

As a former music history professor who now works in tech, I think the adjunctification of American universities is one of the the worst "best-kept secrets" out there. The sheer number of blog "exposés" of adjunct teaching that I have read over the last 20 years simply boggles the mind, each one breathlessly "revealing" the same secret. Of course, they are not wrong: I personally adjuncted for years and it does not pay (example: I earned $5,000 total the year after I graduated from Harvard with a PhD).

What really mystifies me, now that I have 8 years of perspective between me and the day I resigned from my tenure-track job, is why people who think of themselves as great thinkers (or, at least, good enough thinkers to teach college) cannot escape from something of a self-constructed prison of adjunct work. Based on my limited conversations with NTT academics who considered career changes during the pandemic, there is an odd quality of stockholm syndrome where PhDs (especially in the humanities) simply cannot fathom that any other life path might be worthwhile, and hence toil away.

[next_xibalba]

I'm reminded of a Peter Thiel quote that always makes me laugh, but then makes me sad:

"I did well enough in law school to be hired by a big New York law firm, but it turned out to be a very strange place. From the outside, everybody wanted to get in, and from the inside, everybody wanted to get out.

When I left the firm, after seven months and three days, my coworkers were surprised. One of them told me that he hadn't known it was possible to escape from Alcatraz. Now that might sound odd, because all you had to do to escape was walk through the front door and not come back. But people really did find it very hard to leave, because so much of their identity was wrapped up in having won the competitions to get there in the first place."

[blululu]

There is more to life than a paycheck. Historically professors made unimpressive salaries but enough to live at a quality middle class level. When you consider the prestige, respect and job security that was afforded to professors it makes sense that the non-remunerative aspects are sufficient to our weight the money. Of course these days the pay cut is perhaps too deep to justify these days, but not unambiguously so. An adjunct might have a chance to publish a big result and land a tenured position. The odds are slim but it’s important to pursue your dreams even if it is a gamble. The cost of not doing so is higher than you might thing.

[BeetleB]

> The cost of not doing so is higher than you might thing.

There are plenty of people on HN, including myself, who abandoned academia for industry. I think we are more aware of the cost than you probably are. Especially because we have friends who did stay and get tenure, and can compare our experiences with them.

Hint: It's not a large cost.

The trap many academics make is being singular in pursuing a dream. There are lots of great things they can strive for, and they're blind to them because they want that one thing.

And talk to most older professors in the liberal arts and most will say "Money matters!" Heck, when I was a grad student I recall talking to an engineering professor in my alma mater and mentioned how great it is that he gets to pick what he researches on. His response was that "Yes, you can pick whatever you want. But while they can't fire you because of tenure, you will be on the bottom of the pay scale. That's fine if you have no family."

While certainly some professors go that route, the reality is: Money matters!

Especially if you're in a bigger city. I recall a little over a decade ago there was an interview with a full professor of history - she made $60K/year and lived in a big city. On top of that, the university was forcing her to teach really large classes to save money. She was looking for an exit.

[drewmassey]

This is true; my father was - and my husband's parents are - all professors so I know that small town academic life (for tenured faculty) is one flavor of the American Dream.

And pursuing your dreams is important. But I've also seen pretty talented people adjunct for decades at a stretch, because they believe that some day they will get a TT job - and I've also seen those same people seemingly only taking advice from their doctoral advisors, who (in my experience) consider anything besides a TT job as "failure".

If people want to live that way, they should. But the ideology of "pursue your dreams," when it comes to employment as a tenured professor at an American University - is often used to just string along adjunct labor in the home that someday their ship will come in.

[lolinder]

> The odds are slim but it’s important to pursue your dreams even if it is a gamble. The cost of not doing so is higher than you might thing.

Can you elaborate on what the cost is? Because there are a lot of cases that I can see where reevaluating your dreams might be a much better bet than pursuing them. I don't think it's a given that your dreams have any inherent value to them, nor that achieving them would make you happy.

I know someone who can't imagine pursuing a different career than being an Astronomy professor. He's still an undergrad at a middle-tier university and is consistently a C-grade student with a particular weakness in math, which is a major problem for what is essentially a Physics degree. Even if he succeeds at getting into a decent graduate school and getting a PhD (not a guarantee given how hard his undergrad has been for him), he'll be competing for a very small number of professorships that are available in Astronomy, and he'll be up against people who did much better in their undergrad and got into much better grad schools. And if he does beat all the odds and manage to land this professorship, will he just end up hating his career as much as he's hated school up until this point?

Is it still important for him to pursue his dream? Or is it time for him to cut his losses and find something else that interests him and is within reach?

[blululu]

The cost of not making at attempt is regret which can be expensive. The objections to “follow your dream” that people have mentioned are real. The basic “follow your dreams” advice should be tempered with realism and a sense of when to shift gears and call it. Don’t destroy yourself over something. But also, making an earnest attempt to accomplish goals is important. Setting and achieving goals is a key part of living a happy and fulfilling life and it is important to at least try.

From the sound of it, your friend has put in an honest effort and it is just not working out. I have nothing but respect for the effort, but tapping out is probably the best choice. That’s a hard lesson but one that you need to learn at some point in life.

[karaterobot]

> Based on my limited conversations with NTT academics who considered career changes during the pandemic, there is an odd quality of stockholm syndrome where PhDs (especially in the humanities) simply cannot fathom that any other life path might be worthwhile, and hence toil away.

Calling it Stockholm Syndrome seems correct to me, at least based on my anecdotes. So many smart friends who can't leave academia after more or less growing up inside it. Like the person who can't leave the small town they grew up in, so they just languish there forever.

[jccalhoun]

From my limited experience in small midwestern cities, I haven't seen too many people stay with pure adjuncting for long. I was an adjunct for one year and then got a one year contract that was up for annual renewal until the university got a new president and decided the university wouldn't have any 1 year contracts any more (now I'm full time at the community college which doesn't have tenure).

While I have a PhD, most of the people who adjuncted only had MAs and so weren't eligible for a tenure track job. From my phd program at an R1 school, I'm not aware of anyone who is adjuncting as their main source of income. Only handful of them are at R1s. Many either left academia or are in potions similar to mine which aren't research focused.

The reason people stay in adjuncting is because they hope for the full time contracts, the like teaching, and they like the flexibility of being able to pick which days they teach (I know this from experience because as a full time employee while I do have flexibility, there are times when no adjuncts will cover an 8am or night class and we have to do it and I have already been warned that in the Fall it looks like we won't have adjuncts to cover certain days because they don't want to work those days).

[BeetleB]

I know quite a few who've been adjunct for 8+ years. Math PhDs and non-engineering majors.