In November 2023, the engagé.e.s committee hosted a conversation with faculty advisers about how we can debunk the idea that non-professorial careers are a "safety net" and better support those whose vision has always encompassed more. Graduate students Daniela Edmeier (Ohio State University) and Melanie Bavaria (New York University) co-moderated the conversation with the following panelists:

• Denise Davidson (Professor, Georgia State University)

• Jenny Furlong (Director, Career Planning and Professional Development, CUNY Graduate Center)

• Jessica Pearson (Associate Professor, Macalester College)

• Ronen Steinberg (Associate Professor, Michigan State University)

Here is an edited excerpt from that conversation:

Daniela Edmeier and Melanie Bavaria: The conversation around this topic has now split into two paths - those who want to go into academia and those who don’t and the almost political project of validating those options as legitimate and of equal merit. What about the grad students who fall somewhere in the middle? Those who are not against a path outside of academia as long as it taps the kinds of skills that drew them to this kind of work in the first place, but also would, if it were more possible and stable, follow a more traditionally academic path? How should grad students caught in this middle space approach graduate school and the many years involved in this process without wasting time?

Denise Davidson: My experience is that most students fall in the middle and that means that they need to approach graduate school as an opportunity to grow as thinkers and human beings and to develop transferable skills that will be useful regardless of what kind of career they pursue (communication skills, ability to gather large amounts of data and present it in a digestible form, digital literacy, quantitative literacy, etc.). I don’t see this process as a waste of time unless they begin with the idea that they are seeking their degree with the sole outcome of becoming professors and then it doesn’t work out. I think the middle space described in the question is the safest and sanest position.  

Jenny Furlong: I would agree here that most students fall in the middle. Few are the students in the humanities who decide that they will absolutely not pursue a faculty job – most of them want the chance (and have the qualifications) to be able to give this a go – at least once. And I’ve never considered it my work to dissuade them from trying. What would it mean to waste time in this scenario? I’m not sure, because so often our careers come from things we learned by chance, people we meet by chance, serendipity as the cliche goes. I think students should be conscious of the need to develop certain sets of skills (digital, research, teaching, organizational), but should do this alongside pursuing their own interests. 

Daniela Edmeier and Melanie Bavaria: If alt-academia is not just a “safety net,” it also means that it can be the “first choice” option. If alternatives to academia are to be “more than a backup plan,” it will require planning ahead of time. But at what point? Given the realities of the academic job market, should it be the assumption rather than the exception that grad students will not get traditional tenure-track jobs after completion of the PhD? If so, what is the responsibility of professors, departments, and universities to shape those expectations and widen the training to encompass multiple paths? 

Jess Pearson: I think some of this mentoring starts at the undergraduate level. When students ask professors for letters of recommendation, we need to have frank conversations with them about the academic job market and also have open discussions about what other kinds of career paths a history PhD could lead to. I think one of the issues is that the only history PhDs undergrads typically encounter are their professors, so they don’t have a good sense about why they might want to invest their time and resources into a grad program as a pathway to a non-professorial career. I think if undergrad institutions were able to start some of this mentoring, which would include exposing students to a range of folks working in different careers with history PhDs, students might be able to make a more informed choice about what kinds of graduate study they might be interested in pursuing. 

Ronen Steinberg: We (Michigan State University) have organized panels of history PhDs who have careers outside academia. Jess already talked about frank conversations and I agree. Regarding the responsibility of advisors to train students for careers beyond academia, I am always a bit baffled by this. I am a historian of France. That’s my training. That’s what I know how to do. If universities expect faculty members to become proficient in preparing graduate students for careers outside academia, they need to put resources into this. For example, release faculty members from teaching and researching so that they can study and learn about these career paths. I think a lot of the concerns raised in this question sit at the nexus between recognizing the realities of the academic job market, and unrealistic expectations of what academics can and should do.