Last Thursday, I attended the HASTAC pre-conference on alternative jobs in academia. I wasn't sure what I was getting myself into, but the workshop was definitely a learning experience. It turns out, the pre-conference workshop was primarily populated by Ph.D. students in the humanities, arts, and sciences fields who were considering professional jobs in academia because they either did not want, or were not sure they could get, tenure-track positions. Now, I am not a Ph.D. student, nor do I have plans to become one, so the tone of the conference initially threw me off.
Then I started thinking about how this workshop would end up affecting higher education in general. What I deducted was that jobs in administration, and actually all over academia, could become more competitive with more Ph.D's applying for non-tenure-track jobs. At first, it seemed having a bachelor's degree would allow one to get jobs in higher education. Then I realized to do what I wanted to do (become a librarian, or obtain another position in higher education) would require a Master's degree. Having found two master's programs by which I was enthused (Information and Higher Education), I thought I would have a very good chance at contending for jobs in my areas of interest. Now it's occurring to me that those jobs may increasingly become more competitive due to people with even higher degrees applying.
It's just something to ponder - and not something I'm necessarily worried about. I still believe that my degrees are valuable - and those degrees do not even display my work experience or service to the community. But, it was eye-opening to realize that higher education is rapidly changing (at the conference I heard there were something like 600 jobs for every 1000 Ph.D's). It just reminded me that it's important to stay on top of what's going on in my fields and that it's important to continue to think to the future - the future that is evolving very quickly.
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