Play PhD Casino!

Getting a Ph.D. is like playing the lottery, explains Monica Jacobe. After a median 10 years of study, and perhaps four or five years of job hunting, 40 percent of language PhDs will not have tenure track jobs anywhere.

PhD Programs are like Casinos

The more I think about PhD programs, the more I realize that casino analogy is very appropriate here. As a PhD student, you are making a huge investment of time, money, and energy. But the odd are really against you, just like the odds are always against you in a casino. So admiring people who succeeded in academia is like admiring a gambler who, after many years, won a rather small fortune (academic jobs do not pay that well) in a casino. This kind of luck is rather something to laugh at.