Well, this is disgraceful but not uncommon: precarity is no joke. There is a common (and, quite frankly, distorted) belief that “humanities produce lots of rubbish PhDs, which cannot be potentially taken seriously in the real world.” Partly it’s true, but overall it’s not the case: the academic system is built in a way that once you roll in you never be sure that the long-term contract will be on display at all, no matter how hard you work or how talented you are.
The reality is that 1) you should have money; 2) it’s not enough: you have to be lucky, otherwise there’s a chance you’ll be living from one short contract to another.
Also, we should ask universities why they are still accepting a certain number of students and being dishonest about the actual need for another set of PhDs in any subject area? Is it actually true that only academia has to be taken into account as potential employment? Which doctoral programmes are more relevant and which are pointless? How many students choose to major in those programmes and what number of professors is then necessary in those programmes? Again, at the moment it looks like Academia as a “wheel of fortune” does everything possible to force one to wait 10 years before they can secure a position in their field.
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