Comments on: History Job Market

By: Derek

Derek — Mon, 03 May 2010 17:17:00 +0000

The job market prospects that you quote are actually much better than what I hear from my friends here at UT in various liberal arts departments. I know several people that have graduated with their PhD last year and simply had zero job prospects. And even in the engineering and sciences it’s become much more difficult to find positions in academia. A lot of places have hiring freezes, funding has dried up, etc.

In fact, the difficulty in finding positions has rapidly trickled down the line. Because there aren’t as many professor or industry positions available, all the postdocs stay on as postdocs for another year or find another postdoc somewhere else. So there aren’t as many new postdoc positions available, so the PhD students graduating that want a postdoc have a lot more trouble finding one. I myself applied for a postdoc at NIST, but very narrowly missed the cutoff because it was so much more competitive this year.

By: Sunkyoung

Sunkyoung — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 14:15:40 +0000

Not bad for Asian historians. When your chances come, you may have to choose among different locations. Lykke til!

Recently, I came to know a guy from Barcelona at a workshop we organised in Siem Reap, and interestingly he did contemporary East Asian studies for parts of his degrees. One of the research topics he explored was Korean migrants in Japanese cities. And guess what? He includes to his email signature “井の中の蛙大海を知らず” and I cannot help but send him the link to Frog in a Well. :)

By: K. M. Lawson

K. M. Lawson — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 22:08:10 +0000

We’ll see Thomas! It is always a comfort to know that there are backup plans in Norway.

By: thomas

thomas — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 08:36:22 +0000

You can always get a job at Godalen School in the meantime :)

By: Jon

Jon — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 11:52:01 +0000

The last time I looked at statistic, I think maybe a year or two ago, Asian history had an applicant to position ratio of about 1:1, while US and European history was more like 2:1. I think whenever people talk in general about the market, they don’t emphasize what a difference your field makes in the overall scheme of things.

At least that’s how I comfort myself.