Graduate Study for the Twenty-First Century How to Build an Academic Career in the Humanities

In a straightforward manner, Semenza identifies the obstacles along the path of the academic career and offers tangible advice. Fully revised and updated, this edition's new material on advising, electronic publishing, and the post-financial crisis humanities job market will help students negotiate the changing landscape of academia.

Many graduate students continue to be regarded as "apprentices" despite the fact that they are expected to design and teach their own classes, serve on university committees, and conference and publish regularly. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that the attrition rate for American Ph.D. programs is at an all-time high, between 40% and 50% (higher for women and minorities).

Of those who finish, only one in three will secure tenure-track jobs. These statistics highlight waste: of millions of dollars by universities and of time and energy by students. Rather than teaching graduate students how to be graduate students, then, the guide prepares them for what they really seek: a successful academic career.

"Gregory Semenza's Graduate Study for the Twenty-first Century is a tough-minded, witty, generous discussion of how to enter the profession of scholarship and teaching. The appendices alone are worth the price of the book; Semenza provides samples of everything from course syllabi and job letters to materials on the teaching portfolio, book prospectus, conference participation - everything a serious graduate student needs to succeed. The book should be required reading for graduate students and their professors."-Barry V. Qualls, Dean of Humanities, Rutgers University