Never go to grad school

From the mouth of one of my favorite professors. Those of us in my Late Antiquity class- all nine of us- have been on a mission lately, it would seem, to get real life advice out of Goodrich instead of focus on the fall of Rome. So, in addition to learning about the advances of the barbarian hordes, we have discussed the cost and availability of rooms in monasteries in Europe (cheap as fuck, need way advance reservations), cost of grad schools, how you are pretty much shut out of good employment in Europe if you aren't an Oxford or Cambridge grad, and that Venice is the dreariest place in the world, but has some spectacular remnants of their whole "destroying Constantinople" thing. 2000 year old statues of the Tetrarchy, for example, just fused into the corner of a building cause they had nowhere else to put them.
Today I got in a bit late to hear the "I might as well be honest with you- no one else will be. Don't go to grad school. I'm serious. 247 phd's applied for the same jobs I did. I got a letter once saying 'be glad your field is so well represented, btw, we aren't going to interview you' Or, if you are going to ignore my advice, and you are, do something like accounting."
Woot. You know how many people applied for Dr. O's job this time last year? 186. Some of them international. And teachers in the business school make a full DOUBLE what teachers in humanities make yearly. DOUBLE. Not 10k more, or 30k more, double. And, apparently the trend is to never, ever, hire someone on a track that leads to tenure. So, even if you get a job, you don't get shit. Now, I've been planning to live in a cardboard box for a long time. The other kids in my class? Not so much. The "oh, shit" faces around me were almost comforting after so long of being alone in my despair over future employment.

One kid asked "how long before your first job after grad school?" he had a research fellowship right away, and spent the next five years on Augustine's City Of God. It doesn't sound like it was the um...preferred career path, but he does get to snuggle up to a copy of the Theodosian Code every night. We tease him pretty ruthlessly about that. He said in class one day "So I was browing the Theodosian Code last night..." and it went from there.

BUT the point is... getting  a job is miserable. We all knew it, but you can tell from the way we pressed him to keep saying it that denial was edging in.
Lucky for me, I abandoned all hope of something more exciting than desk job and janitorial weeks ago.