Ohio State University

Date: Dec 31 1969
Major: English (This Major's Salary over time)
If I can stop just one person from attending the English PhD program, then perhaps my time there will not have been for nothing. DO NOT GO TO OSU. I don't think it's possible to find a program less invested in graduate student success. THIS PROGRAM CANNOT PLACE ITS STUDENTS IN TENURE-TRACK JOBS AND DOESN'T CARE. They didn't make one placement this year, and yet they still recruited 24 new graduate students. That's unconscionable. Beyond that obvious point, the financial support is thin and the workload is high. You're expected to get through the PhD program in 4-5 years while teaching constantly (abnormally large classes) on very little money with almost no support for attending conferences or taking research trips. If you beat the odds and manage to publish and finish your dissertation, it won't matter anyway because the OSU PhD has little currency on the national job market—a problem cultivated by a department that only hires out of Ivy League universities and refuses to help its own graduate students enjoy the same advantages that they had. In addition, the university at large is very hostile to the Arts and Sciences division, refusing to provide support (just do some googling). This is a university that's big on business and STEM—it's actively taking apart the humanities. The OSU English PhD program is a perfect storm of incompetence, apathy, philistinism masquerading as "elitist hiring practices," corporatization, adjunctification, and willful exploitation. The faculty seem not to understand that if they refuse to help the next generation they themselves will be out of a job, as there is little to be gained from self-cannibalization. Please think of your career and your future prospects. Do not attend this program. If you can't get into a school that's not OSU, then JUST DON'T GO.