For those whose career is academic, the doctoral career is a long journey they must take, heading towards the light of the temple of knowledge, arduously and lonelyly.

[Editor's Note]

For those who pursue academia, their doctoral career is a long journey that they must go through, heading towards the light of the temple of knowledge, arduously and lonelyly. People outside the ivory tower look at doctors with mixed eyes. Some admire and envy them, while others keep them at a distance. With the recurring negative topics from the stigmatization of female doctors to the psychological problems of doctoral students, there are even more doubts. and puzzled.

Against this background, The Paper’s Ideological Market column has specially launched the “Top of the Ivory Tower” feature, inviting doctors from different countries and disciplines to talk about their experiences, research and reflections on this period of their careers. Compared with "Why study for a Ph.D." and "What is the use of studying for a Ph.D.", this topic hopes to answer the question "What is the meaning of studying for a Ph.D.". In a series of articles, we will see personal confusions and choices, the appearance and characteristics of the discipline, and how the larger social structure is connected to the whole in different ways and individual academic experiences.

Humanities is a "minority"?

When John L. Hennessy, the "Godfather of Silicon Valley" and later winner of the "Turing Award", was still the president of Stanford University , I was a dazed little master in the East Asian Department of Stanford University. I say I was in a trance because I majored in comparative literature as an undergraduate. At that time, Professor William H. Nienhauser, Jr., a famous American sinologist, was invited to China to teach an overseas Sinology course, giving lectures on "Historical Records", He taught English translation of Wang Wei's poetry. I was one of his favorite students, so he was encouraged to apply to the United States. From being asked all the time, "What kind of job can you get after graduating from this major?" to becoming a graduate student at Stanford University, it seemed to be a prestigious job. But all day long, apart from flipping through academic monographs that are so heavy that they can kill people, rushing through the big campus where people always get lost, rushing to class, and frantically typing on the keyboard to catch up on homework. Compared with Beijing, the ancient capital where I have lived for more than 20 years, Silicon Valley is a desert of history and culture. There is nowhere to go after class, and it is impossible to make a friend with the same language and hobbies: the Chinese people around me are all extremely smart or think they are Extremely smart science and engineering students discuss labs, papers, internships, teaching positions, and entrepreneurship every day... In the eyes of ordinary Chinese, Stanford is no different from MIT. It is a science and engineering university through and through. I really feel a bit like a "chicken standing out from the crowd" here. It's no wonder that other liberal arts students in the school use the word "minorities" to describe themselves.

still remembers that one day in 2014, I suddenly received an email. The principal invited several student representatives to have a meal. Those who are interested in participating should submit their questions to the principal. The students with the most meaningful questions will get the opportunity to interview the principal. I clicked on the link and typed in the dialog box without thinking: "As one of the world's top comprehensive universities, Stanford has not completely gotten rid of the impression of being a strong science school in people's minds. Liberal arts students feel left out here." What do you think of the atmosphere of being marginalized, ignored, and unable to integrate into the entire school?” When I wrote this paragraph, it was more like questioning than asking. I still remember that when I first entered school, the president hosted a dinner party for students in his courtyard. He gave a speech and said: "As students of Stanford University, you must 'invest' in everything at the school, and don't just 'participate'. To give an example, Perfect example: in the classic breakfast 'scrambled eggs with bacon', the chickens just get involved and the pigs get involved!" At that time, everyone laughed heartlessly. Later, I felt that science and engineering majors were all the rage at Stanford, but as for liberal arts students, except for the homework in this department, everything here seemed to have nothing to do with me. Do we feel worthy here? Nothing, not even a foil, worse than eggs in a bacon omelette. Later, I forgot about "questioning the president of Stanford" until one day I received a notice asking me to attend a dinner party as one of the student representatives.

Before the meal, everyone stepped on the soft thick carpet and sank into the comfortable couch. Principal Hennessy was still smiling as brightly as he had when he first entered school. He always had a relaxed and focused temperament, attracting the attention of everyone around him. As for him, I was not surprised that he could participate in this event. Maybe because I am a liberal arts student and can increase the diversity of student representatives. What surprised me was that my question was regarded as an important topic. We were notified before the meeting that due to limited time, it was impossible for the principal to talk about every student's issues. But to my surprise, not long after the meeting, he took the initiative to bring the topic to liberal arts and pointed out how much the school values ​​humanities. He talked about the disciplines, what outstanding achievements the humanities had achieved, and how important the humanities were for a long time, accounting for about half of his speech. After he finished his talk that day, many students asked questions, mostly in the category of "Who is your favorite and admired celebrity?" and "What do you think about when you have insomnia at night?" I was the only one in the audience who didn't ask any more questions. The student who asked questions by hand, because the only question I wanted to ask was the one I wrote down at the time, and he had already answered it on his own initiative. The most important thing is that I still feel that liberal arts students are second-class citizens in this school, and there are not many People truly care about our existence and demands. Lack of confidence keeps me silent. At that time, I was actually in a state of self-doubt and anxiety about myself and my profession, and I still feel that way today.

The humanities have long been undervalued in universities. When I was having dinner with President Hennessy, I still remember that he himself has been lamenting the low graduation rate of liberal arts PhDs. The development prospects of a discipline can be seen from the graduation rate of PhDs, because PhDs are the top talents in a field and the backbone of promoting the development of the discipline. The graduation rate for Ph.D.s in the United States itself is very low, and the graduation rate for Ph.D.s in liberal arts is even more astonishingly low, less than 50%. The program of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences is the oldest and most respected academic center in the United States. The "Humanities Indicator" shows that the median graduation rate for doctoral programs in the humanities is 42%, which is similar to mathematics and physics. Engineering, biology, and health sciences have the highest graduation rate of all doctoral programs - 50%. It can be seen that compared with the more "practical" science, basic disciplines are generally neglected. Among the 42% of PhDs in humanities who don’t seem to be too bad, drama and performance majors have a median of 56%, which raises the average, while the more “hard-core” language, society, and culture majors have the lowest graduation rate. 33% means that only one-third of students will ultimately receive a degree.

Failure to graduate means a huge loss to the school and students. First of all, a doctorate is the "entry threshold" for academic circles. Giving up studies means giving up an academic career, and the time and energy spent on scientific research will be wasted. At the same time, because most Ph.D. students receive full scholarships from the department, if a Ph.D. student quits midway, all the investment in the department’s education and training will be wasted, and these resources could have been provided to another previously interested student. The increase in the dropout rate of candidates and doctoral students who have completed their doctoral studies will lower the ranking and reputation of a department or even a school, and will also affect the healthy development of a discipline.

Why has the graduation rate of American Ph.D.s been so low? Being an academic is a job that never ends. High-intensity, low-income, and fierce competition are common phenomena when studying for a Ph.D. In addition, liberal arts Ph.D.s are also under greater pressure - research in science and engineering is inherently easier to transform into productivity, and capital investment can bring Come more benefits. Mentors and laboratories can obtain funds through scientific research projects, and funds can support more Ph.D.s and projects. This is why many people say that the relationship between science and engineering Ph.D.s and mentors is somewhat similar to that of employees and bosses: the "boss" can recruit more The "employees" take on bigger projects, earn more money, and further strengthen their teams. Ideally, this is a virtuous cycle, or at least a stable and sustainable development model.This is not the case in the humanities. Research in the humanities does not have the ability to be "realized" quickly. Therefore, tutors and students basically rely on school funding, and the number of students who can be admitted each year is therefore strictly limited. This is why doctoral students in the humanities have to Much less than science and engineering. Due to a shortage of funds, humanities departments are also limited in the number of professors they can hire and the number of courses they can offer, leaving new graduates unable to find teaching positions. The time cost of studying for a doctorate in the United States is staggering. It takes more than six years to graduate with a doctorate in liberal arts. A person spends most of his or her twenties on this degree. After getting this doctorate, the risk of unemployment is still there. Like a shadow.

PhDs in science and engineering can apply for more teaching positions after graduation. Even if they are not engaged in academic work, they can still look for opportunities in the industry, while PhDs in liberal arts have almost no such options. Professor John Kieschnick, chairman of the Department of Religious Studies at Stanford University, is one of the most outstanding scholars of Chinese Buddhism in the United States. Being his student is a dream for many people, and he is not optimistic about the students’ destination after graduation: “Even if Finding a job in academia after graduation has also proven difficult for graduates of schools like Stanford, where students must be willing to go anywhere in the world after graduation, sometimes even as 'temporaries'. , until you find a stable position. I have an outstanding student who graduated this year but has not found any jobs so far. The question you need to think about when studying for a PhD is: Maybe a PhD can help you find a job outside academia. ?”

It is common nowadays to be mentally prepared for not being able to engage in a subject before furthering your studies, but it is not even easy to find a job outside of your major. For jobs outside the academic circle, a doctorate is not necessary, especially a doctorate in liberal arts. Overly specialized professional knowledge at the doctoral stage has no place in the workplace, and may even cause the problem of "overqualification". A master's degree Or a position that an undergraduate can be qualified for will not be filled by a Ph.D., because a Ph.D. is considered to be good at a narrow field, lacks work experience, and may demand a higher salary or change jobs quickly.

Professor Meow Hui Goh from the Department of East Asia at Ohio University was a well-known news anchor in Singapore when she was an undergraduate. Not only did she do well in academics, she also had a very charming personality. When it came to tutoring doctoral students, she once said: "I told My students, now others can get promoted and make a fortune, but it takes a long time to study for a doctorate and the path is narrow. Faced with this gap, you must adjust your mood to avoid being depressed and unable to think about it in the future, causing psychological problems. "When you are determined to do something. , you must first remember that you will always be hit by the secular perspective, and outsiders may not be able to understand the feeling. This may be the reason why more than half of Ph.D.s suffer from depression.

However, as news of suicides among science and engineering PhDs frequently breaks out, there seems to be no such extreme example among liberal arts PhDs. The reason may be that students receive financial support from the department rather than taking money from their tutors. Therefore, the living conditions of doctoral students It will not be tied to one tutor. At the same time, because academic research in liberal arts basically only requires the library and is not bound by external conditions such as equipment and equipment, the research of tutors and students is relatively independent. Tutors do not need students to "work", and students Graduation is not something that the instructor can do arbitrarily. It has to be said that this is due to the fact that there are not so many interests involved in the "Qingshui Yamen".

East Asian Department student: Why come to the United States to study Chinese culture?

This question should be the question I answered the most after I came to the East Asian Department in the United States. Sometimes people ask it directly, sometimes they ask it with a puzzled expression, sometimes they ask it with disdainful eyes, and sometimes they ask it with a sympathetic smile.

If allowed, I would like to answer this question using Liang Shuming ’s point of view: If you want to understand Chinese culture, you must be able to fully observe the past history of mankind and its future prospects, and find out the value of Chinese culture in it. .In the past, it was not easy for Chinese people to understand Chinese culture because they were "in the middle of the situation and lacked comparison with other different cultures." At that time, the foreign nations surrounding China were not as sophisticated in culture as China, so the Chinese people were arrogant. of. In modern times, as soon as we have comparisons and comparisons, we seem to have been severely hit by other cultures, and we are at a loss and are too discouraged. Anyone who is blinded by this discouragement will also be unable to understand Chinese culture. If you want to find the value of Chinese culture in the entire human civilization, sometimes you need to change your role from "authority" to "bystander".

But I rarely answer like this, because when others ask, it is not a presumptive question, but a rhetorical question, a rhetorical question that expresses disinterest and contempt.

remembers seeing something like this on the Internet - host Tsai Kang-yong graduated from the film major at the University of California, Los Angeles. He recalled that his father's friend asked him: "What is my son studying in the United States?" The father whispered: "Movie", the friend didn't hear clearly: "Computer?" The father said even more embarrassedly: "Movie", the other party asked: "What? Motor?" The father couldn't even raise his head and said: "Movie", and said the second word His voice became smaller and smaller, as if this was an extremely embarrassing thing.

Humanities, in modern society where science and technology have begun to develop rapidly, have always seemed mysterious, ethereal, and useless. After modern times, the Chinese people went from being arrogant about culture and being bombarded by Western cannons to thinking that culture is useless, and looking down on their own culture. , as Liang Shuming said: "If you ask him what the shortcomings of Chinese culture are, you can tell a lot; if you ask him what the strong points of Chinese culture are, you can't help but hesitate in your words. At most, he will talk about the past of Chinese culture. Glory, the value of the past, but what is the meaning of this? "

This complex mentality of inferiority and arrogance has always affected the Chinese people today. Because of low self-esteem, people who study Chinese culture are looked down upon by Chinese people. Because of arrogance, people who study Chinese culture in the United States are looked down upon by Chinese people.

So what is the status of learning Chinese culture in the United States? At least today, there is no real "Chinese Department" in American colleges and universities. Of course, students studying Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, and French all have their own departments, but Chinese studies are still crowded together with Japanese studies and Korean studies. "East Asian". I once asked my teacher, Professor Alano, the chairman of the Department of East Asia at Stanford University, whether there will be "Chinese departments" in American universities in the foreseeable future. He replied that many small European languages ​​can stand on their own. door, and the Chinese major has always been part of the East Asian department, which obviously reflects the "Europe-centered" tradition of Western society. Nowadays, the scale of many Western language departments has been shrinking, but the number of East Asian departments is increasing day by day, and it seems that there are conditions for independence. came out, but until today, there is no sign or trend indicating that there will be a Chinese department.

Even if Chinese is the most spoken language in the world, and even if Chinese elective courses in American universities and even high schools are very popular, academic research in Chinese still does not have the qualifications to stand on its own. So much so that in American universities, many people still think that the East Asian department is just a place where a few Chinese, a few Japanese, and a few Koreans come together and think that their own culture is very important. Even if you learn Latin, which is disappearing day by day, your status in Western society is much higher. I can see in the students who specialize in French, Spanish, and comparative literature in the school a kind of pride and peace of mind that students in the East Asian department have never had. If you ask me, I would say that students in the East Asian Department suffer from a "plywood mentality" and their majors do not receive sufficient understanding, attention and respect in both China and the United States.

The "downturn" of the humanities in the United States cannot stop more and more Chinese students from coming to the United States to study East Asian departments. In the past, there were almost no students from mainland China in the American East Asian departments. But now, affected by the "study abroad craze", China Students’ advantage in their mother tongue and their enthusiasm for studying abroad have allowed them to occupy the East Asian departments of American universities. In terms of student sources, the improvement is in quantity rather than quality. On the other hand, the number of students studying for master’s degrees at their own expense has increased sharply, but they can obtain scholarships. There has been no increase in the number of doctoral seats and teaching positions in universities, which has resulted in more students being "unemployed upon graduation". This situation has exacerbated the current situation that East Asian students are looked down upon in school and in society.

Most of the sinologists who are now successful in the United States were the first batch of students at the birth of the East Asian Department in the United States. They were also the first scholars to conduct research on China in the United States. At that time, the East Asian Department was intensively cultivating talents, and the employment prospects were optimistic. Overseas Chinese studies Research is also like an empty field, and everyone can "enclose the field" at will. However, the overcrowding and uneven quality of this subject have made the success of the previous generation of sinologists irreproducible, and the future of the new generation of students is still bleak. .

If you look at it from Silicon Valley, everything looks worse.

I have been studying and living in the United States for 7 years, and I have lived in Silicon Valley for 6 years. If you look at it from here, the living environment of humanities students looks worse. According to U.S. population According to a recent survey by the Census Bureau, the median household income in the United States is $61,372. The media has calculated that to live in an expensive place like the San Francisco Bay Area, each family needs to earn at least $300,000 per year. Figures show that the annual salary of an ordinary software engineer in Silicon Valley plus stocks can be easily reached. In comparison, the annual salary of a public university professor is only around US$100,000, and the monthly salary of a doctoral student is about US$2,000-3,000. In Bay Area A place like this district, where high-tech upstarts gather and prices soar from time to time, can be considered a "low-income household." With the tightening of U.S. visa policies, it is becoming increasingly difficult for international students to obtain work visas after graduation, while students majoring in STEM (abbreviation for science, technology, engineering, mathematics) can enjoy preferential policies.

This explains a strange phenomenon that I once witnessed when I was at Stanford: some students from the East Asian Department had to take elective courses in the Computer Science Department even if they got a C, and then ran back to our department out of breath to join us. Sit down and read Song poetry perfunctorily. The temptation from the outside world has made students more impetuous than ever before. No matter what major they studied in the past, they now want to change careers to study computers or become engineers. Most of the time, the driving force is not ideals, but just interests.

Speaking of having dinner with John Hennessy, the former president of Stanford and former chairman of Alphabet, I once listened to a lecture he gave at the Stanford School of Liberal Arts, titled "Why I Read Great Literary Works." The audience was packed with people. I want to get a glimpse of this godfather of Silicon Valley. To be honest, I have forgotten his specific answer to this question, but I remember watching him talking excitedly about the Russian novel he was reading, and describing the shock, touch and inspiration that the literary masterpiece brought to me, and I suddenly I am reminded of "Poems of Four Sorrows" written by the astronomer Zhang Heng: "What I am thinking about is Guilin. I want to go there, and the Xiang River is deep. I turn to the south and look to the south with tears in my lap. A beauty gave me a harp, a harp, and a gantry, so why should I repay it with a pair of jade plates?" "The road is far away, don't rely on melancholy, what is the meaning of being worried and sad", how neat, beautiful and delicate, I think of Einstein and the violin that accompanied him throughout his life. No matter how science develops, machines cannot replace humans to experience and express emotions. Many Genius scientific minds all have extraordinary artistic perception, but if a humanities professor were to talk about the same topic at this moment, there would not be such a large audience. Today, the humanities need the blessing of "successful people" from a secular perspective. Only then can it improve its status a little bit.Even in the few moments when people pay attention to liberal arts, people always associate humanistic literacy with conversation and temperament in a secular way, treating it as an expensive piece of jewelry or beautiful clothes. A friend in the same major said: " I don’t like that many programmers talk about their interest in literature and poetry, as if the role of literature and poetry is to be used by rich people to decorate their appearance. If the roles are reversed, if liberal arts students dare to talk about their interest in physics and mathematics like this The misunderstanding can only attract ridicule from science and engineering students, as if only their disciplines are sacrosanct. "

People say that many trends in Silicon Valley represent the future of mankind and the development prospects of practitioners in the humanities. It seems that you can get a glimpse of it here. The development of society has not caused people to start to respect the professionalism of liberal arts students. People are willing to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars to buy an hour of lawyers and doctors. Even in the oily Silicon Valley, you can only get a low salary of twenty or thirty dollars an hour, and such job opportunities are even rare. Silicon Valley seems to only need the atmosphere and "culture" they create, and does not need any history at all. Contemplation and humanistic feelings, does this also indicate the future of mankind after the rapid development of science and technology? The desolation of the humanities has led to the low level of language and culture among a large group of people, and the sign of low level is the inability to realize the role of a subject and the gap between oneself and the top masters in this field. The superiority of science and engineering over liberal arts has been around for a long time. One of the reasons should be that today’s society is eager for quick success—knowledge and skills that cannot make people rich overnight and become a “winner in life” are not worth investing time and energy. Professor Ke Jiahao once commented on Stanford's new meditation room: "The introduction says: Here you can escape from the complicated and fast-paced daily life and gain inner peace, so that you can improve your work efficiency after meditation. This is typical of Silicon Valley. Thought: Everything is done to improve productivity. Never understand that inner peace is a pursuit in itself, and meditation is a meaning in itself. "

Students of humanities are at the bottom of the contempt chain, just like Qian Zhongshu. It is said in " siege ": "Students in the School of Science look down on those in the School of Engineering, students in the School of Engineering look down on those in the School of Liberal Arts, students in the School of Liberal Arts look down on those in the Department of Foreign Languages ​​and Literature, and those in the Department of Chinese look down on those in the Department of Philosophy. Those in the philosophy department look down on those in the sociology department, and those in the sociology department look down on those in the education department. Students in the education department have no students to look down on, so they have to look down on the teachers in the department. “In the past, science subjects looked down on liberal arts, and basic subjects looked down on applied subjects. I think. Today, the situation has changed. Engineering students stand out because they have the best jobs and the highest salaries. Subjects such as literature and philosophy are not as popular as today's popular education and should be at the bottom. However, this chain of contempt is a closed-loop system: science and engineering students look down on liberal arts students because their living environment is superior to that of liberal arts majors. Top-level science and engineering students also admire liberal arts students because they have reached the ultimate level of scientific research and begin to think about philosophical issues. After material satisfaction, there will be spiritual pursuit and beauty yearning.

"Historical Records" says that at the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, Confucius was lobbying everywhere. In an era when rites were collapsing, and in a period when power, ambition, and enjoyment were unprecedentedly expanding, it seemed so inappropriate to promote his pursuit of moral and noble ideas. He encountered obstacles at every turn, suffered ridicule and looked down upon, like a "lost dog". Of course, people who read books about sages today would not dare to compare themselves to sages. Being a PhD student in Chinese in the United States has allowed me to experience firsthand what it feels like to have lost your spiritual home and cultural soil, and to have no place in society.

If someone asks me what it is like to be a PhD student in Chinese in the United States, I will say that we live at the bottom of the social contempt chain, between Chinese and Western cultures, and are sometimes regarded as weirdos who go against the times. , are sometimes seen as dispensable and invisible people, but all the difficulties we face and endure at least prove the purity of the ideal.Yes, this is just a group that is small enough that people can ignore it with peace of mind. It is a group that has no right to speak and that people can laugh at as much as they want. However, the compression of the living space of this group is itself a symbol of this era. Deep message.

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