I have gotten a job offer that is the caricature of ngo work. It's paid well under the nominal value of my degree, but unlike most other jobs I could do, it's minimally copish, doesn't directly serve imperialism and doesnt leave me with a broken back or trauma. I can live with it, but it will not be "fun" treatlerite living (small or remote flat, holidays I need to be frugal with, not that I am into flying anyway). Having a family is out of the question on that salary if I dont want the kids to be poor. I could probably keep doing that kind of job forever, there is a risk funding for the project being cut for political reasons though, which is pretty uncomfortable. The city is nice, but extremely anti-left "left" liberal, blue city in red state kinda deal, so liberals are entrenched in many spaces.
yeah, one of the other drawbacks of the PhD that is rarely discussed is that people who get one enter a national/international job market for applicants that are generally prepared to completely relocate almost anywhere. especially young/new phds.
and some of those positions, at least in my field or potential path can be in places I do not want to build a life, making the configuration of right job + right place super rare/competitive.
like yeah, maybe I could make phat stacks in a role I would find pleasant and valuable.... but it would be in like Lubbock or Modesto. my MSc, on the other hands, has let me target a broader range of decent roles and seems to have rewarded me with more agency in what sort of career path I want to take, and where I want to take it.
"only" having an MSc in the academy definitely relegated myself and other "professional staff" into this twilight world of no institutional power/weirdly toxic codependence on senior faculty patronage, relatively low pay:effort ratio compared to faculty.
I also had a front row seat to witnessing the hollowing out of education/research/service missions in favor of being turned into an amusement park for the fail progeny of the wealthy and a debt peon factory for the brightest offspring of the working class. just endless emails of lib platitudes from people who are making 7 figures a year to dismantle DEI offices and crack down on BLM and anti-genocidr protests while casting themselves as the guardians of intellectual inquiry.
in the end, after nearly a decade, it became too much. I no longer wanted my earnest efforts to do right by the public be used to launder the reputation of an organization that is actively selling out the public to juice its bond rating.
sorry, of unmonitored, I will rant about the failed promise of the academy literally forever.
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