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Earning another graduate degree before entering a PhD program

Brian Leiter

A philosopher at a leading liberal arts college writes:

I teach at a SLAC, and one of my senior advisees, who is writing an honors thesis with me, was asking me about applying to graduate school.  She is planning to take one or two years off, and do some teaching at private high schools while she prepares her graduate applications. One of these teaching positions pays for its teachers to earn an M.Ed. while they work.  

 

Her question was whether earning an M.Ed. would be seen as a liability or asset (or neither) in an application to a philosophy Ph.D. program.  I'm curious what you and your readers who have served on graduate admissions committees think about this.

I'm opening this for comments from readers (signed strongly preferred, but all comments must include a valid e-mail address).  My sense, perhaps dated (perhaps not), is that time away from philosophy is usually a liability, but a year or two isn't.  I'm less sure about how an M.Ed. would be received; I know of many students who got J.D.s, continued with philosophy work while in law school, then practiced or clerked, and then continued on to a PhD program, so that's one kind of precedent.  Thoughts from readers?

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14 responses to “Earning another graduate degree before entering a PhD program”

  1. Rebecca Kukla

    OK I will bite. I suspect that – rightly or wrongly and please take me as making only descriptive observations here, rather than as endorsing the reactions I describe – an M.Ed would most likely be held against a candidate, especially a female candidate. Ed schools are not generally held in high regard by philosophers, I think it is safe to say. But more specifically it would make the candidate look 'teaching-oriented' in a way that would probably at least implicitly be in tension with 'research-oriented'. And since there are gendered expectations in play about the teaching vs research thing already, and since Ed schools are to some extent 'gendered female', I would worry that the student risks triggering a whole host of implicit and explicit disciplinary and gender biases. Most grad programs see themselves as training 'researchers' in the first instance (which is probably silly – we know that most jobs out there are predominantly teaching jobs, and most programs aren't going to produce people who get intensive research jobs with any regularity – but there it is).

    I am on our admissions committee and trying to assess what my own reaction would be. I know I wouldn't particularly see it as a plus. I think I'd be very worried about my own implicit biases, and would try hard to not count it as a minus either.

    I just realized your question was about other degrees more generally, and I focused on the M.Ed. question. As for other degrees, I think it depends a great deal on the specific degree and on what the student plans to work on in philosophy.

    Reply
  2. Tim O'Keefe

    Speaking entirely for myself, I'd regard prior teaching experience of this sort (especially if accompanied by documentation that the student had done well) as a plus factor in admission to our MA program. Most of our MA students have to teach their own classes in their second year in the program, and among applicants whose research credentials look roughly equal (or where making the comparison is difficult), it'd be nice to have people come here who look like they'll do a good job teaching.

    But the M.Ed. degree as such would probably be neutral for me, unless a strong case were made that the educational curriculum was actually pedagogically (as opposed to merely professionally) useful. Still, given the job market, it'd be great to have a degree that helps make HS teaching a viable plan B if you don't end up securing a career teaching philosophy in a college or university.

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  3. Geoff Pynn

    I can think of absolutely no good *reason* why an M.Ed should be counted against an applicant to graduate programs in philosophy. I suspect that Rebecca Kukla is right, and that it could trigger various biases like those she describes that would slightly harm an applicant's chances, and then in the minds of conscientious admissions committee members like Professor Kukla who are aware of this potential, trigger compensating mechanisms which can, we know, *also* harm an applicant's chances. I regularly do admissions for our MA program and at a conscious level I would not count an M.Ed for or against an applicant, but who knows what's burbling beneath the surface!

    But I totally agree with what Tim O'Keefe says in his last paragraph, especially if the applicant finds herself enjoying teaching and can envision it as a real alternative career path. I taught at private high schools for a couple of years before my PhD and enjoyed it quite a lot; if I'd gotten an M.Ed my long term earning potential in that career track would have been substantially higher than it was and probably higher than it is as a professor. So it seems like it could be a very rational thing to do. If the student were coming to me for advice I would definitely *not* counsel her against it on the basis of its potential for marginally lowering her already low chances of being permitted to buy a lottery ticket in the academic job market.

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  4. Rebecca Kukla

    I agree with everything Geoff Pynn just said.

    Reply
  5. Anon

    There's a lot of worrying about implicit bias, which is a good thing, but I think that the worry here is misplaced. Most people probably won't have any particular association attached to an M.Ed. But suppose they do and that it's gendered female. Now assuming that the concept 'female' has an unconscious negative bias tout court is, I think, a misreading of the data but let's assume it does just for the sake of argument. How exactly will this negative bias manifest itself in a pejorative way? If the candidate is female, then all the (supposed) unconscious negative associations will come along anyway. But assuming implicit biases are inherently associationistic (which I don't, but most do), it's important to note that in general associations aren't additive. So, it's not as if a candidate will set off more negative unconscious associations for being female and having an M.Ed. I guess it *could* affect male candidates in some unconscious way, but this strikes me as an (untested) empirical question that isn't particularly amenable to our guesses. Of course, we may just have an unconscious bias against M.Ed candidates in general (in general meaning something like 'regardless of the association to female'), but that's just unsubstantiated conjecture. I suspect that if we have biases against M.Ed candidates, they are conscious.

    That said, I have a hard time imagining anyone at a top-flight research university school looking at an M.Ed. and using it as a bonus, but who knows. For what it's worth I was told having advanced degrees in a related field would hurt me on the job market (having a Masters degree would bring up the question of why you didn't get a PhD; having a PhD would bring up the question of whether you are really a philosopher) but none of those worries seem applicable to an M.Ed.

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  6. Matt

    I can't speak to how it would affect admission to a PhD program, but, given the job market in higher ed, I would think it would be of great benefit to the student to have a masters in education. Wouldn't that keep open the possibility of a career in primary or secondary ed? Or even open doors in ed school employment?

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  7. Rebecca Kukla

    Anon: I had in mind a much simpler point. Getting an M.Ed. could play into existing implicit assumptions that women are more likely to be good undergraduate teachers but not strong or committed researchers. I can't cite literature to prove such implicit assumptions exist, but I have seen them in action often enough. Just check the percentage of grad departments with female directors of undergrad studies and compare that to the percentage of female faculty overall for indirect but pretty powerful confirmation, for instance.

    As for other degrees, again, surely it depends. I would bet big money that an MS in physics helps you if you want to do philosophy of physics, for instance.

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  8. Joshua A. Miller

    One important question would be the ranking of the Education School versus the ranking of the Philosophy program. So, for instance, I've met a number of very impressive graduate students from Harvard's Education school, who would be fully competitive at the top philosophy graduate programs: they had research programs of their own that frequently intersected with philosophy. Some contemplated a switch, and any philosophy program that refused them would be out of its mind.

    I've also met less impressive Education school students from R1 state schools where the Ed schools were not similarly research-intensive. These experiences leave me with no clear explicit bias and an uncertainty about what implicit biases may in fact "bubble to the surface" in future evaluations.

    By the way: these are the kinds of questions that a re-invigorated APA ought to study by requiring member institutions to gather and share applicant/acceptance data.

    Reply
  9. Tad Brennan

    I share some of Prof. Kukla's worries about implicit bias. But even if we say that the possession of the M. Ed. degree has no impact at all on aggregate chances for admission, there is still the question of opportunity costs.

    Getting a degree takes time and effort. Your advisee could be doing a lot of other things with her time than getting that M. Ed. degree. Like writing papers, reading books, or reworking her writing sample. Some of those things would definitely improve her chances of admission.

    In this context, the school's provision of free tuition almost feels like a distractor or an occasion for unwise choices, like a coupon for a free drink that leads you to overspend on dinner. Sure, in the abstract free tuition seems like a nice thing. But you still have to pay out your own time and your own effort, and the amounts you expend towards that degree are thereby unavailable for other uses.

    So I'd advise her to get the degree if and only if she really wants an M. Ed. and a future in which she will make direct use of an M. Ed. But if her objective is to improve her chances for admission to a Philosophy PhD program, I wouldn't do it–not so much because it's a negative per se, as because of the opportunity costs.

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  10. Lisa Shapiro

    I agree with Joshua Miller that a lot depends on the quality of the MEd programme. There are quite a number of Schools of Education which basically provide a credential for teachers to help them earn more money or become administrators and the like. The gain here is highly tailored to a very particular educational professionals. There are other MEd programmes that may well offer something of value for someone wanting to pursue philosophy (or another advanced degree). Harvard is one such programme, but there are also education programmes doing really interesting work in cognitive development, for instance, or in learning and technology, for another instance.
    I also agree with Tad Brennan that it is important to pursue the advanced MEd with a degree of awareness of the reasons for doing so, and not simply because it is possible to do so. If the student isn't sure she wants to pursue philosophy, having that credential can help her in pursuing a career in education, or learning technologies, or education consultants (which seem to be everywhere), or similar sorts of things. It might be worth pointing out that there does seem to be a burgeoning industry in corporate education, that is, training employees in new technologies/software etc. Someone with an MEd with the right sort of focus could likely find herself with an interesting set of options in that niche.

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  11. Mohan Matthen

    Philosophy is a meta-reflection and interdisciplinary credentials are always a plus. (Admittedly, some philosophers are narrow-minded about philosophical purity, but they don't call the shots, except at a very few schools.) At most schools, an M. Ed. is not a purely skills-based program. There are many M. Ed. courses that would feed philosophical interests—courses on psychology, educational policy, political organization, pedagogical strategies, and so on. (The eminent Stanford philosopher, Patrick Suppes, was cross-appointed in the School of Education because of his views about teaching mathematics and computer instruction in logic.) When the student gets around to applying to graduate school, she should say how her courses in education complement her interests in philosophy.

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  12. Allen Hazen

    My sense– from participating in the hiring process in my last department– is that teaching prowess has come to be a more important consideration in the academic hiring process (at least in philosophy) than it was when I was looking for my first job in the 1970s. Many applicants seem to be submitting student evaluations of their teaching (either as TAs or in a first, probably part-time and non-tenured, job) as part of their application package.
    So my guess is that a teaching qualification, M. Ed. or years of secondary teaching, would probably something of a plus in seeking an academic position. Whether enough of a plus to justify the time spent, I have no idea.
    —
    In the first half of the 20th C I think it was fairly common for people to teach school for a few years after college before going on to do a Ph.D. and starting an academic career: my father (who was in English, not philosophy) taught in two secondary schools between the time he graduated from college in 1927 and the time he did his Ph.D. and got his first "tenure-track" job in 1940. Among philosophers…I haven't checked, but I think I remember C.I. Lewis as having taught high school between his BA and his Ph.D.

    One of the philosophy faculty members at a university where I had many friends had done a "Teaching Certificate" in addition to his philosophy post-graduate studies (I can't remember if he did this before or after). I think I, and most of the other people who knew him, thought of this as an admirable and commendable thing, not as a reason to doubt his commitment to research.
    —
    With regard to the concerns Professor Kukla raises… My father, C.I. Lewis, and the candidates who included student-evaluations in their applications to my former department were all male. My feeling (trying to introspect how I would react if I were on a hiring committee and noted that an applicant had gotten an M.Ed. before a Ph. D.) is that a male candidate would not be disadvantaged by having done something as female-identified as an education degree. In a female job applicant… well, I suppose us dyed-in-the-wool sexists will look for ANYTHING to be prejudiced against in a woman!

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  13. Cathy Kemp

    I second Mohan Matthen's observation that training in more than one discipline is more helpful than not on the academic job market (with seconds to caveats others have mentioned about quality of program, time spent, explicit integration with work in philosophy, etc.). That is, for everyone except people who are pitched exclusively at ranked research programs or at schools whose departments identify primarily with that mission. For everyone else (and by the numbers that's most of us), an additional degree is more often than not more bang for the buck from the hiring school's point of view. Remember that at least half the battle of hiring, especially these days, is getting the line and making department hires valuable across the institution (not least so the battle is easier next time). Advanced training in another discipline gives a candidate a credential to substantiate claims to specialization in another area, and establishes an instant relationship with that alternate community on campus. Candidates are also better positioned to make lateral moves later on (again, generally outside the ranked-programs culture), which is important for many reasons. Add the (carefully cultivated) variety of journals, conferences, and other research outlets, not to mention the broader teaching portfolio, and this can be very useful for the long haul of one's career. If nothing else I'd bet it reduces the likelihood that one gets tracked into a string of non-tenure-stream appointments.

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  14. Harry Brighouse

    Mohan Matthen seems right to me, and especially that explaining the connection (or non-connection) between one's philosophical interests and the M.Ed is something to do. If anyone reading actually sees an application like this, please look at the candidate and what the candidate has done, rather than making assumptions about the school of ed they are coming out of — there are, indeed, a few schools of education which tell you something reliable about the intellectual direction of the candidate, but only a very few, and only limited reliability. If the candidate has looks good philosophically, that tells you more about what he/she did in the M.Ed than whatever it is you know about the Ed School (and in my experience very few philosophers know anything specific about ed schools, and a priori guessing really isn't responsible).

    If her philosophical interests mesh well with her M.Ed interests, tell her to look into UW Madison.

    Also, isn't there an entire generation of (male) philosophers (and academics generally) many of whom have been high school teachers or have Ed school credentials, now mostly in their 60's, for obvious reasons? I'm almost sure my colleague Dan Hausman has a teaching certificate.

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