Video: So you want to get a PhD in the humanities?

Found this on the Tweed blog on the Chronicle of Higher Education:

A jaded professor tries to persuade her robotic, tunnel-visioned student not to go for a PhD in English.

It rips on students’ sense of entitlement and inflated feelings of self-worth, but also paints the professor as a burned-out, jaded shell of a human being.

Snarky. Humorous. And ultimately tragic.

The video is made with a program that uses a synthesizer to generate the character’s voices. It shouldn’t be a distraction.

About the blogger

Alex Friedrich

afriedrich@mpr.org

Alex Friedrich reports on higher education issues for MPR News. Among the stories he has covered: the fall of the Berlin Wall, aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, 2003 Moscow suicide bombing and 2004 presidential elections in the Republic of Georgia. He holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Georgia and a master’s in European political economy from the London School of Economics.