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After the PhD

Updated October 2022

Applying Your Degree

The PhD Careers Advisor is the faculty member who serves as the department’s primary source of career advising for PhD students. The Careers Advisor teaches the department’s Job Materials Workshop every spring; we strongly encourage you to enroll in this workshop the spring before you anticipate beginning applying for jobs. The Careers Advisor also organizes workshops on interviewing, mock interviews, and practice job talks. Finally, the Careers Advisor also maintains our departmental Job Search Handbook and collection of alumni job materials available for students to read while drafting their own job materials.

We advise you to work closely with the Careers Advisor and your committee as you explore your career goals and options. The department encourages students to explore a wide range of humanities careers across and beyond academia.

The Career Services Center offers job-search programs to help graduate students, with a particular focus on encouraging career exploration beyond academia. The Career Center offers individual career counseling to students as well as workshops on topics such as turning a CV into a resumé, identifying transferable skills, and more. Further information may be obtained at http://career.ucsd.edu/.  

The MLA posts its job list online annually.  This is the primary source for information about academic employment, and the Job List is open for all to view online, no registration or MLA membership needed. It is updated throughout the year. Jobs traditionally began appearing on the list in August and September for the following year, but the job market timeline has expanded considerably and new jobs can be posted at any time throughout the year.

Joining the Modern Language Association

MLA is the primary professional association for academics in the fields of languages and literatures.  The MLA publishes a journal, Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, and serves as the clearinghouse for job announcements and professional issues for the colleges and university systems.  The Association publishes an annual list of conferences and grants, circulates calls for papers, and maintains an ongoing list of available academic jobs.

Individual students may wish to become members of the MLA, thus receiving information specific to their own research and teaching specialties.  The MLA offers special student membership rates.  More information about the MLA is available at http://www.mla.org/.