What can I do with a humanities PhD?

What do all those physics PhDs end up doing?

A whole lot of running computer systems. An incidental skill they picked up during their apprenticeships.

What incidental skill have you picked up during your apprenticeship?

Critical thinking. Analysis and synthesis of disparate information. Communication skills. Research skills. Project management.

Where can you apply those skills, once exiled like Adam from academe?

Anyone who’ll pay you to think for a living. They do exist, though the pathways to those gigs are often happenstance. Consider:

• Government. Policy development, research, communications.
• Consultancies and corporate. Business analysis, process analysis, business architecture.
• And the old humanities standbys: publishing, marketing, editing.

I don’t know that your PhD will always be considered an asset in such gigs. But at least it won’t be a hindrance.

Good luck!