In “Humanities Departments after the Fall”, Alfredo Cumera, Gilman Research Fellow at Johns Hopkins University, offers graduate students wise advice to expand how they think about their humanities degrees and how graduate programs can support students to expand their professional opportunities.

He concludes by saying:

As cliché as it may be, there are three “I’s” for improving your doctoral education in the humanities: innovate, inform and internship. You must begin by defining a project that sets you apart, an idea you can “brand” intellectually as your own but also pitch to employers. Once that is in place, you must inform

stakeholders — high-level administrators, professors from other divisions, networking contacts — about your goals. Then you can leverage that support to obtain internships, the magic ingredient for jobs. After that, the only “I” left to satisfy is you.