Preliminary findings of a Graduate Division study called "Ph.D.'s--Ten Years Later" already are giving Graduate Division deans and researchers ideas on how to help today's students achieve a successful career, even if that means going outside academia.
"What we want to do is come up with a more concerted effort to help our students look for nonacademic jobs," says Maresi Nerad, director of graduate research. "It's very high on our list of priorities for Graduate Division, very high."
In the long term, the Graduate Division will be looking at curriculum, faculty attitudes, and student needs. Whether changes in the curriculum are needed is still an open question, but there's no debate that faculty attitudes toward nonacademic careers need to be changed.
Nerad cautions that such changes won't occur overnight.
"The departments are ideally the units that can help the students most," she says. "But the market the departments know is the academic market. Our faculty just don't have the experience. We can't expect them to suddenly know everything about jobs outside academia."
Some departments, she acknowledges, show more initiative than others, but often they have an industry-related advantage to begin with. Many engineering faculty members consult for industry and, thus, have networks in place. The Department of Molecular and Cell Biology connects past doctoral students, including those employed outside academia, with current ones via its alumni newsletter.
What Graduate Division would like to do in the short term--at least as a pilot program--is take the career-management seminar now offered by the Center for Particle Astrophysics and retool it to address the needs of students in the humanities and social sciences. (See the article "What's Out There?")
Nerad stresses that if there's one thing the "Ten Years Later" study already has taught her, it is the need to do something--and sooner rather than later.
Early Findings
"Ph.D.'s--Ten Years Later," by Nerad and Joseph Cerny, dean of the Graduate Division, looks at the career paths of 6,000 doctoral recipients from 61 institutions and six fields (biochemistry, computer science, electrical engineering, English, mathematics, and political science) who received their doctorates between 1983 and 1985. Of these, 120 Ph.D.'s, 20 from each field, are undergoing in-depth interviews about why they chose the career path they did and how their degrees--and their universities--guided them.
The study's early findings, though still preliminary, echo the concerns of graduate students today while offering fresh insights and debunking a few myths.
Like graduate students today, most 1980s-era Ph.D. recipients expected, when they began their studies, to find teaching and research jobs. Most say their professors expected the same of them. Few found that faculty provided much help when they turned, by choice or necessity, outside academia.
And as with today's graduate students, 1980s Ph.D.'s found a tough job market to be only one of their challenges. They juggled two-career couples, balanced time with family, and debated where they wanted to live.
But if not all 1980s Ph.D.'s found teaching jobs, neither are they driving taxis. And just because they're not professors doesn't mean they're not happy. Conversely, a university job doesn't guarantee satisfaction.
For example, of 14 biochemists interviewed so far, nine currently work in the nonacademic sector. The other five work in the academic sector, three of them as tenured professors. The tenured faculty seem to be the least satisfied with their jobs; they have the least time to do the "bench science" they love most.
Other preliminary findings include:
Benefits--and Advice
Given their original expectations, you'd think some of those interviewed might regret the time and money they invested to get a Ph.D. But for the most part, the interviewees say their education helped them develop critical thinking skills, endurance, and mental discipline. They say their degrees bestowed self-confidence, opened doors, established credibility, commanded respect, and provided them with professional contacts.
Some have ideas on ways to improve doctoral education that will sound a note with today's graduate students. Among the recommendations: Invite Ph.D.'s who work in a variety of fields to speak to students on nonacademic career paths.
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