"A BAD REPUTATION: WHY ARE MORE AND MORE GRADUATE STUDENTS TURNING AWAY FROM CAREERS AT RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES?" |
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POST DATE
January 27, 2009, 4 PM
POSTED BY
Geoff Davis
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Mary Ann Mason and Marc Goulden have conducted a recent study of University of California graduate students. Mason's assessment in The Chronicle: "We may be losing some of the most talented potential academics before they even arrive for a job interview. In the eyes of many doctoral students, the research university has a bad reputation — one of unrelenting work hours that allow little room for a satisfying family life." The big problem is the hours and difficulty balancing work and family responsibilities:
While Mason expresses a great deal of concern about the findings, I'm not so sure it's a bad thing. There are strong cultural biases in academia that push graduate students to consider academic careers at research universities to the exclusion of all other options. The result is that few people prepare effectively for anything else, and poor preparation for the outside world combined with high ratios of aspirants to positions results in career train wrecks for a lot of people. Academic careers are no panacea - the hours are long, the pay mediocre, and in most cases one has little control over where one lives and works. While the outcome that Mason advocates - having universities become more accommodating of families - would certainly be a good thing, an even better thing would be more students moving to productive and satisfying careers in other sectors. |
Geoff,
I, like you, am certain this is a GOOD thing. At last, graduate students are getting a more realistic perspective of the pluses and minuses of an academic career, and they are rationally weighing their options. I do remember from my days as a graduate student at Stanford that a common refrain heard by graduate students (spoken out of earshot of their advisors) was that they wanted to remain in science but "did not want their advisor's life." This study shows that this perspective is still present.
It is ironic that this study suggests that the turn-off about the academic life is a bad thing. Why do the authors (and the establishment in general) still feel that academia is the BEST place that science-trained individuals should be? Certainly, *some* should go on and be tomorrow's professors. But don't we also want the best and brightest science-trained individuals to be tomorrow's politicians, entrepreneurs, lawyers and businesspeople? Especially given this current economic crisis: don't we want more science-trained people directly working on emerging technologies for a new economy? Why does the establishment persist in believing that the role the “best and brightest” should play is in teaching classes, training graduate students and publishing papers?
Well, Peter, what makes you think that many scientists would make good entrepreneurs? Their record on Wall Street isn't looking so hot now. And how many scientists that you know would want to go into politics? Speaking for myself, I want no part of the business or political worlds. The hassles there, for me, are much worse than those of academe.
I agree that it is a good thing - it filters out the less committed. Basically, my view of being a scientist is that it is much like being a musician or clergyman - it's not a "career path", it's a calling. If you go in expecting to BE something (say, a tenured professor or a rock star), the odds are against you. But if you go in expecting to DO something (create new knowledge or entertain people), your chances for happiness are much higher.