University Affairs

Documenting ‘PhD success stories’

My jumping off point for this posting are the two comments made on my April 2nd rant.

First Grace wrote: “I wonder how many of those graduates who don’t become teachers and researchers with universities will actually “permeate other sectors of society” in some way that fully uses their knowledge. ”

To which Andreas replied: “I agree with Grace: it’s not easy to get a job outside the academe when you’ve devoted your whole life (assuming people get their degree at 28-30) to precisely continuing inside the academe.”

Andreas and Grace – your perspectives are prototypical of those I often hear from grad students concerning their career prospects outside of academe.  The frustration and anxiety evident in your posts is pervasive in grad departments. I know all too well what it is like to feel that cold knot of panic from my time as a PhD candidate in the early 90s — those were dark days in Canadian academe. But before we give up in despair, I’d like to extend the conversation a bit in hopes of providing an alternative approach to all the uncertainty, and yes, depression.

By now, we all know, there are systemic problems in the culture and structure of graduate education that are contributing to the difficulty Grace and Andreas, and many of you have experienced in trying to conceive of, let alone find a reasonable alternative to a tenure track position. Nonetheless, there are many thousands of graduate students who do morph successfully into satisfying, well-paid positions that provide opportunities for growth and challenge on par with that of the average academic. We are just not very good at documenting these stories, so we tend to think such possibilities simply do not exist – not really – not for us. This skepticism flourishes in the absence of evidence countering it, exacerbating the situation considerably.

This is where we can all help each other out. As we move ahead I will be archiving profiles of  PhDs I find or linking to articles about people I have already written about in my time at University Affairs under the “PhD success stories” category section in the right hand column of this page.

Whether you are a grad student, a faculty member, an administrator or a career adviser, you can help to develop this most desperately needed resource. Think: who do you know about who has made this leap? Ask them if you could refer them to me so I can add their profile to the Career Sense “PhD success stories”. Be prepared for rather startled responses initially. Such people aren’t used to having their successes acknowledged, let alone celebrated by academe.

I will contact them, or if they prefer, they can contact me through this site. I will ask them to describe their “alternative” career and how they transitioned to it along with anything else they may want to share on the topic. It won’t take much time, and I will respect all privacy requests.

Imagine what a valuable resource this could become for all of us. Students would benefit from the many examples of other things they could be preparing to do upon graduation. Faculty and career advisers would be able to point their students to this site for both inspiration and a realistic introduction to the postgraduate workforce. Over time, with all of us contributing, we could produce a pretty fantastic resource that would be able to counterbalance the negativity that surrounds us now, especially these days.

This is an open call – I’ll be posting profiles as they come in so you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed on this blog so you’ll know when there has been a new addition. If you’ve never participated in a blog before, this would be a quick but significant way to get your feet wet just by making a referral. All it takes is a few minutes of time and desire to start doing something positive when so many are convinced there is nothing they can do.

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