m********a
发帖数: 239 | 1 I wonder how SYZ would think about this recent article.
Nature 472, 259–260 (21 April 2011) doi:10.1038/472259b
Published online 20 April 2011
No longer a guaranteed ticket to an academic career, the PhD system
needs a serious rethink.
The world has many problems and it will take a lot of bright, educated
people to solve them. So, on the face of it, it seems like a good thing
that more and more people are earning PhDs in science, technology and
engineering. Most countries, convinced that higher education and
scientific research are key to economic growth and prosperity, are
expanding doctoral education in science. The thought, as one researcher
who has studied doctoral-education trends puts it, is that you can “grow
PhDs like mushrooms”.
The consequence of that mushrooming depends on where it is taking place,
and in which discipline, as our overview of PhD systems around the world
shows (see page 276). Clearly, such expansion results in an
extraordinary amount of good research (see page 283). And in the rapidly
growing tiger economies, for example, most of those with PhDs quickly
find good jobs.
But there are reasons for caution. Unlimited growth could dilute the
quality of PhDs by pulling less-able individuals into the system. And
casual chats with biomedical researchers in the United States or Japan
suggest a gloomy picture. Exceptionally bright science PhD holders from
elite academic institutions are slogging through five or ten years of
poorly paid postdoctoral studies, slowly becoming disillusioned by the
ruthless and often fruitless fight for a permanent academic position.
That is because increased government research funding from the US
National Institutes of Health and Japan's science and education ministry
has driven expansion of doctoral and postdoctoral education — without
giving enough thought to how the labour market will accommodate those
who emerge. The system is driven by the supply of research funding, not
the demand of the job market.
“Widening concerns about dismal job prospects are dissuading the
brightest candidates from the PhD route.”
The problem is widely discussed, yet many PhD programmes remain firmly
in the traditional mould — offering an apprenticeship for academic
research, even as numbers of academic positions stagnate or decline.
Yes, there are many worthwhile careers outside academia for science PhD
holders (Nature would be down to a skeleton staff without them). And
most people with science PhDs eventually find satisfying jobs. But they
probably feel that spending years performing minipreps was not the most
appropriate way to become a banker or a teacher. Widening concerns about
dismal job prospects are dissuading some of the brightest candidates
from taking the PhD route.
Something needs to change — but what? Ideally, the system would produce
high-quality PhD holders well matched to the attractive careers on
offer. Yet many academics are reluctant to rock the boat as long as they
are rewarded with grants (which pay for cheap PhD students) and
publications (produced by their cheap PhD students). So are
universities, which often receive government subsidies to fill their PhD
spots.
One way in which governments can bring about change is to better match
educational supply with occupational demand. They should get smart,
independent labour economists to comb through wage and employment data
that reveal which types of science-related job are in short supply, and
talk to stakeholders on the ground to confirm the findings. Governments
should then open the doors to more PhDs only where they are most needed.
Such analyses are already under way, and should be encouraged.
A second route is to reform the PhD itself (see page 261), and reset the
expectations of those in the system. Imagine bright young things
entering a new kind of science PhD, in which both they and their
supervisors embrace from the start the idea that graduates will go on to
an array of demanding careers — government, business, non-profit and
education — and work towards that goal (see page 381). The students meet
supervisors from a range of disciplines; they acquire management,
communication, leadership and other transferable skills alongside
traditional academic development of critical thinking and analysis; and
they spend six months to a year abroad.
Some such efforts have already begun: for example, US institutions vie
to win prestigious grants from the Integrative Graduate Education and
Research Traineeship (IGERT) programme run by the National Science
Foundation, which promotes highly interdisciplinary PhDs (see page 280)
The IGERT scheme shows how appropriate reward structures can drive
change. Governments and funding agencies should require educational
institutions to release figures showing how many of their PhD students
complete the course, and how many go on to find employment and where,
and should award some proportion of funding accordingly. This would also
help prospective students to select a good course, and force worse-
performing programmes to shape up or close.
Until any of this becomes commonplace, it is up to prospective graduate
students to enter a science PhD with their eyes open to the
opportunities — or lack of them — at the end. Not all mushrooms grow
best in the dark. | m********a
发帖数: 239 | 2 It is depressing to think about job perspective for bio graduates. Most of
them are only trained to do research, with no other transportable skills
outside the labs. If research job fails, the future looks bleak. |
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