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发帖数: 5516 | 1 经济学家杂志在2010年刊发的文章。
我们都是被社会设计好的耗材。
The disposable academicWhy doing a PhD is often a waste of time
Dec 16th 2010
http://www.economist.com/node/17723223
business leaders complain about shortages of high-level skills, suggesting
PhDs are not teaching the right things. The fiercest critics compare
research doctorates to Ponzi or pyramid schemes.
These armies of low-paid PhD researchers and postdocs boost universities',
and therefore countries', research capacity。
Even graduates who find work outside universities may not fare all that well
. PhD courses are so specialised that university careers offices struggle to
assist graduates looking for jobs, and supervisors tend to have little
interest in students who are leaving academia.
The organisations that pay for research have realised that many PhDs find it
tough to transfer their skills into the job market. Writing lab reports,
giving academic presentations and conducting six-month literature reviews
can be surprisingly unhelpful in a world where technical knowledge has to be
assimilated quickly and presented simply to a wide audience.
Many of those who embark on a PhD are the smartest in their class and will
have been the best at everything they have done. They will have amassed
awards and prizes. As this year's new crop of graduate students bounce into
their research, few will be willing to accept that the system they are
entering could be designed for the benefit of others, that even hard work
and brilliance may well not be enough to succeed, and that they would be
better off doing something else. They might use their research skills to
look harder at the lot of the disposable academic. Someone should write a
thesis about that. |
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