Science in Brisbane forum: topic
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PhDs in the workforce, good or bad?
William Burns
Monday, 23 June 2008 23:46 UTC
The Australian newspaper reported last week that Australia is short of PhD students
They quoted a report to an Australian parliamentary committee that said that in some disciplines, such as forestry and radiography, “there were fewer than 10 PhD commencements in 2006.”
Well, inspired to read the original report, which emanated from the Australian National University, I logged on to the Parliament of Australia web site, and pulled the document off.
ANU recomend that: “Australia should aim to significantly increase the number of doctorates in the workforce: academic as well as general.”
“While Australia has become more educated and the number of graduates in the work force has increased steadily over the past twenty years, the number of doctorates in the Australian workforce remains comparatively low: 7.8 per one thousand workers, compared to almost 11 in the United States, and 20 in Germany.”
It seems to make sense, but is it really a good idea to have more PhDs in the general workforce? Isn’t it a big a leap to connect the success of the German economy with the number of PhDs they’ve got?
Aren’t we (us lot with PhDs) an impractical, overly-analytical bunch? Any views on this? (For a counterpoint read this article).
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Replies
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I don’t agree that more PhDs = better. The vast majority of jobs don’t require a PhD; it’s a specialist qualification, designed for people who intend to remain in a particular field of study. Furthermore in science, we train far more PhDs than there are (permanent) jobs available. I also see an increasing number of students who decide to do a PhD because they can’t think what else to do: always a very bad idea!
If I were at that stage in life today, I don’t know that I’d even do a PhD. I’d probably want to work for a startup, or a corporation such as Google.
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After finishing my Ph.D. I found that teaching looked like a financial dead end; the university where I was full-time adjunct teaching gave me a raise to $26,000/year when I finished the doctorate. My colleagues were seeing their grant applications rejected. Serial postdocing was the norm (this was before the US postdoc pay raise at the turn of the millenium). Faced with a bleak post-degree academic future, I hunted alternative work and landed at a biotech startup. I doubt I could have got the job without a Ph.D. I use the skills I learned while pursuing the Ph.D. and constantly learn new things. Without the language and understanding of research that I built in grad school I wouldn’t be able to do what I do now.
As a Ph.D. in the non-academic workforce, life looks pretty good. Are there more slots like this available? It seems likely. Without Ph.D.s in the workforce, who will design those new tools the academic Ph.D.s like to use in their research?
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In science journalism I think having a PhD is just about the surest way not to get hired.
“[Newspaper] editors consider scientists to be the people least able to talk about how research might affect the average citizen.” – EMBO Journal
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