Doctoral programs and mature students?

[niwon88]

I also wanted to add that I tailor my supervision according to their stated career goals.

I generally ask my doctoral students whether or not they want a tenure-track career. Some don't know yet, but for the ones that do, I advise them their workload will have to vastly differ from their classmates. They will need to publish in peer reviewed journals, attend or present at conferences, work as research assistants, and get grant writing experience.

One of my mature (age 40+) doctoral students said she wanted a government job, so I leave her alone to just focus on her PhD. I don't send her reminders about conferences, grant applications, publications and do not hire her for my research projects. If she changes her mind in 2 years, she will have a real problem since she has done none of those things to prepare herself for academia.

I reserve my research funding for only those students who have aspirations for academic careers since they NEED to publish, present at conferences, etc. in order to have a fighting chance out there.

[Wahoo Redux]

At least two of my PhD cohort did get jobs outside of academia---one after completing the degree and teaching for a while, and another who got a pretty good non-academic job while ABD (I think hu eventually finished but I am not sure).

Another dropped out after getting the MA, got married to an academic, had kids, and is now going to library school and working at her husband's uni as a librarian.

So there certainly are Plan Bs out there, but I don't see how one can really prepare for them during grad school.  I see the Plan B as a sometimes desperate attempt after the fact.

[jerseyjay]

At least two of my PhD cohort did get jobs outside of academia [....]
So there certainly are Plan Bs out there, but I don't see how one can really prepare for them during grad school.  I see the Plan B as a sometimes desperate attempt after the fact.

I agree that going into a graduate program with the goal of not becoming an academic is usually not really a good idea. (There are exceptions, depending on the degree, where industry or government work may be the goal, or where the person is already employed somewhere else. I mean a librarian or a high school teacher might enter a PhD program, which is fine, but this is not the subject of this thread.) Even if one ends up with a good nonacademic career after going spending 10 years working on a PhD in history or English, this would seem to be a waste of the time and resources spent at graduate school--not just by the candidate, but by the school itself--since getting a PhD was usually not necessary to getting the good job. In this sense, you don't go into grad school planning on a non-academic career, but rather a non-academic career is something that happens, either because of luck or misfortune, as the case may be.

But my original point is that there is a wide gulf between tenure-track research-focused jobs and non-academic jobs. Somebody in grad school should be open to academic jobs that are not R1 tenure track jobs. Such as: community colleges, SLACs, open admission teacher's colleges, etc. These are real academic jobs (I have one), but they are not the same as teaching at a R1. If somebody is focused on just an R1, they may miss all the other possible jobs out there.

In my opinion, and advisor should help their students prepare for all of these types of jobs, because it is likely that their students will be competing for them. (I teach at a open admissions former teacher college, and of the last several t-t hires, most of them have degrees from prestigious R1s. One of my colleagues graduated from a very prestigious Ivy league PhD program. By chance, I know several people in their cohort, and only one of them ended up at an R1 tenure track job, while the rest ended up at different types of schools.)

I do think that that there is ageism in academia. But even leaving that aside, if an advisor treats every 28-year-old graduate student as if they were going to get a t-t job at an R1, that'd be wrong. At least in history, there are just too many PhDs for too few of such type of jobs. Factoring in racism, agesism, sexism, etc., complicates the picture for individuals, but, again, grad students--all grad students--should be advised to cast their nets widely.

[Ruralguy]

I think there's definitely a graduate admissions problem in a lot of fields, not just in the humanities or some social sciences, but that's another thread.

But living with the amount and type of graduate students you get, I think the role of a graduate mentor is to truthfully set out the possibilities, which includes *all* academic possibilities, many non academic possibilities, and also truthfully saying that you just don't know of all of the possibilities.

But in the end, people will just do what they want to do. That may include accepting the consequences of their risky bets.

As I said before, I don't think age has all that much to do with the general picture.
I am not denying ageism, just saying that other than mentioning that ageism could be an issue, I think a mentor of an older graduate should more or less say the same things as to a younger one, modulating for the specific stated concerns of the student (say, family, health, etc.). But stay away from "Don't do this because people won't hire older students" sort of statements, as those just perpetuate the ageism you are trying to cure.

[quasihumanist]

As far as anyone currently in my department knows, no one who earned their PhD from my department has ever gotten a research-oriented academic position.

I don't think I have to worry about any of our students being deluded enough to think they have a chance at one.  In fact, if any of our students seem to be good enough for one, we tell them to take their MS and go elsewhere.

[mleok]

I agree that going into a graduate program with the goal of not becoming an academic is usually not really a good idea.

This is very field dependent, in many engineering fields, it is perfectly sensible to pursue a PhD with no intention of seeking an academic position. For my students, they would likely find better use for the technical skills they learned in their PhD pursuing a career in industry than to teaching at a community college.

[Ruralguy]

I'd say my physical sciences field is fairly mixed in this regard: a definite academic contingent, with a few definitely being more teaching or public interest focused, many wanting to work in a government lab environment, and definitely some who would like to work in industry.

[Wahoo Redux]

But in the end, people will just do what they want to do. That may include accepting the consequences of their risky bets.

Philosophic bedrock.

I've been saying this for some time.

Of course, my perspective is from a humanities field which has only a few (if any) escape hatches.

[jerseyjay]

I agree that going into a graduate program with the goal of not becoming an academic is usually not really a good idea.

This is very field dependent, in many engineering fields, it is perfectly sensible to pursue a PhD with no intention of seeking an academic position. For my students, they would likely find better use for the technical skills they learned in their PhD pursuing a career in industry than to teaching at a community college.

Yes, of course, Engineering, economics, education, etc., each in their own ways can be very useful degrees for non-academic work. As I said, "There are exceptions, depending on the degree, where industry or government work may be the goal. " But in those fields where a doctorate is primarily a preparation for an academic career, it would seem to me to be not a good idea to get a degree with the explicit goal of not becoming an academic, unless you already have a job. This is similar to going to medical school with the explicit goal of not becoming a doctor. Sure, there are people with MDs who do other things, but I wouldn't advise somebody to get an MD with the goal of becoming a politician or a novelist. Or getting an JD with the goal of opening a bookstore. It happens, but it is not the most efficient route.

[kaysixteen]

Random questions:

1) does anyone know roughly how many American MDs of working age who are not currently practicing some form of medicine?  JDs?

2)WRT academic PhDs, esp in humanities, are there any sources of statistics showing what percentage of the holders of such degrees are not working in education, including both teaching in higher ed or k12, or serving as admins therein?

3) Compared to what was normative, say, in the 90s, when I was a grad student in a humanities field, how much more common might it be for humanities PhD programs and/or the unis they are housed in, to offer substantive assistance and counseling to help their grad students secure non-academic career options?

[Caracal]

Random questions:

2)WRT academic PhDs, esp in humanities, are there any sources of statistics showing what percentage of the holders of such degrees are not working in education, including both teaching in higher ed or k12, or serving as admins therein?

Not sure about other fields, but the AHA put together a good database for history.
https://www.historians.org/wherehistorianswork

For people who got their degree from 2004-13, somewhere around 20 percent aren't working in higher ed or in secondary schools. Teachers and administrators in k-12 are a pretty small proportion of the total, around 3 percent.

[kaysixteen]

The low percentage of non-STEM PhDs working as k12 teachers, even in fancy prep schools, does not surprise me.   I have observed massive anti-PhD prejudice in the k12 world.

[Wahoo Redux]

The low percentage of non-STEM PhDs working as k12 teachers, even in fancy prep schools, does not surprise me.   I have observed massive anti-PhD prejudice in the k12 world.

Huh.  I could see why a PhD in physics would be grossly overqualified for, say, middle school, but wouldn't high schools be happy to have a bonified physicist?

Why do you suppose there is bias toward a doctorate in K-12?  Just curious.

[Ruralguy]

I think he was implying that there were some STEM PhDs in the private school world, but not non STEM.

[niwon88]

According to the Bureau of Labour Statistics (2020), PhD grads have the LOWEST unemployment rate and highest earnings.
https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/unemployment-earnings-education.htm