Addendum to Hyperopia in Acadaemia

Happy New Year!

In my second to last blog post of 2014 I wrote about two reports on the state of post-docs in science. The gist of the reports was that there is a glut of highly educated scientists and researchers who, without significant changes to our current scientific structures, will likely be unable to find jobs or promotions. Just two days later I found an article summarizing a Royal Society working group report in which they recommend giving a "clear statement" about the role of universities for managing the expectations of junior scientists. Dame Anthene Donald, the head of the working group noted that, "there should be proper dialog about what a PhD is for ... that it is not simply the first step in a logical career progression." Besides advice to students to prepare for jobs outside of the academy and advice to supervisors to warn and temper students expectations, the best piece of advice from the report suggests that universities should provide appropriate training in transferrable skills and arrange visits from people outside academia to outline alternative career paths.

Theses suggestions are certainly good, but perhaps not all that timely, nor perhaps as dire as it sounds. Although I don't remember many cautioning me to not start graduate school or to leave school once I arrived, even 5 years ago a number of people discussed how difficult the job market was. The report seems to presume that everyone that enters graduate school hopes to leave and try to become a researcher at a R1 research institution. I for one know that not everyone going to graduate school intends that as I myself entered graduate school with the explicit understanding with my dissertation advisor that I was training to work at a primarily undergraduate, teaching focused (likely liberal arts based) institution. Likewise, on the other side of neuroscience, many students training in molecular neuroscience planned to enter industry after graduating.

When I arrived in Canada for my post-doc, I found that there were a number of opportunities available to both graduate students and post-docs in neuroscience for training in business. The Mitacs Elevate Program allows post-docs to work in a company and pursue research. The Ontario Brain Institute offers more formalized training in management and entrepreneurial-ship through three programs. So while there may not be enough jobs in R1 institutions or in other schools in the academy, positions and opportunities are starting to outside the academy and with fair warning as the Royal Society suggests, graduate students can make preparations early in their career.