To what extent are the Universities responsible for the career training and development of their postdocs and graduate students?

Submitted by Trevor McKee on Wed, 13/05/2009 - 15:00

The traditional academic model has been one of academic apprenticeship, in which graduate student training is partially coursework, but mostly hands-on research based training, with the ultimate goal of training towards an academic appointment.  However, this model has broken down due to the excess supply of graduate students in relation to the limited supply of academic appointments.

What burden does the University, or the academic system as a whole, hold with respect to alternative career training for those 80% of graduate students that move on to appointments other than academic appointments?  Is extra coursework in the already crowded graduate student schedule justified, focusing on alternative careers, or is this something that each graduate student should figure out for their own?

What about postdoctoral fellows - who face very similar situations.  Some attempts have been made at creating postdoctoral training programs, with mixed success.  Should postdoctoral fellows be made to take classes to learn about alternative careers, considering the minority of them will end up in academic positions, or is this detracting from the purpose of a postdoctoral fellow, which is to focus on research?

see http://www.themarknews.com/articles/170-a-pressing-need-revising-academic-apprenticeship for additional perspective along these same lines.  Some of the career resources available to postdocs at one university - U of T - were recently highlighted at a UT postdoc association town hall meeting - video of the presentation by a UT career center counselor is available at http://vimeo.com/4199990

Comments

Academic bias towards academic positions

Hi Trevor,

I agree there is a gap to be filled. There is an inherent bias within graduate programs that expects grad students to go on to academic or other research careers, partly due to the outlook of some research professors who view research as the highest goal, with other careers being left for those who can't make it in research.

However, even in an academic research career, there are many skills that the research lab and traditional subject-based courses don't prepare you for: public speaking and management of people and budgets, just to name a few.  Focusing on a few skills like this would benefit the student whether they go on to academic research, industry, management, or science policy.

Daniel

 

Daniel Banks

Strategic Planning & Communications Officer 
Canadian Neutron Beam Centre 
National Research Council Canada
613-584-8298
Daniel.Banks@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca

Submitted by Daniel Banks on Tue, 29/09/2009 - 15:00.

Academic Bias - Skill Sets of Graduate Students

Daniel  Banks makes an excelent point in suggesting that graduate students need to be exposed to a wider set of skills than are often offered in a traditional graduate programme.

For many years I have taught a half course at the University of Toronto entitled Communication for Physicists.  The course includes written and oral communication, scientific writing, preparation of resumes and c.v.s, grant and scholarship applications, etc. The course is optional and has been very well received by students.

However, the pace of discovery in science means that most students don't have the time to master and contribute to their subject in addition to developing these additional, undoubtedly valuable, skills; and one short half course in a five-year degree programme cannot make more than a small contribution. Those supervisors who pursue basic scientific research cannot be expected to place great emphasis on this aspect of their students' education no matter how sympathetic they may be.

The debate about the place of job training in the academic mission goes on!

Tony Key, Department of Physics, University of Toronto. key@physics.utoronto.ca
Submitted by Tony Key on Mon, 26/10/2009 - 15:00.