Bitesize Bio has an interesting post about the need for science grad students to explore alternatives to research oriented careers while at grad school, and the importance of developing a more diverse set of skills in order to increase one’s employability in non-research career paths.
Completing a PhD makes you the world expert on the minutia of your specific research field - and the intricacies of the various pieces of arcane equiptment found in your lab - but it doesn’t, in mine and other’s opinions, give you the skills necessary to take your knowledge of science out into the “real” world.
Most grad students (myself included…to a certain extent anyway) are so engrossed in their academic work, that exploring other avenues of career development takes a back seat. This is entirely expected though, because as Dr Free-Ride so eloquently points out in part one and part two of her “being a grown up scientist” blog series, the learning curve from wee undergrad to big scientist is tremendously steep and involves a huge amount of raw effort, leaving little time or mental capacity to fritter away on anything that is not directly relevant to your thesis.
While a lot of universities have cottoned on to this and are actively offering a host of practical skills courses to students, many of us lack the initiative and the motivation to participate. In addition, a lot of these courses are complete rubbish anyway. I went on a “communication for scientists” course at my uni and it was a very boring waste of time that would have been better spent trying to finish the mountain of immunohistochemistry I was buried under at the time. While I don’t doubt for a second the importance of broadening our education through such means, I get the impression that a lot of these courses are at best a token effort.
So what is to be done with us? Well for a start I think it’s definitely a bonus to have a supervisor who actively encourages this sort of thing. After all, the supervisor is a pretty influential figure in the life of a grad student. My masters project supervisor was actively involved in a bunch of local biotech firms, which is how I ended up spending one summer as a marketing assistant at one. Not the most exciting job in the world, but definitely rewarding in terms of what I learnt about the commercialisation of research.
But at the end of the day, the onus is on the student, and herein lies the big problem. A lot of students are bound by their grad school blinkers and don’t actually realise that they may not be destined to a career in academic servitude. And until they do, they aren’t going to be dropping the pipettes any time soon to learn about how best to run a kiddie science fair or how to make millions with a spin-off biotech company.
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