Broader Ph.D. Training Can Benefit Science and Society

The problem and the solution seem obvious: Scientists are training many more graduate students than are needed for available academic positions, and science illiteracy in the United States is rampant. Newly trained scientists working outside academia might ease the glut, plus perhaps pass their enthusiasm and knowledge to the public. Statistics tell the story. According to the National Research Council (NRC), in 1985, 3,791 Ph.D.s were granted in life sciences, and the job market held 20,377 tenure-track academic positions. In 1995, new Ph.D.s swelled to 5,878, yet the number of academic slots fell to 16,306.1 The pipeline appears to be near bursting. But for a grad student, finding a position outside academia is easier said than done. Part of the problem is image. "Calling this an 'alternative career' is a subtle put-down. We need a better term," says Jonathan Karp, a professor of biology at Rider University in Lawrenceville, N.J., who is coauthor of a new "survival guide" for graduate students.2 In interviewing hundreds of graduate students, Karp found many feel pressured to follow the trajectory of their mentors, from Ph.D. to postdoc (to postdoc), to faculty position. Deviation may be actively discouraged, as a biostatistician at a West Coast biotech firm who got his Ph.D. in physiology discovered. "In his third year he told his committee he didn't want to stay in hard-core research. They made it hard for him. Certain lab resources were taken away, because he wasn't considered serious," Karp says. Andrew Gale, who earned his Ph.D. in biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1995 and is currently a researcher at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, recalls the stigma of pursuing a different route. "MIT did have a couple of seminars on alternative careers, but they were pretty minimal. Much more important was the attitude promoted by everyone that these careers were only for people who were failures at academic research."3 But several new interdisciplinary graduate programs suggest that the definition of a scientist may be evolving, so that those who seek fulfillment outside the ivory towers are no longer considered second-class scientific citizens. The graduate school experience is traditionally one of increasing myopia. After a smattering of classes, a student selects a lab and a research project, and then assumes what Karp calls the ostrich pose. "When an ostrich puts its head in the ground, its butt is in the air. It is vulnerable. It is the same way with graduate school." Learning to do a few things very well does not prepare a student for delay or failure in finding an academic post. Paul Ehrlich, a professor of biological sciences at Stanford University, believes a fuller focus should extend to faculty too. Ehrlich has been in the limelight since his 1968 book The Population Bomb alerted the world to the dangers of overpopulation.4 More recently, he helped draft a letter to Science calling for revamping the rewards system in academic ecology to recognize efforts to tackle environmental problems.5 Such eco-luminaries as Cornell University's Thomas Eisner, Harvard University's Edward O. Wilson, and the University of Minnesota's David Tilman, plus 16 others signed it. "The letter was a reflection of something that a lot of senior people in ecology had been considering for some time. We should no longer hold it against our junior colleagues if they put in the time to counter those things that ecologists study that are rapidly disappearing. One can be a first-rate scientist and still be an advocate," Ehrlich says. Both small steps and new programs are expanding some graduate programs. Ehrlich's students, for example, must deliver a "two-minute seminar" entitled "The Social Significance of My Work." "It is to be designed for delivery to a tough congressman who might ask why a gas station attendant in his community should pay a dime in taxes to support the student's research," he says. But Ehrlich stresses that he does not mean research need be applied. For example, a study on Drosophila pupation can be related to how valuable the fruit fly has been in unraveling basic mechanisms of genetics and development. Some programs marry two related fields, such as bioinformatics, a hybrid of biology and computer science. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., expanded its bioinformatics program in September 1998.6 And students in a new bioinformatics program at Boston University will also participate in seminars at the College of Communication to learn how to explain their work to the public. Dorothy Sweeney Other new offerings are even broader. Pennsylvania State University, in University Park, is currently recruiting its third class in integrative biosciences. Students choose or combine mentors from more than two dozen departments, including the College of Medicine in nearby Hershey. "The professional goal is to develop new conceptual connections leading to innovative, interdisciplinary research in the life sciences; to educate the students to work both as independent scholars and as part of a problem-solving team; to increase student exposure to and experience with a variety of career options; and to provide internships and collaborations with industry, government, and private institutions," explains coordinator of graduate fellows Dorothy Sweeney. Bruce Stillman Another new program, at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, emphasizes more general research skills.7 "Students should receive training in how to do science--that is, how to think logically, how to plan experiments, and not necessarily how to be perfect at doing a particular technique," says director Bruce Stillman, adding that he hopes that the program can serve as a model for others. Expanding the scope of graduate education might be more useful in some disciplines than others. Ecologists, for example, are often asked to comment on such high-profile problems as rainforest destruction or global warming. In contrast, the nightly news rarely seeks scientists to expound on the elegance of signal transduction or cellular adhesion, unless there is an immediate health connection, preferably to a celebrity. And with the explosion of discoveries in cell and molecular biology, taking time from intense Ph.D. research to learn journalistic savvy or how to read financial reports might just not be feasible. To assess the state of the scientist overload in cell biology, the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) conducted a survey in 1998, to which 2,406 scientists at varying stages of their careers replied. The results support the NRC findings of lengthening time to earn the Ph.D., common serial postdocs, and difficulty in finding permanent positions and funding. Although three-quarters of the respondents favor broadened curricula, the survey's directors, ASCB Executive Director Elizabeth Marincola and Frank Solomon, a professor of biology at MIT, suggest that preparing newly minted scientists to enter the ranks of lawyers and journalists might not be the best solution to a tight job market. "We worry that broadening would most likely compromise the quality and probably increase the duration of training," says Marincola. They suggest creating a new type of scientist, a "professional position that does not self-replicate."8,9 These scientists would not have students, nor seek grant funding. "Such positions would be of indefinite duration--they would be considered permanent members of laboratory research teams. Credibility would follow from good salaries and the consequent competition that we predict that such positions would attract, as well as from experience and seniority," Marincola adds. L.J. Escote-Carlson Perhaps the best of both worlds would be simply to offer graduate students more options. And that seems to be happening. Says Karen Young Kreeger, who interviewed many graduate students and scientists in writing Guide to Non-Traditional Careers in Science .10 "The 'alternate career' movement has been talked about for seven years. Professional societies are starting their own seminars on it, and are getting more and more support. It's not getting better everywhere, but I did hear a couple of stories of students who received a lot of support from their mentors for their decisions to pursue other careers." Both science and society stand to benefit from the lifting of pressure on graduate students to follow in the precise footsteps of their mentors. Says L.J. Escote-Carlson, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Penn State and program coordinator for the biotechnology degree program, "Society will be better served by having highly educated and well-trained graduates working not only in the research laboratories of academia, but also in the corporate and business world, in schools and colleges, in public policymaking and regulatory bodies." Ricki Lewis (rickilewis@nasw.org) is a textbook author and a contributing editor for The Scientist. Survey of Doctorate Recipients, Washington, D.C., National Research Council, 1996. D. Bloom et al., The Ph.D. Process: A Student's Guide to Graduate School in the Sciences, New York, Oxford University Press, 1998. A.J. Gale, "Preparing Graduate Students in Biology," Science, 282:881, Oct. 30, 1998. P. Ehrlich, The Population Bomb, New York, Ballantine Books, 1968. F. Bazzaz et al., "Ecological Science and the Human Predicament," Science, 282:879, Oct. 30, 1998. " ... But Don't Forget About Bioinformatics," Notebook, The Scientist 12:[19]:31, Sept. 28, 1998. "New Program at Cold Spring Harbor," Notebook, The Scientist, 12[24]:35, Dec. 7, 1998. E. Marincola, F. Solomon, "Training for Today's Marketplace," Science, 281:645, July 31, 1998. E. Marincola, F. Solomon, "The Career Structure in Biomedical Research: Implications for Training and Trainees," Molecular Biology of the Cell, 9:3003-6, Nov. 1998. K.Y. Kreeger, Guide to Non-Traditional Careers in Science, Philadelphia, Taylor and Francis, 1999.

Broader Ph.D. Training Can Benefit Science and Society

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