The commission predicts that in 1993, approximately 7,300 U.S. citizens will complete Ph.D.'s in the natural sciences. This figure includes approximately 4,500 Ph.D.'s in the life sciences, 1,200 in chemistry, and 675 in astronomy and physics. These predictions, Vetter says, are based on similar figures compiled in recent years: "The numbers have been very steady for the last 10 years, and we don't see any significant change coming soon."
Sandra J. Lazzarini, a graduate student in neuroscience at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, is among those 7,300 future scientists who will be thrust into a fragile job market in 1993. She and her peers are about to find out the hard way how different the "real world" is from life as a graduate student. "You can do what you really want to do while you're training," Lazzarini says.
As a graduate student, the neuroscientist notes, she doesn't have to worry ...
