Older Grad Students Cite Age, Experience As Advantages

The graduate school years are the best of times and the worst of times. Scientists often look back at these years as a period when they could finally focus on their favorite subject. Yet graduate school in a life science requires such time-consuming and intense research efforts that life can include little else. This can create difficulties for students over age 30, who are more likely than their younger counterparts to have families. FAMILY TIES: Elizabeth Luna, who has mentored older Ph.D. students, notes that having children creates extra demands on one's time. Older graduate students say that while experience in life and the workplace brings certain advantages to handling graduate school, responsibilities can intervene. "Different family circumstances can cause additional demands on graduate students. Most graduate students, for instance, don't have to schlep kids to soccer practice," observes Elizabeth J. Luna, 45, a senior scientist at the Worcester Foundation for Biomedical Research in Shrewsbury, Mass., who has mentored several older Ph.D. students. But experience in the real world can give older graduate students an edge. "Students who came in for a Ph.D. right out of their B.S. degrees were not psychologically as well prepared to deal with the stresses. They had the smarts, but they hadn't been in [a work] environment where everything you do is criticized," says Dirk Vanderklein, a professor of biology at Montclair State University in Montclair, N.J., recalling his graduate school days. Vanderklein attended grad school when he was in his early 30s. Although it may be more expedient to follow a career path directly from college graduation into a Ph.D. program when one is in one's 20s, data from the National Science Foundation indicate that most people actually do not do it this way. According to the agency's Science and Engineering Statistics Database, only 5.6 percent of all doctorates awarded in life sciences from 1990 to the present went to people under age 30, reports senior science resources analyst John Tsapogas. Similarly, the National Research Council's survey of doctoral recipients indicates that for 1995, the most recent year for which data are available, the median age of Ph.D. recipients in life sciences was 32.4. Students who delay graduate school cite raising children, caring for ill parents, and having another career as major reasons. Another reason is simply taking time to identify one's interests and goals. Quips Ramona Philhower, a 46-year-old graduate student in a Ph.D. program in curriculum design and evaluation/science education at the University of Delaware in Newark, "I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up." HIGH STAKES: Master's student Tammy VanDorp, 32, says a sense of responsibility results in a greater focus on work. Those who delayed graduate school report that maturity and a sense of greater responsibility help them to focus on their work. "Older graduate students have more at stake, since they usually are trying to improve their present skills or attain new ones to support themselves or a family," says Tammy VanDorp, who is 32 and working on her master's degree in biology at East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C. Like many older grad students, VanDorp was a high school teacher who returned to school to do science rather than teach it. Mary Arnold, who is working on her second master's degree, in biology, at the State University of New York at Brockport, sees only advantages to her age of 44. "Being older, I know more [about] what is right for me, how to plan my time, how to speak up, and how to get what I need done or how to ask for help," she states. Arnold credits being a Girl Scout leader with learning how to use community information resources. Today that skill is central to her research in reconstructing the ecological history of a pond by tracing changes in diatom populations over time. (Diatoms are a type of protist, a single-celled eukaryote.) Arnold earned her first master's degree, in teaching, in 1978, and has used her time off since then to raise four children and to work as a substitute teacher and tutor. 'A BENEFIT': Helen Pigage, who taught biology for eight years before starting grad school, says her background "allowed me to dig deep." "Age was a benefit, not a hindrance," agrees Helen Pigage, who earned a doctor of arts degree in biology in 1979 from the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks at age 34. She is now a professor of biology at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo. "When I had difficulty with subject matter, I knew I could knuckle down and learn it as fast as, if not faster than, my younger classmates," she recalls. Pigage taught high school classes and worked as a teaching and laboratory assistant. "Having taught biology for all those [eight] years helped me on some of the doctoral comprehensive exams. I had a background that allowed me to dig deep and remember information that helped me pass." Philhower is one of six students in her Ph.D. program, all former teachers over age 30. She mentions an unusual advantage to her advanced years: "When I attend meetings, those who don't know me never guess that I'm a student-they assume I'm faculty [or] staff" and therefore treat her with more respect than they would a student. Despite the benefits of experience, being older in grad school has a downside, too. Life science research is often geared to the timetables of experimental organisms, and often graduate students are called on at odd hours to set up experiments or collect data. Having to separate virgin fruit flies at 3 a.m. might be incompatible with caring for a colicky baby. "I had three children who needed my time as much as studying and research did," recalls Roberta Ellington, a lab instructor at Northwestern University who earned her master's degree in biology at Loyola University. "The younger students without a family have more flexibility as to when they can be in the lab." Ellington had practice because she was also over 30 when she earned her undergraduate degree. Social difficulties may arise in programs with only two or three people over age 30 out of one or two dozen graduate students. "Being older and not having fellow older students, one lacks the camaraderie and closeness that can develop when ages are much more similar," Ellington says. "My fellow students and I had a mutual respect for each other, and I did join them for lunch and meetings," but that was the extent of the social interaction, she recalls. A typical graduate-school stipend also seems less suitable to a person who has worked than it does to a recent college grad. "I went from earning a full teacher's salary to living on about $12,000 per year. It's scary, but I love what I'm doing, so I plan to keep at it as long as I can manage the money," says Philhower. THE REAL WORLD: Dirk Vanderklein, who attended grad school in his early 30s, says that work experience helped "deal with the stresses." Vanderklein concedes that despite the advantages of experience and maturity, the road to becoming a scientist is so long-with grad school and postdoctoral experience typically taking seven years or longer-that beginning when young may be best for many people. "There is a definite advantage to starting and finishing sooner so that one can get a postdoc position [that can lead to] a job," he says. The phrase "young scientist" used in announcements for grant programs or jobs can deter scientists-in-training who remember watching the Beatles and President Kennedy on live television. Nature magazine recently stopped printing specific age requirements in its ads, after an over-30 graduate student at the University of Kent wrote a letter to the editor calling such ads discriminatory (G. Clayton, Nature, 386:433, 1997). Other journals edit their recruitment ads to avoid being vulnerable to charges of age discrimination. American Association for the Advancement of Science "Report of the AAAS Task Force on Careers for Young Scientists" is available by request to rrich@aaas.org Network of Emerging Scientists http://pegasus.uthct.edu/nes/nes.html E-mail: nes@mrcohen1.keel.physics.ship.edu Program to Promote Reentry into Research Careers Anthony Rene Assistant Director for Referral and Liaison National Institute of General Medical Sciences 45 Center Dr., MSC 6200 Bethesda, Md. 20892-6200 (301) 594-3833 - Fax: (301) 402-0156 http://helix.nih.gov:8001/oe/ The Daphne Jackson Memorial Fellowships Trust Dept. of Physics University of Surrey Guildford, Surrey GU2 5XH U.K. (44) 01483 259166 - Fax: (44) 01483 259501 E-mail: e.johnson@surrey.ac.uk A few programs are limited to applicants of a certain age. The Stockholm-based International Foundation for Science, for example, supports young scientists in developing countries, defining "young" as under 40. The Man and the Biosphere Young Scientists Awards sponsored by UNESCO also define "young" as under 40. And NSF's Alan T. Waterman Award presents a $500,000 research grant annually to a scientist under 35. But many "young scientist" programs actually seek scientists at the start of a career, rather than those under a certain age. For example, take the Pharmacia Biotech & Science Prize for Young Scientists, an essay contest cosponsored by the company and the magazine. A print ad soliciting applicants features a smiling, twentysomething scientist. But the fine print requires only that the applicant have received the Ph.D. within the past year. "A person of 87 can still be a 'young' scientist, if he or she has just gotten a Ph.D. 'Young' means young on the career path," explains Brent Gendleman, editorial assistant at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), who fields queries about the ad. Postdoctoral program announcements usually do not specify age but may require that applicants not already have extensive postdoc experience. This is to discourage making serial postdocs a career. Ads for postdoctoral positions at NIH, for example, specify five years or less of previous postdoctoral work-not age. Programs may also set the extent of a postdoctoral appointment. The Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) in Oak Ridge, Tenn., places 900 postdocs a year, mostly in Department of Energy laboratories. Although people of any age can apply, "we limit how long they can stay to three years. The reason is to encourage turnover of those who do not have permanent employment," says Wayne Stevenson, director of research participation programs at ORISE. Some granting programs target scientists in their first faculty positions, and here, too, "young" does not refer to years (S. Benowitz, The Scientist, May 26, 1997, page 13). Sloan Research Fellowships define "young" as not being more than six years post-Ph.D. New Faculty Awards and Faculty Start-Up Grants for Undergraduate Institutions from the New York-based Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation target scientists beginning their first tenure-track position with less than three years of postdoctoral experience. Officials at NIH are aware of the confusion that use of the word "young" causes. "We are trying not to use the word 'young' when referring to specific grant mechanisms, like B/START [Behavioral Science Track Award for Rapid Transition]. A better word is 'junior,' since it aims to support investigators at an early stage in their career," says Mary Ellen Oliveri, chief of the behavioral, cognitive, and social science research branch of the National Institute of Mental Health, which offers B/START grants. Complementing programs that help new scientists jump-start their careers are those that aid scientists returning to the lab after a career break. An example is the Daphne Jackson Trust: Returners to Science and Engineering fellowship program, sponsored by the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom. The two-year, part-time research awards are to be applied to universities near the recipient's home in the U.K. The application states: "Many people, mostly women, vanish forever from their professions due to breaks to raise children, care for the elderly, or simply because of a partner's relocation. The Daphne Jackson Fellowship scheme demonstrates that this appalling waste need not happen." NIH's Program to Promote Reentry into Research Careers, administered by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, helps scientists reestablish research careers following an absence to tend to family matters. Requirements include a doctoral degree and at least two years of postdoctoral research experience. Support is either full-time or part-time and can be amended onto a principal investigator's existing NIH grant. The "Report of the AAAS Task Force on Careers for Young Scientists," published in December 1996, includes recommendations for new scientists seeking permanent employment. Although "young" is in the report's title, it is not defined. Robert Rich, a program associate in the AAAS Research Competitiveness Program, explains the meaning: "We on the task force staff define a young scientist as a person who is professionally young, just a few years since earning the doctoral degree." AAAS's "Next Wave" Web site (http://www.nextwave.org) also appears to be geared to the young but is open to all. One Internet forum deftly avoids the semantic problem of "young" in its name-the Network of Emerging Scientists (NES). The network is "devoted to the concern of scientists and engineers at all stage of their careers, but may especially appeal to those presently establishing or reestablishing their careers." The forum includes an electronic newsletter with job tips and discussions and is run by volunteer editors. For most of those interviewed for this article, age in graduate school is a nonissue, from the viewpoints of students as well as established researchers. Says Luna, a principal investigator who has mentored many students: "I consider any scientist 'young' who is in an early stage of the training process. I have known incredibly brilliant and scientifically sophisticated 'senior' scientists in their late 20s and early 30s, and have mentored 'young' scientists in their 40s." In science, "young" is truly a state of mind. Ricki Lewis, a freelance science writer based in Scotia, N.Y., is the author of several biology textbooks. She can be reached online at 76715.3517@compuserve.com.

Older Grad Students Cite Age, Experience As Advantages

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