Open Up Ph.D. Training

Your article on broader training for Ph.D. scientists¹ failed to fully examine the problem that faces many graduate students today. I myself am currently a fourth-year graduate student at Emory University in the chemistry department and can definitely feel the pressure to go into academia. The department here rarely sponsors any outside speakers that come from industry, and the idea of taking time off to do an internship in a company is unheard of. These are just two of many experiences that I feel would be beneficial to any graduate student. But ultimately, they keep us sheltered away from the corporate world, because they do not want graduate students to realize that there are very few jobs in industry for a Ph.D. scientist and that once we do graduate, we will be forced to take a job in academia, or a job in industry at master's pay.

I think...