Graduate students in the sciences do not receive sufficient training for careers outside the ivory tower, according to a new report by the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS). Professional Development: Shaping Effective Programs for STEM Graduate Students found that while most graduate students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields find jobs outside academic settings, their training often gives short shrift to skills that will allow them to succeed in those careers.
The findings came from a CGS project, funded by the National Science Foundation, which surveyed professional development programs for graduate students in the United States and Canada, as well as leaders at organizations from a variety of sectors of the STEM workforce.
According to the survey results, the general skills most commonly emphasized by graduate programs are writing, mentoring, leadership and communication/presentation. Common STEM-specific skills include research ethics and research development.
Yet other in-demand skills were infrequently addressed by graduate programs, and also were described by employers as being lacking in STEM graduates. Those neglected skills include data science; governance, risk and compliance; technology commercialization; entrepreneurship; and science policy. Graduate programs also give little attention to lab management skills, the report found.
Bringing psychology into the present
The report looked at STEM programs across disciplines, but its findings are certainly applicable to psychology, says Jaime "Jim" Diaz-Granados, PhD, executive director of APA's Education Directorate. "The question is, are graduate programs training students for the existing marketplace, or are they stuck teaching to the marketplace that existed back when the faculty was trained?"
The job market has transformed, even since the 1990s, he adds. "The landscape is changing ever more rapidly. It falls to graduate schools and graduate program directors to provide resources to help faculty train students for what is out there now."
While traditional careers in research and practice are still the norm, psychology-trained graduates are also finding opportunities in all sorts of other areas, he adds: as mediators, consultants in health policy or legal strategy, computer scientists, statisticians and project managers in industry.
Despite those new opportunities, many graduate programs remain rooted in the past, says Colin Phillips, PhD, a professor of cognitive neuroscience and psycholinguistics at the University of Maryland. "We have programs that prepare people pretty well to become professors in the 1960s," he says.
Phillips has funding from the National Science Foundation Research Traineeship Program, and last year he organized the program's Future STEM Leaders conference. He spends a lot of time thinking about how to prepare graduate students — but in his view, it's counterproductive to make a distinction between academic and nonacademic skills. Instead, educators should think about the abilities anyone would need to be successful in today's fast-paced, high-tech workplace. Academics in 2017 are expected to collaborate with people in other fields, justify their existence and communicate with people who have shorter attention spans, he notes. "These are labeled as things you need for nonacademic careers, but they're just as important for academic careers," he says.
Translating talents
Both Phillips and Diaz-Granados say that psychology programs already impart knowledge relevant to all sorts of career paths, whether students realize it or not. "We're the study of behavior, and we have a lot of translatable skills. But many times we don't do as good a job as we could in making sure students understand how those skills may be applied beyond the narrow field they were trained for," Diaz-Granados says.
Graduate programs need to help students see how their abilities apply to a variety of settings, Phillips adds.
To help students make those connections, faculty members must make greater efforts to understand the modern workforce, he says. In some departments, students are afraid to tell advisors they're interested in "nontraditional" jobs, for fear they'll be judged or treated as a disappointment. When students do seek advice, faculty often shrug and say they don't know enough about life outside academia to be of any help, even if they're supportive. Those barriers can make it hard for students to seek opportunities that will help them hone the skills they need.
"We need to create cultural change among the faculty so they can see what they have to offer, and so people who pursue different career paths feel like they're still part of the community," Phillips says.
APA is also undertaking efforts to help students develop competencies they might not get in the classroom. For instance, APA is developing online modules to address sought-after skills such as leadership and lab management. These efforts complement projects such as APA's Resource for Individual Development Plans, a career tool that guides early career psychologists through setting career goals and identifying the skills needed to achieve them. This tool grew from APA's 2014 Opening Doors summit, which addressed barriers for graduate students and postdoctoral scholars transitioning to employment.
But those tools can only fill the gaps. Graduate deans and program directors must do more to train students to succeed in 21st-century careers, experts say. Institutions, meanwhile, must find ways of recognizing when graduates are successful in diverse careers, rather than judging a department by the number of tenure-track professors it churns out. "I think lots of institutions are taking this very seriously, but they have to address the core aspects of the value system," Phillips says. "If they don't, their backs are against the wall."
