PhD students should avoid betting their professional future “on the fickle academic job market”: Report

“PhD students must take their own initiative to prepare for diverse career outcomes,” write Jonathan Malloy and Loleen Berdahi. Although universities are aware that the amount of annual PhD graduates exceeds the amount of tenure-track academic positions, the authors argue that universities have been slow to respond to this trend due to institutional decentralization and a lack of incentives to close admissions. The authors propose that students prepare for diverse career opportunities by informing themselves about the reality of the academic job market, resisting an ‘academia first’ culture, and pursuing professional development opportunities, especially those in non-academic fields. The Conversation (National)