Nonacademic paths a challenge for graduate students

With a recent national trend in low employment rates for students with graduate degrees, UNC is working to stay ahead of the curve —but some say they lack support when seeking nonacademic careers.

A 2011 National Science Foundation survey revealed that 35 percent of doctorate recipients did not have a job by the time they completed their respective programs.

Amy Blackburn, the senior assistant director for graduate students at University Career Services, said she has seen an increase in the number of graduate students who use UCS.

“They thought they wanted to pursue the discipline that they’re studying and teach, but that changes,” she said. “They come to us with a kind of ‘I don’t know where to go from here.’”

Blackburn said graduate students do not have academic advisers.

“The advising of graduate students is done by faculty, student service managers and graduate program coordinators within each department,” she added in an email. “It’s much more decentralized than the undergraduate programs.”

She said UCS tries to figure out the interests, goals and values of the student and find matching careers.

UNC Graduate School Dean and biology professor Steven Matson said a 2011 survey of the graduate school found that 75 percent of students said they were employed and 20 percent said they were seeking employment.

“Those numbers are actually better than the national averages,” he said.

Paul Miceli, assistant director of graduate student career services at Duke University, said although Ph.D.s can be invaluable, the question is whether or not having a Ph.D. is marketable in terms of future careers.

“The reality is that in many fields, the majority of Ph.D.s aren’t ending up in tenure-track faculty positions,” he said.

“That means that many of these Ph.D.s could have taken a different path and possibly ended up in the same career that they’re in post-Ph.D.”

Travis McElroy, a graduate student studying applied mathematics, said he feels prepared in terms of math and research ability, but not when it comes to job opportunities.

“I’m not sure the services are there to place graduate students in jobs outside academia,” he said in an email.

McElroy also said he doesn’t feel that his department endorses the jobs he would be interested in.

“I still get plenty of emails from the Graduate and Professional Student Federation about events to prepare for jobs, but my department doesn’t push those,” McElroy said.

Anne Whisnant, deputy secretary of the faculty at UNC who was a Ph.D. student in the department of history, said a majority of history Ph.D. students end up in faculty positions.

Whisnant said she knows the difficulties many graduate students face.

“Lots of grad students are very frustrated because the departments are not set up to think about careers other than academic careers, especially in the humanities,” she said. “It is not built into their structures and it should be.”

Taylor Allison, a Ph.D. candidate for mathematics, said in an email that UNC is doing a great job preparing him for life out of school.

“There are plenty of great professors in the department who care about the success of students, be it now or 10 years down the road,” he said.

Allison said he plans to be a professor at a liberal arts college and teach and do research.

“I’ll be looking into positions that are both research- and teaching-oriented, which many people will rule out,” he said.

Blackburn said one of the most important ways to find a job is through networking.

“There was a guy a couple years ago who found a company and did some networking using LinkedIn, found an alum and got a position within eight weeks,” she said.

She said the way students market themselves and their motivations are important aspects of finding a career.

“Career paths are not a straight line anymore like they used to be when our parents were going to school.”

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