Irecently retired from Pennsylvania State University after 32 years, during which time I had the honor of chairing 120 Ph.D. student committees and helping those students earn their doctoral degrees. I have also served on doctoral committees in Australia, China, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom. I have had doctoral students from every continent except Antarctica, and I like to joke that “the sun never sets on my students, in the same way that the sun never sets on the former British Empire.” From those experiences as the chair of so many doctoral committees, I have drawn some sobering conclusions.
One troubling pattern I have seen among incoming doctoral students is a surprising lack of clarity about why they are pursuing the degree. Many apply to graduate school without a defined vision of what they plan to do with a Ph.D. They think they need a Ph.D. merely to compete in an increasingly tough job market. Some apply as a deliberate strategy to delay their entrance into a competitive job market; others do it in midcareer in hopes of getting the edge in promotions. When they are asked about their career goals, I hear vague responses. Some wish to transition from high-stress jobs to what they perceive to be the low-stress world of higher education. (Those people are in for a rude awakening these days.)
This lack of foresight might once have been understandable, but today it is a liability. At a time when many Americans question the investment in a college degree, it is no longer sufficient for students to embark on a doctoral program without a postgraduation plan. Nor is it sufficient for faculty to define academic program success in the restricted terms of the percentage of students who graduate. Higher education is facing a crisis of confidence, and part of the solution must involve equipping students not only with deep knowledge, but also with a sense of purpose.
When prospective or new students visit me for guidance, my first question is always “What are your career goals?” If they cannot answer that, I encourage them to do more soul searching. Do they aspire to be tenure-track faculty members? If so, have they researched the expectations for scholarly productivity? Do they want to work in a large corporation or government agency? If so, have they spoken to people in those roles to understand the advantages and disadvantages of such jobs? Do they dream of starting their own consulting firm or working in a well-established consulting company? Then have they learned how to write proposals, provide deliverables and secure testimonial letters from satisfied clients?
Researching potential careers should not be postponed until after a student starts a degree program. It should be step one. Yet too many students still regard career planning as an afterthought, and too few faculty regard career counseling as a sacred obligation. As a result, students graduate with no real preparation for anything. They can pass doctoral defenses, but can they succeed in the world after graduation? If they cannot, it brings shame to the institution that graduated them.
Another assumption that repeatedly emerges among students is that a Ph.D. is simply a longer version of a bachelor’s or master’s degree. In reality, it is something fundamentally different. Bachelor’s and master’s degrees tend to follow a predictable, linear path: take the required courses, earn the credits, check the boxes and graduate. I refer to them as “checklist degrees.” (How those degrees actually relate to employer requirements is a different topic for discussion.)
The best example of a student who followed my advice was a Chinese student who had undergraduate and graduate degrees in mechanical engineering at the time of her application to the Ph.D. Based on my advice, she decided to do serious research on her career. She wanted to be a training director of a multinational company at retirement age. She interviewed people who had just graduated, those five years out of doctoral studies, those 10 years out of doctoral studies, those 15 years out and so forth. At the end she interviewed a training director in a multinational company who was at retirement age. She showed the interviewees her résumé and asked what she needed to do to compete for their job at a future time. She kept careful notes. When she applied for doctoral studies, she provided the results to the faculty.
Mouths dropped open in surprise. While not every student should do that, it is instructive of what serious students do to perform their due diligence. In this student’s case, she achieved her goal 20 years early because she was so well prepared by so many mentors.
Another issue I encounter with doctoral students is that too many lack self-confidence. They think they need a degree before anyone will take them seriously. I have to teach them that self-confidence actually stems from experience. And that means they must jump in, do work, get experience, expect to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes. That builds self-confidence. It is not the degree that is needed first; rather, it is the experience.
Outstanding students volunteer to teach courses. They accept consulting assignments. They conduct training sessions for companies and organizations. They apply for research grants, publish articles and speak at academic and professional conferences. They aggressively seek opportunities to work with faculty so as build their appeal to future employers. They understand that a Ph.D. is not simply a credential to be earned, but a platform to be built upon.
Unfortunately, such students are the exception, not the rule. Too many students focus narrowly on the paper chase for the diploma. They see the degree as a trophy. They want to rush through the degree so as to save time and money. But the reality is that employers, whether in academia, business or government, are not hiring paper. They are hiring well-accomplished individuals with proven track records and a portfolio of work samples that demonstrates they can do the job.
Employers want evidence of what a candidate can do, not just where they studied. Grades on a transcript mean little to most employers, because they don’t trust the courses, instructors or experience. They want to see evidence of accomplishments. And they don’t want to hear excuses why the student could not build those accomplishments due to family or work challenges or other issues. (There is no place on a vita for excuses.)
This disconnect between student expectations and employer demands is a profound threat to the future of education. If we fail to bridge it, we risk producing graduates who are disappointed, disillusioned and unprepared for the world they are entering. Even worse, we risk fueling the public narrative that higher education is out of touch with real-world needs.
Higher education must evolve. Faculty advisers, doctoral committees and graduate programs must do more to integrate career planning into the doctoral journey. That means encouraging students to set career goals early and revise them often. It means creating more opportunities for students to build experience inside and outside classes. And it means making explicit the expectations of the job market: real-world experience, work samples and a track record of leadership.
To doctoral students, I offer this advice: Do your homework, not just on your dissertation topic but on your life after graduation. Find mentors in the U.S. and, if you are an international student, from the home culture to which you may aspire to return. Treat the Ph.D. as more than a degree. Create a portfolio of accomplishments that will make you stand out from others who have credentials that match yours. The degree will not speak for itself. You will have to speak for it—through what you have done, what you know and what you can deliver.
After chairing 120 dissertations, I can say this with confidence: The students who succeed are not necessarily the smartest or the fastest. They are the ones who take ownership of their journey, who have the energy to push themselves and who understand that education is not a product to consume but a process to engage with fully. They are the students who leave their programs ready to make a difference. They are what higher education needs more than ever: graduates who are ready to meet the world not just with a diploma, but with direction.
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