I’m super excited to now be sharing my thoughts and advice
on navigating academia via my monthly Office Hours column in Chemical &
Engineering News! I’ll be posting unedited versions of my columns on delay here
on my blog, and you can catch the best and latest versions (and ask your
question!) at my C&EN Office Hours site. As
always, comments welcome – these topics impact us all, and we should all be
part of the dialogue!
How do you decide a PhD is not for you and that perhaps
you should downgrade to a masters and leave academia? -Natasha
Anyone who has completed a PhD has probably thought about
leaving. Possibly multiple times. I certainly did. What is highly variable are
the reasons why we might want to leave. In my case, I had burned myself
out as an undergrad, then taken a four-month break to recover, reassess my
priorities, and live out my “dream life” snowboarding every day. I started grad
school excited to get back to research, and instead was confronted with classes
and the looming threat of prelim exams, the exact type of high-stress
situations that I didn’t ever want to put myself through again. As a result, I spent my first year of grad
school informing my research advisor of my plans to leave on what felt like a
weekly basis. My advisor helped me to see that much of my stress was arising
from unrealistic expectations I was placing on myself, and that the research I
deeply enjoyed would be the major component of my days as a PhD student, at
least after I stuck it out through the first year. Most importantly, he helped
me recognize that I would need a PhD for the career options that best aligned
with my interests. The important point is that every situation is unique and
earning (or not earning) a degree is a career-changing decision that should not
be made lightly.
Before we dive into how to approach this decision for
yourself, I want to tackle the idea that earning a Masters degree is a “downgrade”
from a PhD, or merely a consolation prize. Many reasons exist for why you might
want to earn a specific degree, and I would argue that a primary reason should
be that it will allow you to pursue your desired career path. Thus, no degree
is inherently superior to any other–there is only what is best for you and will
most effectively help you achieve your goals. So, this brings us to the real
questions that need to be asked: where do you aspire to go in your career and
what degree do you need to successfully get there?
Of course, these are not easy questions to answer. But, they
are extremely important to consider on a regular basis. This is in fact why I
sometimes recommend working in a full-time job for a few years before deciding
to pursue an advanced degree. Spending time in the “real world” can be
extremely clarifying when it comes to career goals. However, if you’re already
in grad school and not sure about your career goals and why you want a PhD,
then now is the time to start figuring that out. Some steps you can take toward
this include:
Take a personal inventory. What are your strengths
and what matters to you? What do you like about your current situation and what
do you want to be different in the future? A variety of online assessment tools
and career planning books are available to help with this. One resource
specifically designed for graduate students and postdocs in the
chemical sciences is ACS’s ChemIDP,
which can help you identify your strengths and create goals and
plans for growth.
Research your options. Make a list of careers that
align with your strengths and interests, identify people in those careers, and reach
out to see if they would be willing to talk with you. Ask questions such as: How
did you get to this job? What do you like about it? What do you dislike about
it? What advice would you give to yourself at my career stage? ACS’s College
to Career website can be a good place to start, and if you’ve built a
network on LinkedIn, now is the time to tap into that. If you’re an ACS member,
you can also speak with a volunteer ACS Career
Consultant.
Make a plan. Figure out which degree will serve you
best in pursuing your top career choices. Consider what qualifications your
future employers will want, how much time the degree will take to earn, and
what skills you will gain from the experience.
I also want to talk directly to faculty–as mentors, our
responsibility is to help students and postdocs figure out what career path is
best for their future and then point them toward opportunities to gain the
skills and experience they need to successfully pursue those goals. Many
students are afraid to admit that they are even considering “leaving with a
Masters” because they fear that this will call into question their commitment
to research or their future career. If we are truly invested in the success of
our mentees, then our job is to stay open minded, ask questions, and help each
individual arrive at the best decision for them. I’m here because my mentors
did exactly that.
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