In the News: "The Future of the PhD"

Last week Nature featured quite a few articles and editorials regarding the current status of PhD programs and job opportunities for PhD-level scientists.  These topics have been ongoing sources of debate and this issue of Nature presents a good overview of the issues and opinions involved.  Check it out! 

• Fix the PhD -- This is the main editorial for last week's issue and includes links to the related articles in the issue. 
• Seven Ages of the PhD (requires subscription or institutional access) -- An interesting insight into the PhD process:  past, present, and future!
• Education:  The PhD Factory -- A critical examination of graduate training worldwide, including Japan, the US, China, Singapore, Poland, Egypt, and Germany
• Education:  Rethinking PhDs -- This article highlights a few programs with groundbreaking training ideas. 
• What is a PhD Really Worth -- A commentary on skills acquired during PhD training and the importance of finding a good PhD program. 
• Reform the PhD System or Close it Down -- A proposal that many graduate programs need to be either shutdown or undergo major reform. 

My personal thoughts on this topic are that PhD programs are changing to meet modern day challenges but there is so much more that can be done to help current and future students.  I think it's important to admit students who do not plan to search for traditional academic or even industry track positions into PhD programs.  It's also important for programs to explain career prospects and graduation statistics with prospective students. 

While we may be training an oversupply of PhDs for academic positions, there really are lots of careers available to motivated and hard-working individuals with PhDs.  Some of these jobs may require a longer job search but they are no less worthy than the "golden" tenure-track faculty positions or much coveted jobs in Big Pharma.  It takes all sorts of students and student interests to make a successful PhD program and it's in the best interest of training programs to really show their students all the varying fields with career opportunities that open up once the PhD is earned. Along those lines, formalized training in presentation skills, networking, mentoring, project management, and writing become vitally important to the modern PhD student...and to modern PhD programs.