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Grim prospects push PhDs to quit academy
Research suggests that in the US the PhD could symbolise the end and not the beginning of an academic career and for some in Australia this was becoming the case, a conference in Sydney has been told
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Yes, yes and yes…but don’t just look at where current PhDs expect to be in the future, ask those who finished their PhD years ago (myself almost 7) and have only had casual, part-time or short-term contract positions since! There are many, many of us. It is a demoralising experience, and universities are taking advantage of our love for what we do and our hopes that the elusive continuing position is just around the corner.
Yes and then when we look down the barrel of Universities in 15-20 years where are we going to get good, qualified staff from when we have disenfranchised them all and turned them away from the industry?
The number of students wanting to enter academia has dropped dramatically over the last few years (who can blame them?) so there’s the first problem for the future and then as this study shows for the keen few who are left they get exploited and left to languish in the “casual zone”. I really don’t know where the future vision, knowledge and leadership is going to come from if not from these young, enthusiastic, bright minds. Scarily, no one in the ranks right now even really seems to care…