Transcript Multidisciplinary Preparation and Exposure to Multiple Career

Multidisciplinary Preparation and Exposure to
Multiple Career Pathways amongst STEM
Graduate Students
ASHE Annual Conference
Indianapolis, IN
November, 2010
Gina A. Garcia
Christopher B. Newman
Josephine A. Gasiewski
Higher Education Research Institute
UCLA
Problem
When it comes to grad studies, I
think, one question that needs to be
asked is, do students feel like they're
offered a variety of opportunities
…how flexible is your program
towards allowing you to choose other
career paths? Is your program flexible
in light of today's realities for
scientists?
(Ethan, Latino, PWI, Neuroscience)
Background
Recent studies have indicated that:
 The academic job market for tenure-track
faculty positions is limited
 Graduate students are discouraged from
exploring careers outside of academia
 Graduate students are given limited exposure
to multiple career opportunities
(Golde & Dore, 2001; NAGPS, 2001; Nyquist, 2002)
Research Questions

In what ways are STEM graduate students
exposed to and trained for academic and nonacademic careers?

How does the climate in STEM graduate
programs promote and/or inhibit exploration of
careers outside of academia?
Student Sample
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41 focus groups from December 2009 to April
2010
60 hours of interviews
7 universities across United States
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3 PWIs, 3 HSIs, 1 HBCU
150 masters/doctoral students
Student Sample
RACE/ETHNICITY
 35% African American
 21% White
 25% Latino/a
 9% Asian Americans
 5% Native American
 5% who marked other
GRAD MAJOR
 71 chemistry or biology
 36 engineering
 25 social sciences
 18 other sciences
GENDER/AGE
 50% women
 average age 27.5
 (range of 21-53)
Methodology
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Interpretive & descriptive design
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Purposeful sampling
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Semi-structured focus group protocol
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Development of coding architecture
• NVivo 8 qualitative software
• Inter-coder reliability ~85%
• 24 codes, 111 primary sub-codes, and 86 secondary
sub-codes
• Linked responses with student attributes
Presentation of findings
THEMES
 Exposure to multiple career pathways

Varying degrees of acceptance of career
choices
Exposure to multiple career pathways
POSITIVE
My advisor talks about different opportunities
that come with the Ph.D. You can go
professional or you can go to academics. So
she’s really trying to get me the most
information she can give me.
(Avery, Native American, HSI, Biology)
Exposure to multiple career pathways
NEGATIVE
I don’t think my advisor has the tools to tell me how
to do something non-academic, or anyone in our
department, for that matter….I mean, I think in
theory they say, “Oh, if you don’t want to do an R1,
you know, that’s open.” [But] I don’t think they
know how.
(Kennedy, African American, PWI, Political Science)
Exposure to multiple career pathways
NEGATIVE
I could very well go through the program without
teaching at all. And I’m just kind of like, oh, my
goodness, I don’t know what I’m going to do.
That’s going to look bad if I haven't taught. And
the general reaction has been, “don’t worry about
it. You’re a people person. You’ll figure it out.”
(Megan, African American, PWI, Political Science)
Varying degrees of acceptance
POSITIVE
It doesn’t particularly matter to my advisor if
you tell her you want to do industry or a postdoc, but she kind of wants to know earlier…
so she can start thinking about what type of
industry connections she has….she [just
wants] to [be] prepared and be ready to
make those recommendations or to put your
name in when [you’re ready].
(Cooper, African American, PWI, Chemistry)
Varying Degrees of Acceptance
NEGATIVE
I made the howling mistake of mentioning that
once I finished my PhD I was interested in
teaching high school biology, at which point
everyone decided, ‘Well, you don’t need a PhD so
why are you still here?’ [My advisor told me]
everything’s going [to be] fine but my committee
sidelined me with, “Well, your project’s not going
where we thought it was going and you don’t need
a PhD anyway so we think you should leave [with]
the Master’s.
(Mia, White, PWI, Cell & Molecular Biology)
Discussion

Should there be changes in STEM
doctoral training? Changes may:
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allow students to more readily expand their
career options
allow students to follow their internal-personal
motivations
better relationships between students and
faculty
increase the overall retention and graduation
rates of students
Implications
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STEM Departments
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Governmental Funding Agencies
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Prestige from tenure-track faculty placements
Practicality of training students for different tracks
Maximize the return on investment
Industry
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Partnerships with universities
Contact Information
Faculty and Co-PIs
Sylvia Hurtado
Mitchell Chang
Postdoctoral Scholars
Kevin Eagan
Josephine Gasiewski
Graduate Research Assistants
Christopher Newman
Minh Tran
Jessica Sharkness
Administrative Staff
Aaron Pearl
Gina Garcia
Felisha Herrera
Cindy Mosqueda
Juan Garibay
Tanya Figueroa
Papers and reports are available for download at:
http://heri.ucla.edu/nih
Project e-mail: [email protected]
Acknowledgments: This study was made possible by the support of the National
Institute of General Medical Sciences, NIH Grant Numbers 1 R01 GMO7196801 and R01 GMO71968-05 as well as the National Science Foundation, NSF
Grant Number 0757076. This independent research and the views expressed
here do not indicate endorsement by the sponsors.