The Taboo of Ph.D Job Opportunities

November 10, 2011

This is an excerpt from "The Chronicle of Higher Education" 

More Universities Break the Taboo and Talk to Ph.D.'s About Jobs Outside Academe
By Audrey Williams June
November 6, 2011

A gathering on Ohio State University's campus here last month had the familiar trappings of a traditional college lecture. Graduate students filed into an auditorium, and some cracked open their laptops or pecked the screens of smartphones as they waited for the speaker to begin.

But in one important way, this lecture was different than most they would attend as doctoral students.

The speaker, Paula Chambers, would talk openly about a subject that graduate students tend to discuss in hushed tones among close friends or trusted mentors—or anonymously in online forums. The taboo topic: preparing for nonacademic jobs.

"You're in charge of your career," Ms. Chambers said to the audience of about 200 students in the arts and humanities. "My message to you today is you need to prepare to be versatile."

Her speech was a defining moment for Ohio State, where humanities departments had pushed for an event that would give graduate students information about alternative careers. Interest eventually grew so large that the event was sponsored by the graduate school and the arts and humanities division of the College of Arts and Sciences—home to students in disciplines where a tight academic job market has made alternative careers more attractive.

The invitation to speak at Ohio State was a homecoming of sorts for Ms. Chambers, owner of the Versatile Ph.D., a Web site that supports a community of graduate students in the humanities, social sciences, and hard sciences who want to pursue careers outside higher education or are contemplating such a move. She graduated from Ohio State in 2000 with a Ph.D. in rhetoric and composition, and went on to a nonacademic career of her own.

Her speech was part of a first-time Alternative Career Day, which also included a panel of former graduate students in nonteaching careers, among them the founder and managing partner of a venture-capital firm and the director of admissions and student services at Ohio State's school of public affairs.

"This is like a stamp of approval on what I've been doing and talking about for so long," Ms. Chambers said of the event.

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