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Pimping a Ph.D.
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Dec. 13, 1999 |
Welcome to the new world of graduate career development. The course, designed by JoyLynn Reed, a perky Ph.D. who also works as a
consultant, offers a potent cocktail of remedial business education, guest
lectures, interview assignments and pitch practices. The class is part of
the innovative Graduate Professional Development Program at the
University of Texas, which has begun to garner attention from educational
media
and administrators across the country because it's the first program
intended to help young scholars
sell their skills outside of the university. Other courses include grant
writing, professional communication and advanced teaching methods. Though we come from diverse departments, we're all bored with our
disciplinary monocultures. We're also aware that Austin, our high-tech city,
booms around us while we scrimp, save and give away our specialized
training. A
generation ago, graduate students who shared discontents would have formed
solidarity committees and conspired in pseudo-revolutionary plots. In 1999,
the response is different: We're striking out individually to grab our
piece of
American capitalist pie. Nowadays many graduate students take for granted that
planning life beyond graduation means empowering your entrepreneurial
self. Some, like me, are writing dissertations; most of us will
be on the
job market within the year. But the question is, which job market? Sure, the
academic job market sucks, but other sectors value Ph.D. skills, too.
Unfortunately, "professional development" in
the traditional sense -- lab time, library time, papers, conferences,
attempts to publish -- presumes you
want nothing but a job in academia. It also perpetuates the notion that a job
in government or business is "alternative," an accidental substitute for the
professorship you desired most of all. Our first speaker is Chad, a strategic consultant with Boston Consulting Group who takes the stage and begins talking about cookies. To a roomful of
B-school undergrads, he's just another trim, confident young guy in khakis and
polo shirt, but to a roomful of graduate students peering beyond the walls of
academia, Chad is Marco Polo, full of tales about exotic lands and
fabulous
riches. His talk is particularly grabbing because he has a Ph.D. in math and left academics when he realized "I didn't want
to spend the rest of my life working on my small set of abstruse math
problems." Nevertheless, these analytical skills, honed by years of
problems sets and conference papers, were immediately applicable at BCG
where, among other tasks, he helped Nabisco executives set the price of
Chips Ahoy cookies. For a moment the ivory tower shadow of incredulity and
snobbery overwhelms me. This guy thinks about cookies all day! He rattles
on about how his job offers "challenge and variety." But I remain
unconvinced; we believe
in teaching, research and Ideas. Then he mentions that a Ph.D.'s first-year salary at BCG can top $100,000. | ||
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