I thought this was worth a read, especially since it talks
about changes in doctoral programs, Please chime in after you read it:
“How Should Graduate School Change?”
A dean discusses the future
of doctoral-education reform
“What sorts of changes would
you like to see in American graduate study?”
“The biggest one is that our
doctoral curricula need to be changed to acknowledge what has been true for a
long time, which is that most of our Ph.D. students do not end up in
tenure-track (or even full-time faculty) positions—and that many of those who do
will be at institutions that are very, very different from the places where
these Ph.D.'s are trained.”
“The changes will differ from program to program but might
include different kinds of coursework, exams, and even dissertation structures.
Right now we train students for the professoriate, and if something else works
out, that's fine. We can serve our students and our society better by realizing
their diverse futures and changing the training we offer accordingly.”
“The other necessary change:
We need to think seriously about the cost of graduate education. There is a
perception that graduate students are simply a cheap labor force for the
university, and that universities are interested in graduate students only
because they perform work as teachers and laboratory assistants cheaper than
any one else.”
“At elite universities—or at
least at elite private ones—that is simply not true, and I am glad that it is
not. It is absolutely true that graduate students perform labor necessary for
the university in a number of ways, but it is not cheap labor, nor should it
be.”
“The cost of graduate education has repercussions for the
humanities and social sciences, which is one reason you are seeing smaller
admissions numbers and some program closings. It also has repercussions for the
laboratory sciences, where I am seeing too many faculty members shift from
taking on graduate students to hiring postdocs. Unfortunately, they regard
postdocs as a less expensive and more stable alternative to graduate students,
and postdocs come without the same burdens of education or job placement that
otherwise fall on the faculty member who hires doctoral students.”
Read the whole thing here: http://chronicle.com/article/How-Should-Graduate-School/143945/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
What are your thoughts on this subject? Is he right?
Dr Flavius AB
Akerele III
The ETeam
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