Premium
Maximizing career and professional development during doctoral training
Author(s) -
Feeney Shea E.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.31.1_supplement.260.3
Subject(s) - restructuring , career development , mentorship , career pathways , medical education , odds , professional development , institution , training and development , training (meteorology) , graduation (instrument) , academic institution , psychology , political science , medicine , management , engineering , mechanical engineering , logistic regression , physics , meteorology , law , economics
Over the last few decades the number of STEM doctorate recipients has been consistently increasing while at odds with the drastic employment shift away from the previous archetype career pathway of tenured faculty. Where once research mentors at an academic institution could provide career mentoring for the large majority of their students they can no longer fully serve this role with the rising number of students seeking employment outside of the academic sector. It is clear that we have a growing gap in career and professional development training as some reports suggest that more than half of graduate and early postdoctoral trainees have undefined career interests. This problem is further compounded with a rapid increase in the number of recent doctoral students that have yet to secure employment or a post‐doctoral position. Arguably then, doctoral training is not evolving to equip trainees with the necessary resources for career planning and professional development needed for the diverse career paths available to scientists. A cross‐country comparison and evaluation of efficacy of current practices and programs available to doctoral students for career and professional development will be presented in order to drive an informed restructuring of current training practices so that we can best assist our trainees for the next step—securing a career.