To the Editor:
I would like to respond to the conclusion made in the The Dartmouth ("In crisis, students stay in academia," March 31), that graduating Ph.D. students are more likely to stay in academia during economic downturns.
The two data points in this article (one physics student: going into industry, and one engineering student: unsure) do not support The article's claims that graduating Ph.D.s are more likely to go into postdoctoral fellowships than industry, and statements made by the interviewees suggest the opposite. One professor states that finding postdoctoral fellowships for graduating Ph.D.s will be more difficult in economic downturns because there is "nowhere for [current post docs] to go." Another professor states that industry will hire "Ph.D. students where they typically would take masters students," implying that there may be more jobs in industry for graduating Ph.D.s in times of recession.
Comparing the percentage of graduating science Ph.D.s who chose academia over industry (compiled by the National Science Foundation) with the unemployment rate (from the National Bureau of Labor Statistics) from 1970 to 2000 suggests that the unemployment rate does not significantly influence the choice in jobs taken by graduating Ph.D. students (r = 0.09, p = 0.64).
The statement that graduating Ph.D. students are more likely to pursue postdoctoral fellowships is unfounded, and merely based on hearsay from two out of four interviewees in this article. Most importantly, it is insulting to postdoctoral fellows and professors that academia is the plan 'B,' as this article suggests. The job market is tough right now for all of us, so let's not belittle our own job opportunities.
Colin Carpenter Th '09
