Improving graduate education to support a branching career pipeline: recommendations based on a survey of doctoral students in the basic biomedical sciences

Abstract

Today's doctoral programs continue to prepare students for a traditional academic career path despite the inadequate supply of research-focused faculty positions. We advocate for a broader doctoral curriculum that prepares trainees for a wide range of science-related career paths. In support of this argument, we describe data from our survey of doctoral students in the basic biomedical sciences at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Midway through graduate training, UCSF students are already considering a broad range of career options, with one-third intending to pursue a non-research career path. To better support this branching career pipeline, we recommend that national standards for training and mentoring include emphasis on career planning and professional skills development to ensure the success of PhD-level scientists as they contribute to a broadly defined global scientific enterprise.

Figure 1.

Graduate students are strongly considering a range of career options. (A) The bar graph shows the percentage of all student respondents who chose each category as one of the career path categories they were strongly considering (respondents could choose more than one category). Overall, 92% of students were strongly considering at least one category of research careers (represented by bars in dark blue), with 72% of all students strongly considering becoming a PI at a research-intensive academic institution and/or a PI with a balance of teaching and research. Seventy-one percent of all students were strongly considering at least one category of careers that typically do not directly involve performance of research (labeled as “non-research” careers and represented by bars in light blue). (B) As illustrated in this Venn diagram, many students (63%, n = 297) were strongly considering both research and non–research career paths.

Figure 2.

Early in graduate school, some students lose interest in becoming a PI at a research-intensive academic institution. (A) The percentage of students in each cohort who currently would choose a research (dark blue circles) or non–research (light blue triangles) career. Between the second and third year, there is a steep drop in interest in research careers. (B) Within the broad category “research careers,” the only career choice that showed significant change was that of being a PI at a research-intensive academic institution (blue solid diamonds). Values and statistical analyses are given in Table 2.

Figure 3.

Graduate student career preferences predict a branching career pipeline. This diagram illustrates the branching pipeline model, describing the career trajectory of PhD-level scientists. The central pipes represent graduate (light orange) and postdoctoral (darker orange) training. Black arrows represent the desired career paths of students in their third or later year of graduate school. According to our survey, the branched nature of this pipeline can be predicted as early as the third year in graduate school, with 40% of these later-stage students intending to become a principal investigator in academia, 26% intending to pursue other research-focused career paths, and 33% intending to pursue non–research career paths. Many of these students move on to postdoctoral training—including some students who prefer to pursue a non–research career path.