PhD programmes need to better prepare students for careers outside universities, researchers warn.
Archive: https://archive.is/f1YtL
PhD programmes need to better prepare students for careers outside universities, researchers warn.
Archive: https://archive.is/f1YtL
A PhD is a highly specialized thing, much like how a Masters is fairly specialized. Only a BA/BS is something that is supposed to be relatively universal. If someone has a BS in accounting that is pretty applicable anywhere accounting is needed. If someone has a masters in accounting specializing in taxes or something, then theyre useful to places that need an expert in tax accounting. If someone has a PhD in some specific field of accounting then theyre useful to universities with accounting programs who are trying to crank out accountants at the B/M level, of which there are only so many slots. A PhD doesnt mean someone has more general knowledge, it means they have a ton of very very specific knowledge
Technically that PhD holder would also be useful as an accountant anywhere, but being an accountant just anywhere probably isnt going to pay for that Masters or PhD. So if one decent spot will open in academia this year, but 10 people graduate with PhD’s this year, obviously they cant all have that one spot.
Im not into accounting, so idk how much sense that explanation will make to an actual accountant. But you could change accounting for literally anything and that is basically the problem in a nutshell. Plus many people get PhDs in subjects that dont have such a wide job market at the entry level. If you get a history PhD and dont get an academic slot then you are basically fucked. Being a museum docent or a highschool history teacher isnt gonna pay for that PhD. This is why a lot of my professors in community college back in the day taught as adjuncts at like 3-4 colleges at the same time
That’s all swell but you know what?
It isn’t about what the world needs.
If you have the desire, ability and opportunity to get a PhD in accounting then that’s what you should do.
Everything else is equivalent to someone telling you that, “the world needs ditch diggers, too.”.
Fuck people like that. Let them forgo their passion in life, not you.
OP didn’t touch on a major issue for PhD holders: over qualification. I’m a good example, even not having earned a degree. Can’t get a low-level IT job because my experience is too much. Nobody wants to hire somebody that’s able and likely to jump ship at the first opportunity.
Who is making you put it on your CV?