One theme of this guide is that those studying science and engineering need more information about planning careers than is readily available to them. You need to know more about resources, about what your predecessors have done, and about how to match your own skills and personality to a given career.
In addition to the regular text, this guide offers a variety of learning tools: a series of brief profiles of scientists and engineers, some hypothetical scenarios that illustrate challenges that you might encounter in making decisions about your educational or professional life, and end-of-chapter action points that should be reviewed periodically as you move through the guide.
In the profiles, you might notice that we do not emphasize "traditional" careers—those of scientists and engineers who follow the trajectory of their early work in research positions at universities, industrial laboratories, or government laboratories. One example of a traditional track is the scientist who joins and remains with a single university as an instructor, assistant professor, associate professor, and professor. In fact, only a minority of scientists and engineers follow such paths. Most of the profiles are designed to illustrate the many ways in which scientists and engineers seize new opportunities that shift their careers onto new and unexpected paths. Few of the professionals who are profiled knew during graduate school what they would be doing today. They share a degree of flexibility, breadth, and social skills that allowed them to take advantage of new opportunities.
The scenarios present common dilemmas encountered by graduate students at different stages of their careers. Each dilemma is followed by questions that can serve as the basis of informal discussion or individual pondering. Further discussion of each issue is offered in Appendix A.
Those tools, and the guide itself, are designed for use in many different settings, including
A useful format in any of these situations is a panel discussion involving several researchers who are at different stages of their careers—for example, an undergraduate, a graduate student, a postdoctoral fellow, a junior faculty member, and a senior faculty member. In addition, representatives of industry, business, or government can add perspective for students who might have little understanding of nonacademic careers.
Most important, we hope to stimulate discussion of a topic that receives insufficient attention. It is our hope that all those who teach, advise, and employ scientists and engineers will become more aware of their responsibilities in guiding students. When young scientists and engineers make good choices about their careers, they contribute more to a society increasingly dependent on their education and skills.
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