This guide is intended to help upper-division undergraduate and graduate students in science, engineering, and mathematics to make career and educational choices.
Although it is understandable that students, particularly at the graduate level, identify with their faculty mentors and often aspire to academic research careers, education in science and engineering can be extremely valuable for a wide variety of career opportunities. Some of those careers involve direct participation in science or engineering—for example, as a chemist or engineer in industry or as a professional who performs research and development. Many others involve using a science and engineering background. For example, one might teach about science and engineering in schools or through the media or provide advice or develop policies on matters relevant to science or engineering. Each of these activities is a legitimate and valuable use of a science or engineering background.
We need not focus on the doing of science and engineering as the only appropriate sequel to advanced study. To do so implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) has the effect of devaluing other career goals and excluding potentially important experiences from our education programs. The report Reshaping the Graduate Education of Scientists and Engineers (1995), by the Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy (COSEPUP) of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), National Academy of Engineering (NAE), and Institute of Medicine (IOM), demonstrates that students need flexible career preparation and urges a re-evaluation of graduate education so that it will prepare students better for productive careers. Discussions during the preparation and dissemination of that report indicated the need for a guide designed specifically to help students to plan their educational and professional careers. This guide is a result of those discussions. It seeks to assist students in taking a much broader view of the potential applications of their science and engineering education.
It is supplemented by the Internet Career Planning Center For Beginning Scientists and Engineers , which can be reached via the Academies' homepage at http://www2. nas.edu/cpc . At this online career-planning center, students will find up-to-date guidance and information, including a bulletin board where they can ask questions and seek advice about their education or career, a one-on-one mentoring program, lists of specific employment opportunities, education and career analysis focused on students' questions, and sources of more discipline- and occupation-specific information. An online version of this guide can also be obtained at the center.
Different parts of this student guide will help students at different stages of their career and education. You might want to skip through the guide to sections that are most relevant to you.
Secondary-school students and undecided undergraduates can use the guide to help them to understand careers in science and engineering and to find practical tips on how to proceed.
Undergraduate students currently studying science and engineering can use this guide to decide what careers they are interested in pursuing ( Chapter 2 ), evaluate their skills and attributes ( Chapter 3 ), and determine whether they need additional graduate education or a professional education. If they decide to pursue graduate education in science or engineering, Chapter 4 will help them to select a graduate school and major.
Beginning graduate students will have made many of the educational choices described in Chapter 4 , but the material on advisors, research topics, achieving breadth, and ensuring progress should be of interest.
Chapters 2 , 3 , and 5 will also be of use for more-experienced students. Like those who are approaching the end of their undergraduate education, students approaching the end of their graduate studies will want to evaluate their careers and their personal skills and attributes as they decide what to do during the next stage of their lives. Some students will be interested in pursuing a career immediately; others will want additional graduate or professional education or post-doctoral appointments.
Students who have already chosen their careers might still find this guide valuable. The guide emphasizes personal flexibility and broad education. It also provides sources of information that students can use in evaluating the potential job market in a chosen area. A sizable fraction of even the most dedicated students will not necessarily find a career in their chosen occupation and should be prepared to look elsewhere.
The guide also seeks to be helpful to those who administer graduate programs and to faculty members and others who advise students. Graduate students need more and better information about careers, and faculty advisers can play an important role in supplying it.
Although this guide is brief and informal, it is designed to be useful throughout your career. The information in it should be relevant to students interested not only in research careers, but in other science-oriented careers as well.
The content of this guide was shaped by information gathered from focus groups and surveys of students and postdoctoral appointees. The surveys revealed students' desire for additional help in answering such questions as the following:
Students also expressed a need for career guidance information on:
Addressing issues like these is fundamental to a satisfying professional career. In these pages, we encourage students to seek help from peers, friends, advisers, and many other sources in planning a career in science and engineering. It is true that you, the student, are finally responsible for shaping your own career, but your success is largely a product of the abundance and accuracy of career information and the guidance of those familiar with the world beyond graduate school.
Preparation of this guide, a companion publication to COSEPUP's other student guide, On Being a Scientist: Responsible Conduct in Research (1995), was overseen by a guidance group consisting of Arden Bement (chair), David Challoner, Ellis Cowling, Ralph Gomory, M.R.C. Greenwood, Phillip Griffiths, Ruby Hearn, Gerald Dinneen, and Phillip Sharp. The group was aided by early reviews of its guide by an external advisory group consisting of graduate students and professors, members of science and engineering disciplinary societies and organizations, and focus groups of graduate and postgraduate students. Staff for the project included Deborah Stine, associate director for special projects for COSEPUP; Alan Anderson, science writer; and Tamae Maeda Wong, senior program officer.
Bruce Alberts
President, National Academy of SciencesHarold Liebowitz
President, National Academy of EngineeringKenneth Shine
President, Institute of Medicine
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