Why Do So Many Physics Students Want to Work in Academia?

During a break at a workshop on dark matter I attended this summer, a senior researcher asked me, “Why do you think so many students want jobs in academia?” She was right to ask: 30% of new physics bachelor’s degree-earners want to be employed by a college or university, and yet only 5% will end up in tenure-track faculty positions.

I’m a job-seeker this cycle, among the even higher percentage of graduate students seeking faculty careers, and this question has been lurking around the edges of my attention ever since it was asked of me. I’d originally responded by repeating a gripe I’d heard from senior physicists: I pointed the finger at students’ tunnel vision and, perhaps, lack of creativity.

But the more I’ve styled my CV, the more I’ve realized how surgical my preparation has been for a postdoctoral position. This question exposes a deep insufficiency in academia: Academics must do more to prepare their students for future careers, and undertake the personal work of driving cultural shifts in our physics community to realize this goal.

So, why do so many students want jobs in academia? If all physics undergraduate and graduate students in the U.S. were surveyed on the issue, I’d expect to see several major themes emerge.

The first is perhaps the most intuitive: selection bias. Students complete physics degrees because they like the work related to a physics degree, and students who like this work want to continue it. But this is exacerbated by curricula that favor future professors, often at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. We teach to students who excel in a broad, historical, largely theoretical curriculum, which favors retention of students who seek similar work. Students without interest in, say, Quantum Mechanics II have fewer pathways to success, and may elect to continue their studies in a department that emphasizes domain knowledge relevant to a broader set of careers.

This narrow and often inflexible curriculum produces graduates who are underprepared for work outside of academic physics, and the skills we teach to complement this curriculum intensify these outcomes. We prioritize quantitative reasoning — inarguably valuable — but in our quest to craft the perfect problem-solver, we miss out on other important skills. A report published by the American Institute of Physics in 2019 found that 27% of Ph.D. physicists employed in the private sector reported skill and ability barriers in their work experience, like insufficient programming skills, poor preparation for hands-on experimental work, or low public speaking proficiency. In my experience, there has been progress here: Presentations help students practice communication skills, and active learning methods (though their rollout has been slow and uneven) encourage teamwork and peer education. Yet this hasn’t been enough for physics students to see themselves as broadly employable. At a conference this year, an undergraduate told me her friends teased her by asking, “What’re you gonna do with a physics degree?” She wasn’t sure how to respond.

After earning physics degrees, enterprising students ready to enter the non-academic workforce are left with their work cut out for them. But their climb is steeper than squeezing in preparation for non-academic jobs around the periphery of a packed curriculum. They also shoulder the burden of determining what that preparation looks like. In some sectors, staying on track for jobs and internships require that students make decisions about their careers years in advance — a reality to which I was oblivious as an undergraduate (instead I was told I could waltz into a finance job after graduation, which I now know is witheringly false).

I’m not alone in this, as research in the past decade has found that students tend to delay career exploration until near or after graduation. This leaves students too little time to prepare, which suggests to me that some students may prolong their stay in academia because the alternative is building a portfolio for another career after the time to do so has already passed.

The issues outlined above — curricula that retain academic hopefuls, preparation too narrow for work outside of academia, and a lack of scaffolding for students who want to break out of these molds — have concrete solutions, which don’t require us to completely abandon our theory-forward curricula in favor of applied physics (there’s something to be said for learning this material just because it’s enriching). Recent research has compiled laundry lists of recommendations for departments seeking to better prepare students for their careers without curriculum overhaul, ranging from teaching computational-analysis tools to encouraging internships to incorporating basic business concepts like teamwork and communication into existing coursework. One 2015 study on “developmental networks” — the people (or person) who provide developmental assistance that furthers a student’s career — “challenges the taken-for-granted notion that doctoral advisors are, and should be, students’ most important source of career development,” and instead finds “that students need a wide range of networks, beyond peer and advisory relationships.” APS has also assembled recommendations, and, crucially, success stories of departments whose interventions work for their faculty and their students.

Advocates have clearly been pushing for a stronger approach to career preparation for physics students for some time. Why do so few departments seem to be listening?

I argue these first three issues, and a reluctance to address them, stem from a root cause. It is less straightforward to address, and yet I think students in my hypothetical “why do so many students want academic careers” survey would have no trouble identifying it.

It is not a secret that there is an insidious attitude permeating academia that says an academic job in physics is a badge of competence and intellect, and any other job — regardless of the stability, financial security, balance, or fulfillment it might bring — is an indication of a shortcoming in academic ability. Students pick up on this quickly, or are instructed in it; research has revealed that, across the board in the sciences, graduate advisors strongly encourage careers in academic research while deemphasizing other career options. As an extreme example, I have heard faculty describe doctorate-holders who pursued non-academic work as “failures.” The intense competition for academic positions only enhances their prestige.

I don’t argue that there’s malice here. I don’t think that most faculty are making a conscious decision to neglect the needs of students with different career aspirations. But the fact that these students are still being left behind, despite decades of research about how to support them, indicates a little too much complacency with the status quo.

As an aspiring academic — entranced by the intellectual freedom my career could afford me, and maybe a beneficiary of selection bias at work — I find myself wondering what I could do to challenge this culture.

I think the first step is to see my future students as future members of the workforce. My goal as an educator and advisor should not be to usher them through the finish line of graduation, but to provide a springboard for a career. Instead of asking an incoming student what classes they’ve signed up for, I might ask, “What kind of work would you be excited to do after graduation?” — a signal to the student that a career is worth thinking about early in their studies.

As a student, I never received much information about careers; I’d get handed data on where physics degree-earners end up after their studies and then never hear follow-up. As an advisor, I could improve on this. Instead of referring to the monolith of “industry,” I could specify those real roles — at startups, at technology companies, in government — that real physicists are doing, as well as their starting salaries and many perks.

Better still, I could build my own network that includes physicists outside of academia, so that I can provide a starting point for students’ developmental networks. I can list former students’ non-academic careers on my research group’s homepage. I can keep in touch with those alumni, and solicit their advice for current students on how to prepare for similar outcomes. I can talk to my colleagues in computer science and engineering to learn when and how students should apply for summer internships.

Systemic, department-level change will be crucial in our field’s work to prepare students for diverse roles and workplaces. But we as individuals can help, too. I — and I hope my future colleagues — can carve out just a bit of extra time to invest in students’ careers. I think I’ll find it’s worth it, to share in the successes of more than 5% of our field.

The views expressed in interviews and in opinion pieces, like the Opinion page, are not necessarily those of APS. APS News welcomes letters responding to these and other issues.