Socializing Doctoral Students for Professional Careers

A recent column in the Chronicle of Higher Education claims that Ph.D. programs are neglecting graduate student’s professional development, and the author, English professor, Leonard Cassuto, calls for the incorporation of seminars that address this topic into graduate program coursework to educate students about the culture of the profession. A part of this education involves preparing graduates for careers outside of academia.

From the column:

It amounts to this: Graduate school is professional school, but most Ph.D programs badly neglect graduate students' professional development. We spend years of their training ignoring that development, and then, only at the last moment when students are about to hit the job market, do we attend to their immediate professional needs. By neglecting their career goals, we allow their desires to coalesce from their immediate surroundings—the research university—and to harden over time.