Sci-fi author Robert A. Heinlein once wrote “A human being should be able to…design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone…. Specialization is for insects.” This is a message that graduate students should take to heart as they move even higher into the world of higher education, because narrow skill sets are killing Ph.D.s on the job market.

Why You Shouldn’t Specialize

For a long time, graduate school and doctorate programs have encouraged students to pursue a career in academia, dreaming of professorships and research grants and eventually achieving tenure. But the simple fact of the matter is that tenure-track jobs are hard to come by, and getting harder all the time. There aren’t enough of them to go around as it is, and as we look toward the future it’s easy to see that academia is not a sound career goal.

What does that mean for doctorate and graduate students? It means that your specialization isn’t going to make you an expert in your particular field of study, increasing demand for your skills – it’s going to make you unemployed. The more you pursue teaching assistantships and concentrate your energy into your dissertation, the further you get from the skill set that can get you a career in the “real world” – you know, the one outside of the university.

Once you’ve realized that the real world is the place you need to eventually head toward (and the economics say it is), the questions will start coming hard and fast. What sort of qualifications does the real world require? How can I get there and still get my Ph.D.? Should I just drop out of graduate school now?

Is My Ph.D. Still Useful?

Fortunately, a future outside of academia is still compatible with getting a Ph.D. You just have to be very aware of the fact that you probably aren’t going to get a cushy tenure-track research teaching position at a prestigious university. You’re more likely to end up somewhere in corporate America, or starting your own business. Instead of putting all of your experience into teaching assistantships and research assistant positions, look for internships outside of your university, or within the university but not in a teaching or research field. Employers look for experience, and if all of your experience is as a teacher, then that’s all you’ll be qualified for no matter how smart you are.

Getting a Ph.D. won’t hurt your employment chances, but it isn’t a sure-fire ticket to getting hired. There are lots of other Ph.D.s out there. You may feel overqualified for most of the jobs you apply for, but that’s just what happens in such an educated society. In the end, it’s the skills you picked up when you were dragging yourself through graduate school that will matter – not the degree itself. Employers respond well to hard workers and analytical thinkers. These are the sorts of things your Ph.D. will say about you. Your expertise on amazonian butterflies won’t be as important.

Remember – the “real” world is about who you know as much as the academic one is. If you don’t start reaching out early, you won’t have the necessary connections when the time comes to look for a job. This is another reason to get experience outside the university as early as possible.

Benefits of Cross-Discipline Studies

Additionally, you should give serious consideration to broadening your skill set through cross-discipline studies. Instead of focusing in on a particular area of your field, add a second area of expertise to your repertoire. For example, if your area is English, try taking some marketing classes, or computer science. With both marketing and English skills, you can make your way in just about any business, especially marketing or research companies. If you’re qualified for English and computer science, you could become a technical writer, and get jobs with big-name companies like Google or Microsoft. By combining skill sets, you create opportunities for yourself that you wouldn’t otherwise have.

Plus, by using your time in graduate school to gain more than one useful field of expertise, you get the most out of your education. Instead of spending a lot of money to qualify for one thing, that money has been spent to get you the necessary qualifications to actually become employed quickly. If there’s a specific career that you think you would enjoy, try to tailor your graduate studies to direct you toward that career path. Don’t let your professors pull you back toward teaching exclusively – it’s best to keep your options open.

Peer Pressure

While you’re still in graduate school, it may seem like planning for a career in the outside world is a cop out. After all, the best and brightest are the ones who end up in academia, right? The rest are the drop-outs and the people who couldn’t handle it.

It’s exactly this sort of mindset that has so many intelligent and well-qualified people out of work, or unhappy in their positions. You can still aim for tenure, but there’s nothing wrong with being realistic about your future prospects and having a back-up plan. You can make more money in the business world, and you may even find that you’re happier without the constant pressure to teach and publish. Professorship is a dying profession, which makes it a poor career goal. If you want to do right by yourself, don’t listen to your mentors, urging you to follow in their footsteps. They are the lucky minority, and most of them probably still don’t have the jobs they really wanted. Instead, figure out what it is that you want, and work from there. Don’t let graduate school dictate your future, or else you’ll be unhappy for the rest of your life.

So don’t be an insect. Be a human being. Keep your mind open and your eyes peeled for opportunities, and learn everything you can while you still have a chance. Academia isn’t big enough for everyone anymore, and soon you’ll have to fend for yourself in the “real world.”

*Photo courtesy of wiki commons.