Better Career Education For Chemists
GeoffreyDavies Northeastern University Boston, MA 02115
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Report of Dreyfus Conference, "Professional internships f& Graduate Students in Chemistryr'
This article is a report on the Dreyfus Foundation Conference "Professional Internships for Graduate Students in Chemistry" held at ~ o r t h r a ~ t t mUniversity, i Hoston, on January 12-13. 1979. 'l'hr conference brought rwether ACS represintatives, faculty from 16 different &hoors, students and representatives of industrial and governmental oreanizations to examine two innovative doctoral programs in chemistry. These two programs are unusual in that they provide selected students with an opportunity for a year-long extramural "internship" as part of their graduate proerams. Before outlining the conference proceedings it will he helpful to present some recent statistics on the s u.~-~.and lv demand foi chemistry graduates and to discuss their relationship to the current a~uromiatenessof chemical education. Also ineluded as a hackgrokd to the conference is a brief discussion of the nature and status of current cooperative education and internship programs.
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Trends inSupply and Demand for Chemistry Graduates Recent statistics from National Science Foundation and National Research Council surveys and the reports of the ACS Committees on Professional Training (CPT), Manpower (M) and Economic Status (ES) confirm that more than half of all physical scientists are chemists, with more than 60% of doctoral chemists currently employed by industry ( I ) . Academic faculties in the physical sciences are expected to decrease in numbers hy 25% by 1984-85 due to falling enrollments, with larger cuts in biology, which is the largest single producer of medical school candidates. This will likelv cause a shift of BS holders in biology and other sciences into graduate work in chemistw. . . further intensifvine , ..the comoetition between PhD graduates in (:hemistry ibr arndemic appointments. Only 3O"b of all I'hD chemists an. exoected to be emdnved in academia in 1984-85. Although ma& different faciorsare involved in the assessment. it seems reasonable to exuect that a t least 80% ofall nrw graduate chemists wdl have nc,chanre ot nrndemic mreers in the eirhties: they will he emvl~,yed . . in industrsor government ( 1 ) (see Fig. lj. Dreylus Conlerence Keynote Addresses ACS Perspectiue, Mary L. Good, Department of Chemistry, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803.
Professional Internships-An
The Work-Study Doctoral Program in Chemistry at Northeastern Uniuersity, Geoffrey Davies, Department of Chemistry, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115
The Co-op PhD Option at the Guelph- Waterloo Graduate Center. Alfred Rudin, Department of Chemistry, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario N2L3G1, Canada. Professional Internships-A View From Industry, A. L.
MeClelland, Central Research and Development Department, E.I. Dupont deNemours Co., Wilmington, DE 19898 ADL Inuoluement with the Northeastern Uniuersity Program, J . E . Oberholtzer. Arthur D. Little, Inc., Acorn Park,
Cambridge, MA 02140 Attitudes Toward Professianal Internship Programs, J . W.
Wilson, Cooperative Education Research Center, Stearns Hall, Northeasbrn University, Boston, MA 02115 504 / Journal of Chemical Education
Figure 1. Expectation versus Reaiity-diagram from the Conference brochure illustrating the unrealistic expectations of graduate students in chemistry.
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While a Bachelor's trainine in chemistrv urohablv is the most industry-orienting of all science programs and opens the door to a varietv of orofessional careers. it is evident that chemists do not do weil in comparison withchemical engineers when it comes to securing direct em~lovmentin industrv. Data from E S and Dupont s&eys indicate that about 70%of BS chemical engineers consistently have gone directly into ind u ~ t r i s em&yment l over the k dec'ade, while 11; 193-77 the vroporti~mfor HS chemists was only 22Ci :md was rontinuingto decline with the total numberof new BS chemists actually increasing ( I ). Withahout 24q of BSchernistsg~~ing on mgraduate studies in chemistry in thesame year it ~ i c l e a rthat uur BSgraduates are currentlv forsakine immediate chemical careers based directly on their academic training in the hopes of improving their emnlovmeot . . .prospects . andlor satisfviue . " their individual career goals. At the doctoral level. 49% of all new P h D holders took postdoctoral appointments, the traditional mute to academia, in 1976-77. This proportion is up from averages . of 17% in 1960-65 and 28% in 1'966-69. The low employment demand for chemistry graduates a t all levels in the early seventies, when PhD chemist production was a t its maximum and BS chemists fared relatively poorly in jeruring satisfactory employment, has mused a searching rxamination o i the appropriateness of acndemic programs in preparing chtmistry students for industrinl c,mvrs. Hw.ve\.er, nw,rdit~gto Dr. Mary Gwd, Hoyd Pn~fessornf Chemistry at Louisiana State University in Baton Knuge, there has hern "too much hreast-heating ahout the inlag* d(hemistry and t w littlr advnntnre in - taken of the excellent o~ourtunities .. preparing chemists for satisfying and useful professional ca-
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A good example of supply and demand prohlems is the
current competition between academia and industry for a relntivt:lg smnll numher of d o r r m l graduates i l l analytiral chemistry. Attempts to improve faculty and student understanding of industrial employment and to bridge the continuing wide educational communication gap between academia and in-
dustry have included the increased offering of industriallyoriented lecture and laboratow courses. seminars hv industrial speakers, and the encouragement 01 industrial site visits 11y students. Anrune the most enthusiastically receivrd initiat:\.es of this sort are h e day-long "~oad-~hox&"organized by the ACS Younger Chemists Committee at various locations. These forums, and those organized a t national and regional ACS meetings in recent years, enable students, faculty and industrial employees to compare their everyday lives and further each participant's understanding of the others. These initiatives are imoressive and will un- - ~ realistic ~ - ~ doubtedly influence the perceptions of students concerning the nature of their likely future careers in industry. Industry is now able directly to tell academia what it is looking for in its new orofessional emolovees. However, the statistics mentioned earlier suggestthat the effects ofthese efforts to bridge the communication gap are still to he felt. We should ask ourselves if there is not a better way of improving academia's understanding of industrial chemistry and of improving the effectiveness of the hiring and employment of chemistry graduates by industry. Cooperative and Internship Programs (2-4) One of the most effective means of preparing astudent for subsequent employment is togive him or her an opportunity for related extramural work. Such opportunities can range all the wav from short. "one-shot" internships for one or more students on an ad hoe basis to structured cooperative programs for the majority of students in an academic unit or college. The term "cooperative" has in the past encompassed all manner of internshio. .. work-studv and encounter Droarams . varying considerably in quality, structure and appropriateness for professional training. For the purposes of this article, we shall reserve the term "cooperative" to designate programs which alternate periods of classroom training and outside work experience; an "internship" is a single outside work experience as Dart of an academic program; and "work-study" involves outside work experience with little easily recognized relationshir, to an academic program. ('hcrni;try facul~ymemhers often ennurage students to take chemistry-rrlated summer jot~s.Such employmmt sitrlarims are nearly alwnys student-initiated and nre experimeed at 3 time when company acti\,lty often is at its lowcst IewI In addition, there is nostructured relntionship t~etaeen sclitd wcrk and the student's empluyment. Nevertheless, this is the only mechanism ot'dirrct prdessional career rducation for rhv majority ot'thr nation's chemistry students. Some ichmh. notably Ilrexel, Yorthe:istern. Rochester Institute of ~ e c h n o l o ~ i a ntheuniversity d of Waterloo in Canada, have well-established cooperative education programs at the BS level. The latter school produces the largest number of "co-op" BS chemists in North America. In these schools the placement of BS students in co-op jobs is made by a Cooperative Education Division, with each discipline having its own Co-op Coordinator. Waterloo has the equivalent of 2 chemistry coordinators because of its large numher of students. At Northeastern. 70% of the students in the College of Arts and Science elect the cooperative education option, dhich is formallv a 5-vear Bachelor's promam. An increasing number of these students are taking a tog1 of 9 months outside work, which allows them to graduate in 4 years. I t is worth noting th(, S:l'h ot l93i 77 physical science ~radudteswho spent onr sear or more .~.i'.c~r-npers" inn single company were hircd by those same companies on graduation. Dr. James Wilson, Knowles Professor of Cooperative Ed~nrntionnt Nmhedsrern Ilnivrrsity, presented data which give n measurcof inwrensing intcrest in roupernti\xand intern~hip nrozrams. Currentlv. ..about 1100 colleees have some sort of extramural work activity as part of one or more academic programs, up from 58 in 1958 and 115 in 1968. The median number of students in each program is currently 70, although the four schools mentioned above account for most of the ~
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Figure 2. Participants in the Conference.
students involved. At the graduate level (and specifically excluding 150 medical schwi-ISwith internships) 2Oschouls had such program.; in 1971 with 730 studcnts involved, and 93 nnwrnm, with 2l00 students were identified in 1978. Phvsical Science departments account for 38 of these current graduate nromams., but onlv 41 students were involved in 1978. A recent random telephonk survey of 30 of the 93 programs indicated that 6 of them had not dated a sinele student in the last academic year. At 12 of them, faculty and administration respondents generally were unaware of their school's involvement in an extramural work program.
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Dreyfus Conference Proceedings Dr. Mary Good, immediate Past-Chairperson of the ACS Board, outlined the history of the Society's current committment to increasing the number of chemistrv students henetittiny from coope;ati\.r and internshipexper~ences.The est,~l,l~ihment of nn od hoc ACS'l'ask Force on Cooperative Education in 1973was the result of an earlier recommendation from the 2nd Biennial Conference on Chemical Education that "academic curricula should strive to incorporate internships of work assignments as a formal requirement in the education process." This Task Force, which was chaired by Professor L. Carroll King of Northwestern University, was unsuccessful in obtaining outside funding for an Office for Cooperative Education a t ACS Headquarters. "Proposal reviewers felt that eovernment monev should not he spent in implementing an established mode of education which would bring chemistry into the 20th century," she said. However, the Younger Chemists Committee was successful in obtaining Board a ~ v r o v afor l ACS funding and establishment of this Office in December 1978, and it;s hoped that this new staff activitv will be fully operational a t the start of the 1979-80 academic yenr. (;(r,d sees the oftice primarily as a catalyst fur the establishment of new coop~!rati\.eand internshi11 programs, rather than as a clearinghouse for employment opportunities. Concern about the small number and low quality of existing cooperative and internship programs in chemistry and the question of whether or not such programs should he certified, for example, by CPT, were recurring themes at the conference. Good feels that the current strong competition between graduate schools for a dwindling supply of new students makes a rational discussion of the certification of graduate programs very difficult. The latter might he the concern of the Council of Graduate Schools. She introduced a new booklet "Internships for Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Students" from the ACS Department of Educational Activities, which is an unendorsed listing of known employment opportunities and includes "some survival tips" for students. Also mentioned was C.F. Cook's article "The Troubled Life of the Young PhD in an Industrial Research Laboratory" (5)which describes the cultural shock felt by many new graduates on beginning industrial employment. Dr. Good feels that inVolume 56, Number 8, August 1979 / 505
ternship ex~erienceswhich are well-managed and long enoueh are the'hrsi menns forastudent todemo~strateanddevel;;p those attrihutes (communicative. managerial, technical) which I in industry. We should are necessary for a S U C C ~ P S ~ Ucareer not wait tor a crisis M change our attitudes toward education, sincr the qunlity of new graduate students is decrensing and we must plan for futureemployment situations. Stressing the joint respmsihility of academia and industry in making internship experiences and subsequent employment as profitahlc as poss~hlefur the studrnt, Dr. Gond was joined hy Ilrs. ('hristina dansen (Milliporr Corporation, Hedford, MA.) and Jdn1c.s Oberhc~ltrer(Arthur I). I,ittle, Inc.), lmrh empl~)yers of Knrtheastern Univrriitv interns and wry much concerned with the educational a w x t s of their internship invulvement. Dr. Geoffrey Davies described the "Work-Study Doctoral Program in Chemistry at Northeastern University" (2-4).' This program was the brainchild of Dr. B.L. Karger and resulted from a meeting between administrators, Chemistry faculty, NU Coop Division staff and local company representatives in the Fall of 1971. when new PhD chemists were ~in large excess over industrial job openings. Since its formal establishment in 1972-73 the NU Program has arranged internships for 25 doctoral graduate students in 10 or so Greater Boston area organizations. Internship situations are identified by interested students from available job descriptions from the companies and through site visits. Potential interns are then selected on the basis of their first-year coursework and an interview with a joint faculty-industrial panel. The final step in securing internship employment is formal interviewing with selected companies. Once an offer has been made and accepted the intern soends the next 15 months as a reeular. paid employee of the chosen organization. Current salaries for NU interns average $13.000/vr: em~lovmenteuidelines have been developed h;the ~ h e m i s t ~r ~ e p a r t m e kand the participating companies. At Northeastern, contact with the intern is maintained through enrollment in one evening .. -graduate course per academic term and hy regular site visits by a faculty advisor who is individually chosen by the intern. An annual conference for NU program participants further strengthens the relationships between employers, faculty and students. Interns may petition to take the specialist cumulative qualifying exams which are taken by regular graduate students during the second vear. Those who have taken this o ~ t i o nhave been successful. The management and monitorine of the Work-Studv,notion . 31 ~orthenr;ern is the respimsit,'ility of the Departmental Work-Studv Committet~.which is a rem~larfscultv cnmmittee assignment. Among the many D e p a k e n t a l benefits from this program are improved em~lovmentprosuects for its graduates (participat;'ng companies seek fbrmer interns as regular employees on graduation) and much closer contacts u ith key p~rshnnelin-local uryaniriltions. Several students have consulted s i t h their indu.;trial partners during their suhseauent.thesis work. Althoueh internshio work-is not formaily creditable for the thesiscomponentof the ~ h D ~ i n chemistrv a t Northeastern.. the presence of aaduate students . with extended outside work experience is having a significant impact on the chemistry department's outlook and operations. Another measure of the success of Northeastern's internship program is the maintenance of a roster of companies which always exceeds the number of selected interns in a given !ear: thus. & h u ~ ~ gahcompany is not gunrunteed a amtinunus iupply i,t'groduate intrrnr, m d may nut he nhle to provide an internship in a particular year, the companies perceive association with the program as very worthwhile. Drs. Jansen and Oberholtzer do not feel that immediate replacement of one ~
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'A name change for the Northeastern Program is planned for the near future, (see text). 506 1 Journal of Chemical Education
intern with another is as important at the graduate level as a t the undergraduate level because the latter internships are generally for 6 months or less and much more responsibility and project specificity is involved for graduate participants. Entrv into the Northeastern internshio o ~ t i o nis limited by the &ailability of first-year graduate teaching assistantships (currently determined by undergraduate enrollments) and by the admission and internship selection processes. Typically, half of newly-admitted students are interested in internship experience and 3 or 4 eventually are selected for partici~ation.Onlv 2 students have failed to return to thesis iesearih after the& internship, and the remainder have generallv been outstanding in their subseauent graduate school work. Several former ihterns have takkn additional courses in non-chemical areas as a result of their internship experiences, which would be unusual for regular graduate students who already have completed their formal course requirements. The high quality of interns and their ability to develop basic research and other skills during the internship have . period . resulted in a noticeably mature outlo(8k towards ~uhsequent theiir research. Althourh the KI' intern samrrlt! is still sm,iIl and select, it would appear that a year out of school does not translate into a year longer to obtain the PhD. Two former interns a t Arthur D. Little (Ms. Zoe Grosser and Dr. Itamar Bodek) cited the financial benefits of an industrial salary rlnring the second year ot'graduate whool. For Ms. Grosser, thiseliminated thealterniltiveot a tmak hetween her HS and the first war of eraduatc school: Dr. Hodek u,ould have had to teach n k h t courses for extra income had it not been for his internship salary. Dr. Alfred Rudin described the Co-op PhD Program in Chemistry at the Guelph-Waterloo Graduate Center. This program, established in 1976, is only the second of such programs in North America. and was adopted in view of with thi~.qpproach.Alfh~ughits phiN ~ r t h e a s t e r nSII(F.OTF '~ I i ~ ~ p and h y goals are similar, it differs i n its operiitional details. The I.'n~versitiesof Gurlph and Waterloo cumhined their respective graduate chemistry programs in 1974 to form the Guelph-Waterloo Graduate Center, (GWC)%,which now has 51 faculty and 80graduate students (who are almost all native Canadians because of visarestrictions). Co-op PhD students with high academic qualifications make a committment to internship participation on entry to (GWC)%.Maintenance of an 80% course grade average in the first semester allows students to make tentative internship arraneements in De" cemher. Continuing excellence in course work and a Departmental recommendation to the (GWCP Director and the Chemistry Co-op Coordinator complete the requirements for a une-year internship, which begin-. in April. 'l'here are no gevgri~phicalimitations in the (GIB('P program, and the wntact hetueen student and \(:W(:J' is maintained hy sire w i t s from fn
