graduate education faculty flyer
Encourage Students to Develop
Independent Research and Critical
Thinking Skills
Have students plan, write and defend their own
research proposals
Give students the opportunity to help you
review articles or research proposals
preparing your
chemistry
students for...
Train Students to Become Responsible
Scientists
Give students training on recording, interpreting,
and storing data
Ensure students are trained on laboratory safety
procedures
As an advisor, you…need to let people
ind their own path. You need to let them
come up with their own ideas even if
you don’t think they are good ideas.
They need to work through this process.
—Jennifer Schomaker, Assistant Professor,
University of Wisconsin
Encourage Students to Start Thinking
About Careers Early
Set up practice interviews for your students to
prepare them for their job search
Encourage students to consider non-traditional
careers
Help your students to network, perhaps by
putting them in touch with former graduate
students who have gone on to careers in their
areas of interest
Encourage students to explore internship
opportunities to learn about diferent sectors of
employment
Help your students ind advice on taking
charge of their graduate education with the
student-targeted pamphlet How to Make Your
Chemistry Graduate Education Work for You,
available for download at
http://bit.ly/chemistry-graduate-education
This pamphlet is based on Challenges in Chemistry
Graduate Education: A Workshop Summary, which
records the presentations made and ideas exchanged
at a 2012 Board on Chemical Sciences and Technology
workshop. This material is based upon work supported
by the National Science Foundation under award number
CHE-1147410 and by the National Institutes of Health
under award number N01-OD-4-2139, TO#273. Unlike
the Academies’ expert consensus reports, workshop
summaries do not contain indings or recommendations,
and don’t necessarily represent the views of the National
Research Council.
To learn more, please visit:
http://bit.ly/chemistry-graduate-education
Life after
Graduate
School
Help your students gain the skills
they’ll need to succeed in their
chosen careers.
Opportunities for chemists are changing.
Although graduate enrollment in chemistry and
chemical engineering programs is on the rise,
so too is unemployment among new chemistry
graduates, which increased from about 4 percent
in 2000 to more than 10 percent in 2009 and 2010.
Pharmaceutical companies are paring back their
research divisions to reduce costs, and increasingly
are opening research and development facilities
in Asia rather than in the United States to take
advantage of growing markets and trained workforces there. At the same time, universities are
under signiicant iscal constraints that threaten
their ability to hire new faculty members. Future
funding of chemical research may be limited as the
federal budget tightens.
Change has already come. We can view
this as an opportunity for our community
and for the United States, or we can
passively react to change and have it
imposed on us.
—Matthew Platz, National Science Foundation
In this turbulent job market, it’s important to ensure
that graduate chemistry education adequately
prepares students for life after graduate school.
This means equipping students with the skills
they’ll need to succeed in their chosen career, be
it in academia, industry, or beyond.
Helping Your Students
Get the Most out of Graduate School
The structure of academic research groups in
chemistry remains focused around single investigators working one-on-one with graduate
students—a model that may not be well-suited for
the kinds of complex, interdisciplinary problems now
Set Expectations for Student Conduct
Help Students Build Interdisciplinary
Skills
Faculty advisors often have difering expectations for
laboratory life than their students, and this mismatch
can lead to conlict. If you’d like your lab to run
smoothly, you may consider developing a manual
with your students that lays out the expectations in
writing. Questions to consider include:
Expose students to a range of disciplines by
inviting other faculty members to speak about
their work
Encourage students to work collaboratively with
other laboratories.
✦ How much time are students expected to
work in the lab?
✦ How often will you meet to discuss progress?
✦ How will you set goals?
✦ What steps should students take to report a
mistake in their research?
Suggest students takes classes and attend
seminars in topics outside their ield
confronting chemistry. What’s more, with increasing
competition for research funding, there can be little
time to focus on training graduate students.
However, making sure your students acquire the
diverse skills necessary for life beyond graduate
school not will only help them land jobs in their
chosen careers—it will also make your laboratory a
more productive and positive environment. These
tips ensure your students get all they can from their
time in graduate school.
Help Students Build Leadership Skills
Support students who take on extra activities
such as managing student-run seminars
Encourage experienced graduate students
to mentor incoming graduate students and
undergraduates
Educate your students about the process of
securing research funding
Help students build teaching skills and become
strong written and oral communicators
Allow students to assist you with developing
lesson plans, giving lectures, and teaching
laboratory classes
Ask students to write the irst drafts of research
proposals and papers. Then, edit the drafts and
provide constructive feedback
Encourage your students to attend conferences,
and help them prepare poster presentations
and talks
Play an Active Role in the Success of
Graduate Students in Your Laboratory
Encourage potential graduate students to do
rotations in several laboratories to ind the best it
Help your students graduate on time. Deine
goals to ensure they stay on track
Set expectations for student conduct (see box)
Develop a policy for dealing with conlict within
your research group
Establish family-friendly policies and encourage
a supportive atmosphere to reduce the attrition
of women in graduate chemistry education.
Students [need] to deine their goals:
“I want to present a paper or I want to go
to a meeting this year so what
do I need to get done by this date
and how am I going to assess that.”
—Julie Aaron, DeSales University
Independent Research and Critical
Thinking Skills
Have students plan, write and defend their own
research proposals
Give students the opportunity to help you
review articles or research proposals
preparing your
chemistry
students for...
Train Students to Become Responsible
Scientists
Give students training on recording, interpreting,
and storing data
Ensure students are trained on laboratory safety
procedures
As an advisor, you…need to let people
ind their own path. You need to let them
come up with their own ideas even if
you don’t think they are good ideas.
They need to work through this process.
—Jennifer Schomaker, Assistant Professor,
University of Wisconsin
Encourage Students to Start Thinking
About Careers Early
Set up practice interviews for your students to
prepare them for their job search
Encourage students to consider non-traditional
careers
Help your students to network, perhaps by
putting them in touch with former graduate
students who have gone on to careers in their
areas of interest
Encourage students to explore internship
opportunities to learn about diferent sectors of
employment
Help your students ind advice on taking
charge of their graduate education with the
student-targeted pamphlet How to Make Your
Chemistry Graduate Education Work for You,
available for download at
http://bit.ly/chemistry-graduate-education
This pamphlet is based on Challenges in Chemistry
Graduate Education: A Workshop Summary, which
records the presentations made and ideas exchanged
at a 2012 Board on Chemical Sciences and Technology
workshop. This material is based upon work supported
by the National Science Foundation under award number
CHE-1147410 and by the National Institutes of Health
under award number N01-OD-4-2139, TO#273. Unlike
the Academies’ expert consensus reports, workshop
summaries do not contain indings or recommendations,
and don’t necessarily represent the views of the National
Research Council.
To learn more, please visit:
http://bit.ly/chemistry-graduate-education
Life after
Graduate
School
Help your students gain the skills
they’ll need to succeed in their
chosen careers.
Opportunities for chemists are changing.
Although graduate enrollment in chemistry and
chemical engineering programs is on the rise,
so too is unemployment among new chemistry
graduates, which increased from about 4 percent
in 2000 to more than 10 percent in 2009 and 2010.
Pharmaceutical companies are paring back their
research divisions to reduce costs, and increasingly
are opening research and development facilities
in Asia rather than in the United States to take
advantage of growing markets and trained workforces there. At the same time, universities are
under signiicant iscal constraints that threaten
their ability to hire new faculty members. Future
funding of chemical research may be limited as the
federal budget tightens.
Change has already come. We can view
this as an opportunity for our community
and for the United States, or we can
passively react to change and have it
imposed on us.
—Matthew Platz, National Science Foundation
In this turbulent job market, it’s important to ensure
that graduate chemistry education adequately
prepares students for life after graduate school.
This means equipping students with the skills
they’ll need to succeed in their chosen career, be
it in academia, industry, or beyond.
Helping Your Students
Get the Most out of Graduate School
The structure of academic research groups in
chemistry remains focused around single investigators working one-on-one with graduate
students—a model that may not be well-suited for
the kinds of complex, interdisciplinary problems now
Set Expectations for Student Conduct
Help Students Build Interdisciplinary
Skills
Faculty advisors often have difering expectations for
laboratory life than their students, and this mismatch
can lead to conlict. If you’d like your lab to run
smoothly, you may consider developing a manual
with your students that lays out the expectations in
writing. Questions to consider include:
Expose students to a range of disciplines by
inviting other faculty members to speak about
their work
Encourage students to work collaboratively with
other laboratories.
✦ How much time are students expected to
work in the lab?
✦ How often will you meet to discuss progress?
✦ How will you set goals?
✦ What steps should students take to report a
mistake in their research?
Suggest students takes classes and attend
seminars in topics outside their ield
confronting chemistry. What’s more, with increasing
competition for research funding, there can be little
time to focus on training graduate students.
However, making sure your students acquire the
diverse skills necessary for life beyond graduate
school not will only help them land jobs in their
chosen careers—it will also make your laboratory a
more productive and positive environment. These
tips ensure your students get all they can from their
time in graduate school.
Help Students Build Leadership Skills
Support students who take on extra activities
such as managing student-run seminars
Encourage experienced graduate students
to mentor incoming graduate students and
undergraduates
Educate your students about the process of
securing research funding
Help students build teaching skills and become
strong written and oral communicators
Allow students to assist you with developing
lesson plans, giving lectures, and teaching
laboratory classes
Ask students to write the irst drafts of research
proposals and papers. Then, edit the drafts and
provide constructive feedback
Encourage your students to attend conferences,
and help them prepare poster presentations
and talks
Play an Active Role in the Success of
Graduate Students in Your Laboratory
Encourage potential graduate students to do
rotations in several laboratories to ind the best it
Help your students graduate on time. Deine
goals to ensure they stay on track
Set expectations for student conduct (see box)
Develop a policy for dealing with conlict within
your research group
Establish family-friendly policies and encourage
a supportive atmosphere to reduce the attrition
of women in graduate chemistry education.
Students [need] to deine their goals:
“I want to present a paper or I want to go
to a meeting this year so what
do I need to get done by this date
and how am I going to assess that.”
—Julie Aaron, DeSales University