I am a statistic

With hopes of obtaining some semblance of organization in my office, I began to file some of my paperwork from graduation. The problem with my filing system is that I become distracted by many papers that I feel require further attention. Case in point: the graduate survey I completed, then never searched for online. So as three boxes sit half full of paper and seven stacks of folders, booklets and yet more paper stand ready to topple, I decided to check up on who comprises the population of folks with doctoral degrees.

So the NORC (National Opinion Research Center) collects data from students finishing grad school. The result is the SED (Survey of Earned Degrees) and was actually quite interesting. The most recent survey is from 2002-2003, but due to small changes noted over time, I’m assuming that my graduation year is similar.

Basically, over 400 (who knew?) universities in the US awarded almost 41,000 doctoral degrees in 2002-3. And women are being highly educated like crazy – we represented 45% of the total degrees awarded (51% of the degrees awarded to US Citizens – so I think we’re winning!), though in the physical sciences, we comprised only 27% of the PhDs awarded, and only 17% of the engineering doctorates. Also of interest was an upward trend of minorities earning degrees – 19% of those awarded to US Citizens go to minority students. 68% of total degrees went to US Citizens, but international students dominate engineering fields. Americans received only 37% of the engineering degrees. Finally, it takes about 7.5 years for people to finish their degrees, and 2/3 find someone else to pay for it. 1/3 of us continued on for additional training through some sort of post-doctoral position.

I have all sorts of thoughts on this survey – women in sciences and how it’s terribly difficult sometimes, the work ethic of many students from Asia who have awed me with incredible brilliance sometimes, how many of us will end up working in our chosen fields and who will burn out and decide to enter a different profession, how many of the international students end up staying in the US permanently, and the worth of paying taxes to fund so many students getting higher degrees. I’d love to know how much we really contribute to society, because some days I feel like this was all wasted on me. I don’t always see the big picture, ask the right questions, obtain the critical skills… Does anyone?

For me, grad school was divided into 2 parts. The first contained coursework, and I shudder to remember the hell of exams, homework and labs. I had never stayed up all night to study in undergrad – I was an expert of time management. That sounds arrogant as I proofread, but I suffered for that conceit, so I'm leaving the expert statement in. Because I never missed an assignment, was perfectly prepared for exams, and never really worked all that hard since I organized things so ruthlessly. My roommates would come in and try to talk, and I would half-listen while I continued to take notes on reading or work physics problems. But I would always sleep.

But in grad school, there were too many nights to count where I caught a 20 minute nap while frantically working through lab reports that took all night. Taking phone calls at 3 AM from students who also couldn’t figure out why some quantity decreased with time rather than increased. More google searches than I can count. Having every textbook I owned out and open, but never finding anything helpful. I pushed myself hard, and while I got through it, I lost a lot of that information I fought so hard to gain. I’m not sure if it resides in my brain with those 4 years of Spanish (I was almost fluent after high school) or if it was purged during the deep sleep that would occur only on weekends.

The torture coalesced in the qualifier – the exam to end all exams – to determine if I was an appropriate PhD candidate, if I could continue on only for a Masters or if it was time for me to find a job, because grad school just isn’t for me. But after that, there was calm. No frantic rushes to start a program that could run through your data while you crammed for a test. There was time to read that pile of journal articles people had continued to give me. Time to look at some data I’d collected. Reasons to talk to your advisor about research, rather than trudging in to tell him that you weren’t cut out for this – it was just too hard. And there was time for sleep. So I slept every night, and I started taking naps during the day to save up for the inevitable time where the luxury of rest would once again be stolen.

But that time never came. I was on my own – able to complete work I felt was important, gather relevant information, write my own code, help with patient studies, work with normal control populations. And in a rush of relief, I realized I was capable of handling life again. There would be no impossible labs that would require 40 hours of effort in 3 days. Just a high workload that could be contained. So I started to date again, I went out with friends on occasion. And I grew more and more productive. Learned who people were in the field and started traveling to meet them. Got new ideas, became more self-sufficient, and worked a lot. After a while, it’s just putting in time – help so many new students, serve on a couple of committees, impress enough faculty members, publish 3 papers, then it’s over. And you get one of the few opportunities outside of getting married to change your salutation.

My remaining question revolves around what good it does. Does it make me better at problem solving? Not that I’ve noticed. Do I understand more of the world? Not at all – I spend a lot of time online taking in all sorts of information, forming my worldview, becoming simultaneously less ignorant and more aware of how very much I don’t know. I think the benefit of grad school, for me anyway, was in confidence. This degree, some extra letters on a business card, allows me some freedom in saying I don’t understand things, in asking for help, in knowing which book to read first. It’s a kind of assurance of intelligence by virtue of extensive education so that I’m free to gather knowledge without reservations. And while I typically take things at face value, I’m learning to question – to wonder what’s true and what’s speculation. I want to know why we’re treating diseases the way we do, why we can’t make use of research faster, what I can find out to make things work better. So it was a struggle to get here, and it’s a different battle right now as I continue to grow. But I like to think the bulk of us represent good intentions. The final page of the survey contains a congratulatory statement from Dr. Carlson at NSF. Basically, she's saying that we have the potential to improve our world. And I think it's that hope that's critical - that somehow the training has provided us the means to make things better. So I'm wishing my many fellow graduates the very best of luck in initiating change, questioning current theories, and making something more clear, more effective or less painful.