[jbob2000]

My partner recently finished her PhD and has started working as a medical writer. During her academic career, it was beat into her head don’t plagiarize, everything must be yours.

In her first review after a few weeks on the job, her manager says that she takes too long to do her work; they just need her to take what the client says verbatim, fact check it, and then slap it in a document. She was treating her work like an academic assignment and putting in the effort to craft something unique, when they really just need a fact checking typist.

8 years in higher ed, published study on cancer drugs, thousands of mice died, millions of dollars spent on the lab... all so she can transcribe some text and then validate it against the studies.

Academia is the worst job training program ever.

[0xffff2]

Why would she take a job as a glorified typist after completing a Phd? Why is the company hiring a Phd to be a glorified typist?

Academia was never meant to be a jobs training program. The fact that many students treat it as such is not really the fault of the institutions.

[njarboe]

Unfortunately each faculty member produces about 30 PhD students in their career (one per year). The number of faculty positions has been close to flat since the 1970's. So one in 30 PhD's will get to be faculty member. She probably took the job because she wants/needs a job and the company likes to have the status of PhDs doing the work.

[0xffff2]

Sure, so what? Anyone smart and dedicated enough to complete a Phd is smart enough to realize this going in. Surely the vast majority of people getting Phds don't expect to ever become academics and have some other plan.

[thaumasiotes]

> Anyone smart and dedicated enough to complete a Phd is smart enough to realize this going in.

No, this isn't true at all. People don't complete PhD's because they looked at their options and thought that one was the best. They do it because other people told them they should, and they just never thought about it.

[dghlsakjg]

Society treats university as a jobs training program. Observationally it seems like the universities (in Asia in particular, and the US to a lesser degree) encourage you to treat your diploma like a golden ticket to a good job.

[FridgeSeal]

> Academia is the worst job training program ever.

Pet peeve of mine. Academia is not a training program for jobs. The role of academia is not to produce business-perfect-candidates.

If business wants trained workers, they should train them. Cutting costs by not training them, then blaming universities for not producing trained workers is disingenuous at best.

[AnimalMuppet]

Yes... and no. Yes, what you say is true - that isn't the point of an academic degree.

But no, because the way students (and parents) think about it is "go to college so you can get a good job". And many, many employers require a degree or they won't look at the candidate. In the real world, academia is functioning as a job training program.

Or at least as a gateway to the good jobs. But if it's going to be a gateway, but not do any training... that's pretty inefficient.