PhD Career Path Surveys

National Surveys:
In order to understand the quality of graduate education (and postdoctoral education) we need to find out what PhD recipients are doing after completing their university education and we need to investigate how career paths are linked to the quality of doctoral and postdoctoral education. CIRGE houses the data of the three national career path studies, PhDs-Ten Years Later (which surveyed PhDs in biochemistry, computer science, electrical engineering, English, mathematics, and political science from 64 institutions); Art History PhDs-A Decade Later (which surveyed all PhD recipients who graduated from US art and architectural history programs during the academic years 1985 to 1991; and(which surveyed PhD recipients from 65 institutions in anthropology, communications, geography, history, political science, psychology, and sociology). Social Science PhDs-Five Years Out

Our analysis of this data examines the transition from education to more stable employment, evaluates doctoral programs, assesses the doctoral degree’s usefulness for career and life, and analyzes respondent recommendations for improvements in doctoral programs. An important part of our research focuses on doctoral program assessment from the perspective of the PhD recipients who went through the program.