If you’re considering whether or not grad school is for you, one question you might want answered is: what happens after I graduate? Will I have a job? Where do graduates of a particular program end up going?
To that end, the Chronicle of Higher Education is starting a PhD Placement Project:
We would like to figure out a way to gather reliable data about job placements for Ph.D.’s. Who’s getting jobs? Where are they? Which doctoral programs are doing well at placing their Ph.D.’s in tenure-track positions? Which are doing poorly? Are many colleges making an effort to help their Ph.D.’s land nonacademic jobs?
They are hosting a survey (which appears to no longer be taking responses) and looking for suggestions on better ways to gather this data.
I’m certain the great minds of the AstroBetter community have some thoughts on the matter…
Update 6/30: The survey is closed now, but The Chronicle has posted some new information about the two parallel sides to this project. They are very interested in hearing from folks in the hard sciences, not just the humanities, so please read that post and email or comment if you have anything that would be useful.
Chronicle here! The survey is indeed closed, but we just posted some new information about the results (from 2300 people!) and the next stage of the Placement project. You can read that here: http://chronicle.com/blogs/phd/2013/06/28/were-moving-on-2-fronts/. Please take a look and email or comment if you have any information that would be useful.