At August 20th’s SoNYC discussion, which this month is held in collaboration with the New York Academy of Sciences, we’re going to be focusing on science PhDs. Does the current PhD system need revamping to better equip researchers to continue in academia or to pursue other careers after graduating? In our latest series of guest posts on Soapbox Science, we’ll hear from a variety of contributors about how the current system works, where the gaps are, which additional skills they think PhD courses should incorporate and what their personal experiences have been. Follow and join in the conversations online using #PhDelta and share your thoughts in the comment threads on the blog posts too.

Alison McCook, a science writer based in Philadelphia, is a Comment editor at Nature. To find out more, visit her website. 

At the moment, the state of the PhD system is somewhat unclear. Are we training too many young scientists, or too few? And are we preparing them for a long, lustrous career, or using them as primarily temporary, cheap labor?

Even without clear answers to these questions, some researchers and administrators are already taking action to try to tinker with the formula for training new scientists. Continue reading →