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Can Political Science Develop Alternative Careers for its Graduates?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 November 2022
Extract
The committee has been charged by the Council with exploring possibilities for employment of political scientists outside of universities in the present and future. This assignment is prompted by some historic facts. We can expect to see a 25 percent decline in the number of undergraduate students in the next decade. This means fewer faculty members. If graduate programs continue at their present size during that period, one-half of the Ph.D.s in political science will be employed outside of academic life by the late 1980s.
The discipline could encourage these trends by closing down many graduate programs, keeping the field small and academic, and focusing increasingly on undergraduate teaching. This may happen anyway as prospective graduate students disappear.
As an alternative the discipline could develop new kinds of graduate education which would prepare M.A. and Ph.D. students for professional careers outside academic life.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © The American Political Science Association 1979
References
1 Article by Walker, Jack L. in PS, Fall 1978 Google Scholar, “Challenges of Professional Development for Political Scientists in the Next Decade and Beyond.”
2 For an earlier analysis see Thomas E. Mann, “Career Alternatives for Political Scientists: A Guide for Faculty and Graduate Students,” a publication of the Departmental Services Program, 1976, American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C.
3 For a skeptical view see the article in PS, Winter 1979, by Roy E. Licklider, “A Skeptic's View of Corporate Jobs and New Academic Programs.”