Generally expected to pursue careers in academia, some Ph.D. students are now bucking tradition and going into industry upon graduation, taking jobs at tech companies in Silicon Valley — much to the dismay of their faculty advisors, some students say.
One field in which the Ph.D. tech trend is particularly prevalent is sociology. Students described a variety of motivations for embracing the Valley, from a shortage of traditional academic posts to the financial opportunities in the tech sector.
“I’m not going to become a professor,” one graduate student who wished to remain anonymous said. “I’m going to learn all this new stuff, and by the way, I’m going to get more money.”
Xueguang Zhou Ph.D. ’91, chair of the sociology department at Stanford and Kwoh-Ting Li Professor in Economic Development, believes that the phenomenon is a result of shifts in supply and demand. According to Zhou, students in the sociology program are well-equipped with the tools that tech companies are looking for nowadays.
Sociology students are among a growing number of non-technical Ph.D.s going into tech rather than academia (Courtesy of Stanford Sociology).
“While it’s partly because of our location here [in Silicon Valley], as there are so many outside opportunities, I also think it’s partly due to how we train our graduate students with sociological knowledge as well as technical skills such as statistical analysis and working with data,” he said.
Merilys Huhn, a third year sociology graduate student, echoed the notion that students in the department are well prepared for the demands of an industry job — or really “for any type of career,” Huhn said.
Zhou also believes that due to the rise of social networking services, students with a sociology background are now increasingly sought after by tech companies. Facebook and Twitter-savvy individuals with knowledge of social relations are desirable for many fields, Zhou said.
Despite an apparent increase in industry demand for sociology students, Zhou personally maintains that tech jobs have not necessarily become more desirable than academic ones. He acknowledges, however, that the job market may be tighter than before.
“It’s not like careers in industry are outcompeting academic careers,” he stated. “I think most of our graduate students still view an academic position as their dream job and, given the choice, they’d still prefer to pursue an academic career.”
Alison Wynn M.A. ’13, a seventh year sociology graduate student, pointed to prospects in academia.
“Tenure-track jobs in academia are extremely tight right now,” Wynn explained. “With more schools moving to adjunct [non-tenure-track faculty] models, it’s hard to find decent jobs with benefits; many people are unable to find jobs they like in academia and turn to industry.”
Other students in the department, such as Katharina Roesler M.A. ’16, a fifth year sociology graduate student, view the increased compensation presented by industry as inherently more appealing.
Huhn shares similar views on the benefits of going into tech.
“I’d want the kind of job that would be worthwhile instead of going to lecture circuits or an adjunct professorship where I’d get no protections at all,” Huhn said. “Because if that’s going to happen, why wouldn’t I go into tech instead and get the protections?”
While more students are recognizing the attractions of industry, Huhn believes it is inadvisable to advertise oneself as “leaving academia.” Some students will have to think twice before immediately informing their advisors of their intentions; the anonymous graduate student, who asked that The Daily not disclose any of their identifying characteristics, worried that their relationship with faculty will be strained once the latter is alerted of their plan to stray from academia.
“It’s a status issue; it’s a pay issue,” the student said. “[Sociology] faculty members know that all the computer science people get paid twice as much and everyone respects them. So they get kind of defensive, which means that they don’t learn new methods, which sets them back even further.”
Zhou disagreed with the notion that advisors are unsupportive of their advisees’ career plans. He said that a student’s decision, even if untraditional, never really comes as a surprise to his or her advisor.
“By the end of a student’s time here, it’s pretty clear where they want to and will go, so the faculty are pretty psychologically prepared for where they will go,” he said.
Zhou admitted that learning to accept a shift in student interest has been a challenging process but is one that faculty are working hard to undergo. Since faculty predominantly conduct research, Zhou said it is natural for professors to want students to follow in their footsteps.
Roesler, on the other hand, feels that the disparity between advisees’ and advisors’ mentalities regarding career pathways has not been resolved. She says professors are not supportive of different job opportunities.
Roesler stressed the importance of bridging the gap between not just people, but entire fields. She credited the Stanford Institute for Research in the Social Sciences (IRiSS) for offering grants for cross-disciplinary research but wished that advisors would reduce the divide between opposing job opportunities as well.
The anonymous student believes that inter-collaboration between the sociology and CS departments may cause more professors to be accepting of industry work. Even so, the student said fresh ideologies may be necessary for change.
“I think [the CS department] is currently very welcoming, but regarding [sociology] being okay with it?” the student said. “I think it would take a different generation of professors.”
Contact Lisa Wang at lisaw20 ‘at’ stanford.edu