Not just for teachers, the Ph.D. can be applied to many career paths
candidat s, vila-Cast la appli d fo and was awa d d a f llowship that co s th total cost of h tuition fo on y a with th possibility of n wal fo a s cond y a , sh says.
Fo vila-Cast la , juggling h cou s wo k, s a ch acti iti s and t aching is th most chall nging asp ct of b ing a Ph.D. candidat .
“I don’t ha much f tim . You ha to b y ffici nt and o ganiz d to m t qui m nts fo class s, b ing p pa d fo t aching and mo ing fo wa d with you s a ch,” sh says.
If you’ pond ing this schola ly path, st p on is to, “Find th fi ld you’ int st d in. Don’t b shy. Ask to wo k in a p of sso ’s lab. If it do sn’t wo k out, t y anoth on . Ou job is to h lp p opl g ow,” says D . Foldi.
At Ad lphi Uni sity, D . And w Safy , d an of th School of Social Wo k, says now is an xc ll nt tim to nt th job ma k t with a Ph.D. in th fi ld of social wo k.
“Not many g aduat schools ac oss th count y a p oducing Ph.D.s in this fi ld, but b caus of th inc asing numb of p opl aging out fo ti m nt, th d mand fo ducato s to b at th docto al l l to fulfill acad mic positions is ising,” says Safy .
Whil most Ph.D. stud nts com into a p og am thinking that th y know what th y want to do, “Th ’s such a ang of faculty and xp tis doing this wo k h . Onc stud nts b com pa t of it, th i awa n ss of oth fi lds is xpand d,” says D . Safy . Und th social wo k umb lla, fo xampl , th is child w lfa , addiction s ic s, t auma, immig ation, int national globalization and w lfa fo m sub-sp cialti s.
What is uniqu to Ad lphi’s fi - y a full-tim p og am?
“Ou cou s s on l ad ship and social wo k ducation,” D . Safy says. “W tak g at p id in that.”
Wh n consid ing th tu n on this d g ’s in stm nt, “You want to know th ma k tability of you d g ,” says D . Safy . “Talk to g aduat s and find out what th y’ doing now. G t a list of p opl in th p og am to l a n how th y multitask and about m nto ing,” h ad is s. In addition, “explo assistantships and f llowships,” h says.
M cy Coll g c l b at d th
20th anniversary of its physical therapy program this past fall, with the doctorate remaining as popular as ever.
“For the past four years, we’ve had a 100 percent employment rate for students who have become licensed,” says Nannette Hyland, PT, Ph.D., associate professor and director of the physical therapy doctorate program at Mercy.
The profession’s hiring needs are expected to grow through 2020, says Dr. Hyland, due to the needs of aging baby-boomers and retirees.
The program, which takes roughly three and a half years to complete, is quite competitive, according to Ruth Lyons Hansen, PT, CCS, DPT, associate professor and associate director of Mercy’s physical therapy doctorate program, with 515 applicants for 30 spots this year.
Ideal applicants are those who have a strong undergraduate science background in biology, chemistry and physics.
“Folks enroll from all walks of life — from firemen to police officers to accountants and Ph.D.s in other fields,” says Dr. Hyland.
What separates Mercy’s program from others of its kind, according to Dr. Lyons Hansen, is, “It’s delivered on weekends. We allow people to get some kind of income during the week. Also, the curriculum itself is a developmental model. We incorporate four full-time clinical rotations for eight weeks at a time. These are unpaid internships, working in environments such as a pediatric rotation in a school district, a hospital-based setting, an outpatient setting, an in-patient setting or a long-term care center,” says Dr. Lyons Hansen. .
The price tag for this hot credential? “Around $86,000 to $88,000,” says Dr. Lyons Hansen.
To ace the program, “You need to balance your time and be very disciplined. You need to review your material and be on top of it,” says Dr. Lyons Hansen.
Entry-level salaries for Ph.D.s in the field start at $65,000 to $70,000, according to the administrator.
After graduating last May with a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Stony Brook University, Danielle Green pursued a postdoctoral fellowship, focusing her research on medical devices that can improve bone generation and musculoskeletal wellness.
“When you finish your Ph.D., this is the end of the degree. A postdoctoral fellowship is an opportunity to do more research under faculty members, and hopefully develop your own ideas to either apply to become a professor and raise grant money for research and to start your own laboratory, or go into industry, which is what I decided to do,” says Green.
Green achieved an undergraduate degree from Cornell University in chemical and biomolecular engineering. During her summer co-op programs at Cornell, she interned at several companies.
“I had the opportunity to interact with everyone within our division. I was in the photo receptor division, working in the labs on ways to improve their products and develop new technologies,” says Green. The experience further cemented her interest in the biomedical engineering field.
The biomedical engineering discipline is relatively new.
“It’s one which seeks students who understand the complex, primordial soup of the integration of chemistry, math, physics and biology. It’s a very deep synthesis of these diverse fields,” says Clinton T. Rubin, Ph.D., SUNY Distinguished Professor, chair of the department of biomedical engineering, and director of the Stony Brook University Center for Biotechnology.
While the Stony Brook curriculum is challenging, “It’s incredibly rewarding,” says Dr. Rubin. “You’re coordinating many different efforts and perspectives to address a key need in the health and medicine sectors.”
Stony Brook’s six-year program requires students to earn a master’s degree in biomedical engineering along the way, according to Green, who did just that.
Besides academia and medical device companies, “Many students go off to help lawyers in intellectual property practices to understand complex inventions, while others go into the financial and business sector. Still others enter the pharmaceutical industry,” says Dr. Rubin.
The most successful students are those “Who are productive in the lab. They must be smart and motivated. When you apply for a job, you still need that letter from your Ph.D. advisor, so you want to be in a situation where that letter is praising you,” says Dr. Rubin.
Today, Green is working for a medical device company on the engineering side.
“A lot of jobs in biotech require you to have a Ph.D., since you gain the skills to analyze and design experiments and analyze results. Whether you work in industry or academia, these skills will be utilized,” says Green.
If you talk to any biomedical scientist, “All of them want to help or contribute to curbing a disease or identifying a disease earlier,” says Dr. Rubin. “They want to contribute to the development of treatment for an injury. We see our science and engineering helping people now.”