Many reports from national agencies such as the American Chemical Society and National Research Council have raised several criticisms that challenge the effectiveness of modern graduate education in training the next generation of advanced scientists. Gathering graduate student perspectives on the perceived benefits of elements of their graduate programs – research, courses, exams, and seminars – is necessary to inform areas of potential innovation in  graduate programs that have observed relatively little change over time. Perspectives on the degree to which various elements of graduate school were beneficial, a waste of time, resulted in transferrable skills, and helped students obtain their desired career were collected from 837 chemistry graduate students. Three primary results were found: (1) While the vast majority of students express some level of agreement to broad statements such as “this element was beneficial,” more specific prompts such as “this element led to transferrable skills” yields strikingly more negative perspectives. (2) Of the four elements assessed, 7.2%, 27.3%, 31.7%, and 40.4% slightly to strongly agreed that research, exams, courses, and seminars/colloquia were a waste of time, respectively. (3) Qualitative responses indicated that even among those students who agreed certain elements were generally beneficial, between 10% and 40% expressed these elements were not relevant to their research fields or desired careers, gained little knowledge or transferrable skills, thought the presenter/instructor/advisor did a poor job, and several other negative perceptions. Results clearly identify several instances where, according to graduate students themselves, the benefits gained from certain graduate program elements are significantly limited while others are generally perceived more positively.

Mixed perceptions from chemistry graduate students about the perceived benefits of graduate programmatic elements

ACS Spring 2022

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