From goal to outcome: analyzing the progression of biomedical sciences PhD careers in a longitudinal study using an expanded taxonomy

Abstract

Biomedical sciences PhDs pursue a wide range of careers inside and outside academia. However, there is little data regarding how career interests of PhD students relate to the decision to pursue postdoctoral training or to their eventual career outcomes. Here, we present the career goals and career outcomes of 1,452 biomedical sciences PhDs who graduated from Vanderbilt University between 1997-2021. We categorized careers using an expanded three-tiered taxonomy and flags that delineate key career milestones. We also analyzed career goal changes between matriculation and defense, and the reasons why students became more- or less-interested in research-intensive faculty careers. We linked students career goal at defense to whether they did a postdoc, the duration of time between defense and the first non-training position, the career area of the first non-training position, and the career area of the job at ten years after graduation. Finally, we followed individual careers for ten years after graduation to characterize movement between different career areas over time. We found that most students changed their career goal during graduate school, declining numbers of alumni pursued postdoctoral training, many alumni entered first non-training positions in a different career area than their goal at defense, and the career area of the first non-training position was a good indicator of the job that alumni held 10 years after graduation. Our findings emphasize that students need a wide range of career development opportunities and career mentoring during graduate school to prepare them for futures in research and research-related professions.