It is now April. It is time for undergraduate and master’s students to think seriously about their future paths. While undergraduate students still have time, there is no doubt that master’s students are at a crossroads that will significantly change the course of their lives. I recently received a consultation about career paths from a master’s student at a certain university, so I would like to share some thoughts on this (this is not a student from my alma mater or the university where I currently work, by the way. Haha).
Should you proceed to a doctoral program or seek employment? I believe this is a major decision. Many people consider a doctoral program with the desire to pursue research, but before considering whether you can earn a doctorate, I think you need to consider whether you can actually make it through a doctoral program. For those of you who have job-hunted at companies during your undergraduate years, you performed self-analysis during the initial stages of the process, didn’t you? You thought about things like “Why am I job hunting?”, “Why employment at a company?”, and “Why the IT industry?” based on the experiences you have had so far.
Even when we talk about the “experience” required for corporate job hunting, things like what kind of part-time job you did or what certifications you obtained are merely benchmarks or conversation starters. It is extremely important to be able to tell your own story: what kind of hardships you faced to gain that experience, what kind of joy you felt, and how that experience is being utilized in who you are today.
As long as you are advancing internally, there are no interviews for a doctoral program like there are for companies, but I believe you still need to perform self-analysis on whether you can make it through a doctoral program. To do this, you need to analyze what a doctoral program is—which varies by school—not just in terms of how many publications are required or which professors might be on your review committee, but also what you must do outside of your own research, how much your supervisor will be involved in your research (usually, a doctoral program is something you advance on your own; in English, they are called an “advisor”), how much research funding is available, and whether your supervisor’s philosophy aligns with your own. It is not just about whether you can do research.
In my opinion, people who can succeed in a “doctoral program” share the following traits:
・They have physical stamina.
・They are not overly proud.
・They can switch their mindset.
・They are, to some extent, oblivious to social cues (not overly concerned with reading the room).
・They have communication skills.
・They are hungry for achievements.
I believe these are the keys. Physical stamina is obviously necessary. The moment you enter a doctoral program, the goal is three years later (although it seems there are universities that do not allow completion in three years). The initial deadline is set. You must produce results by then. While health management is necessary, there are many times when you have to just “push through!” Of course, there are those who do not wish to complete in three years, and for them, I think it is fine to work at their own pace, but to complete in three years, I think you need the stamina to analyze data and write papers late into the night or even overnight.
Regarding the second point, pride. People with high pride tend to rebel when they receive harsh opinions from others or when their research stance is criticized. Furthermore, when this is done by a supervisor or someone senior to them, they often seem to be shocked to the point of being unable to stand back up. It would be fine if they could recover in two or three days, but in worse cases, they stop coming to school altogether. You will experience various painful things in a doctoral program, such as “having enough knowledge but not succeeding in research” or “being an honor student until your master’s, but suddenly being scolded by your supervisor as soon as you enter the doctoral program.” It is a world where you cannot survive unless you are mentally tough. I think a “never give up” spirit is necessary, but if your pride is strangely high, you will continue to feel discouraged and will be unable to recover. Such people sometimes go missing. This is very bad. I feel that people who tend to be “condescending” are more likely to end up in this situation. When they are being praised, their mood is high, and they stand on the side of being the one asked questions, but when they face a tough situation, they get discouraged and don’t get back up… that is a bit of a problem.
Third, the ability to switch your mindset. This is also important. It relates to the second point; you will receive strict guidance from your supervisor, and sometimes you may feel it is unreasonable. You might get scolded for it. But don’t worry about it; just clear your head by the next day. If you worry about it every time, nothing will progress, so just say, “I am sorry. I will get started on it immediately.” This is a common occurrence. Also, you have to submit papers to academic conferences, but sometimes they are rejected. It is quite a shock at first (I have been rejected 8 times so far). I had three papers rejected in a row at the beginning, and when the third one was rejected, rather than feeling “frustrated,” my spirit was shattered, thinking, “Am I just not good enough?”
The fourth point, “being to some extent oblivious to social cues,” means being able to say what you want to say even to your superiors. A doctoral program can have a strict hierarchy, so naturally, you must be careful with your language toward superiors, especially your supervisor and review committee members, and how you respond to guidance from them. However, there are times when you must make your supervisors understand your own ideas. In that regard, it is sometimes better to be a subordinate who speaks up rather than a submissive one. Also, I feel that people who are somewhat “KY” (oblivious to social cues) are often good at the first three points. That is just my experience, though.
Fifth is the ability to communicate. Research must ultimately be thought through and carried out by the individual. However, the process of talking about research, getting suggestions, and having seniors teach you various things to build it up is also important. This is like a single project. A doctoral program is rarely about receiving guidance from a supervisor; it is also a training process to become a full-fledged researcher. Therefore, you must gather various opinions and knowledge from people other than your supervisor and do things on your own. In that process, you must be able to communicate well. Also, in a different vein from communication, you should not just take, but also be able to give to others by studying yourself, and even if you are not an expert, you need to become someone who has more knowledge than other researchers or your supervisor.
Sixth is being hungry for achievements. I also think that doing research solely for the sake of achievements is questionable. However, in order to live as a researcher, you need a place to publish what you are doing to the world and discuss it. While a paper is an achievement, I think it is also a good thing that allows you to feel the differences in thinking between yourself and the paper’s authors. Even if it is not directly related to your research, you can indirectly contribute to the research of your readers. That is the big goal, but in a doctoral program, it becomes about what is right in front of you; if you have no achievements, you cannot complete the program. I think you need an attitude of turning any data into a paper and leaving behind some kind of result. International conference presentations hold a very important position in a doctoral program. It is a great opportunity to see how what you are doing is understood by researchers around the world, and it is also a very effective place to build connections with researchers worldwide and exchange information. Although it is very expensive, you are expected to actively submit to journals and international conferences.
Unless you are paying out of pocket, I think you will either have to get a grant yourself or have your supervisor pay for it. I think the latter is more common, but it is essential to get opinions on your research from seniors, classmates, and juniors, refine it, and make it content that can persuade your supervisor to “let me present at this international conference.” It is a kind of sales activity, isn’t it?
This has become long, but if you think, “I want to go to a doctoral program!”, please talk to your seniors and others, stop for a moment, look back, and try to perform self-analysis to see if you can really do it on your own.
I do not think that finding employment at a company is bad. Even if you go to a company, you can return to a doctoral program, but if you advance to a doctoral program, I think it is difficult to find corporate employment in Japan, where corporate support for doctoral graduates is not very strong. Although this is gradually changing now, I think there are not that many companies that are active in hiring doctoral students, with the exception of some research institutes. Also, even when advancing to a doctoral program from a company, I feel that compared to researchers of the same age, there are parts where I am inferior in terms of the number of achievements, research ability, and intuition, but there are many good aspects to being trained at a company. Recently, universities have also been paying attention to university faculty members with corporate experience and there is a movement to hire them, so I think it is good to consider corporate employment as an option. There are people around me who, despite having no corporate experience, are good at management or can think from a corporate perspective, but those people, because they lack corporate experience, have gained some kind of knowledge and experience by carving it out of their busy schedules. For those who find such constant effort difficult, I highly recommend finding corporate employment and undergoing training there.
