Contact: University Relations (517) 355-2281, or hodack@msu.edu

3/22/2000

EAST LANSING, Mich. - Universities, especially institutions as large as Michigan State University, rarely have the opportunity to measure how its graduates feel about their education and their careers. And what better feedback is there than from a university's own alums, with their ability to evaluate the programs based on their own practical experience in the workplace?

How did MSU do it? The old fashioned way - by asking.

Initiated by Gary Crawley, former dean of MSU's Graduate School, the "1997-98 MSU Ph.D. Alumni Survey" was modeled after the study conducted by Maresi Nerad at the University of California-Berkeley, entitled "Ph.D.s: Ten Years Later." The goal of both surveys was to find out how satisfied graduates were with their Ph.D. education, address the issue of "underemployment" of Ph.D.s and provide information on the sectors that employ Ph.D.s.

"The MSU survey differs from the Berkeley study in both design and substance," said Karen Klomparens, dean of MSU's Graduate School and director of the study. "The MSU study includes all of the departments included in the Berkeley study, along with five additional departments.

"And unlike the Berkeley survey that studied 38 AAU institutions from 1983 to 1985, the MSU study covered an 11-year span with the focus on MSU graduates only. I believe it's the first of its kind in the country, especially for a school this size."

More than 500 MSU alumni who received a Ph.D. between 1982 and 1993 in the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities responded to the survey that gauged: type of employment (first job and current position), location of Ph.D.s within the U.S. and Michigan, career satisfaction and education satisfaction.

Researchers said that the majority of graduates (63.1 percent) found their first job in education and that a large percentage of alumni were still working in education (57.5 percent) at the time of the survey. Also of interest, noted Klomparens, was that over one-third of alumni were working in the private sector at the time MSU contacted them.

The study also showed that those who received Ph.D.s in the social sciences and humanities were more likely to take their first job and have careers in education, while the physical and technical sciences have a large percentage (36.9 percent) in the private sector.

Despite popular belief that many alumni move west for jobs, researchers discovered that 42 percent of MSU graduates were employed in the Midwest while only four percent were located in the Northwest and 14 percent were living in the Southwest.

"We were quite pleased to discover that 25 percent of those surveyed were located in Michigan," Klomparens said. "This is important since it indicates to us that a fairly large portion of MSU's graduates are right here in Michigan contributing to the State's economic well-being."

One portion of the survey measured the career satisfaction of MSU grads. Overall, 83 percent of MSU's Ph.D. alumni are satisfied with their current career. Researchers found that despite the popular belief that those with Ph.D.s who don't end up in education are somehow "underemployed" and less satisfied, researchers found that those with careers in government or the private sector are just as satisfied as those in education.

"What seemed to be important from the expectations angle was that if your career was largely as expected you were likely to be satisfied, regardless of where that career tended to take you," said David Lektzian, a political science Ph.D. candidate and lead researcher of the study. "What seemed most important was that one's expectations of the career one would have as a Ph.D. from MSU were realistic. On average, careers that don't turn out as expected are not very satisfactory. I guess our alums don't like surprises."

"An important aspect of this survey was the portion of the analysis that asked alums to evaluate their programs in light of their individual experience in the work place," Klomparens said. "This can provide The Graduate School with additional insight when devising workshops and programs designed to meet the needs of graduate students.

"Some of these programs are just not practical for individual departments to provide, like workshops that teach conflict resolution, communication or teamwork skills, but from the responses of our alums we see that they truly are vitally important skills that are needed to have successful careers," she said. "The Graduate School continues to develop workshops and programs to address these needs and information is being shared with departments to make them aware of what their alums would like more of."

Results showed that alumni across all majors felt that their departments underemphasized the importance of oral communication skills, computer skills, professional networking and teamwork skills. In addition, for those with educational careers, they tended to feel that their department underemphasized the importance of teaching skills.

Researchers also discovered that alumni thought the amount of emphasis placed on the breadth of training in discipline, depth of training in discipline and depth of training in area of concentration was about right but a little less than needed. The emphasis on research and publishing and the emphasis on academic positions compared to what was actually needed were also about right from most alumni.

Lektzian noted that most of MSU's alumni think they made a good decision when they decided to attend MSU for graduate school. Researchers matched individual responses from those completing The Graduate School exit survey at the time they completed their degree with responses on the alumni survey, which was completed between 4 and 15 years later.

Over 88 percent of graduates thought it was an excellent or good decision to come to MSU upon graduation and 87.5 percent of alumni still thought it was an excellent or good decision to get their Ph.D. when asked during the recent survey.

For information about the survey, please contact The Graduate School at (517) 353-3220.