Today, we have grown accustomed to fees increasing on an annual basis, to perpetual meetings with UC officials, and to student groups protesting against the outrageous cost of public education, a commodity that was once free to all Californians.

There’s all this talk about how the biomedical workforce is shifting, and there are not enough academic jobs to accommodate all the PhD students currently being trained. PIs, however, are not traditionally supportive of students who want “alternative careers,” partly because they don’t know how to support our career development in these directions, and they don’t want these pursuits to take time away from lab. I don’t even want to do research after I graduate, but I’m afraid to tell my thesis committee. On the one hand, I want to tell them because I don’t want to waste my time in pursuit of high-profile publications that I don’t need. But what if this changes how they view me, and they don’t want to waste their time guiding a student who doesn’t want to do research?