Doctoral students urged to keep open mind on careers

Doctoral students at University College Cork have been given a timely reminder of how a chosen specialisation can sometimes lead to an unexpected career path.

Addressing the PhD students at the launch of The Boolean — UCC’s online doctoral student journal — Allan Prosser of the Irish Examiner outlined how a particular subject choice can have what might appear to be highly unlikely career consequences.

He cited the example of the US managing editor of the Financial Times, Gillian Tett, who earned her reputation as the “go-to” reporter for the global debt crisis, which she predicted in the years prior to the international economic meltdown in 2008.

“Tett’s PhD had been in social anthropology from Cambridge. It was her expertise in that discipline that allowed her to identify the patterns and interactions which led to the financial chaos from which most of the world is suffering, and established her as one of the world’s foremost journalists.”

Mr Prosser highlighted the importance for independent research, clarity of thought, and economy of communication.

The Boolean is a unique online journal featuring accounts of research being undertaken at UCC, which has more than 1,000 PhD students. Antibiotics and baby bugs, dynamic buildings, Anglo-Saxon prayer books and the beauty of 16th-century Cologne are some of the diverse themes featured in the third volume of the journal.