Career Opportunities for International PhD Students in the US

[Seeker of Knowledge]

Cross-posting from the international students thread, as I think this topic may have higher visibility here.

Hello everyone,

I am a first-year PhD student in psychology at a US university. Before that, I had a background in English language and linguistics, and I am working in the field of psycholinguistics. Throughout my brief research career, my focus has always been on pursuing a job in academia, but my first year in a PhD program has been somewhat disheartening as I have both realized how hard it is do significant contributions to science and to build a competitive CV, as well as how brutal the current job market is and how even some of the best graduates of my program gave up on academia and started seeking industry jobs. (I'm at a high-ranking institution, if that matters. People usually think that graduating from a top program gives you a "label" that you can leverage in your academic job search, but this is a misperception. It doesn't matter nearly as much as your publication record and your collaborations. So these graduates who went into industry have failed to find academic positions despite the name of a prestigious university in their CVs.)

That is one reason why I decided to be wary of committing myself fully to an academic job and to keep my options open with regard to industry jobs. But there are two problems associated with that, and I would very much appreciate some advice and guidance on these matters from this community.

The first one is a general question: for which industry jobs do you think skills in psycholinguistics would be considered an important asset? And what other skills are valuable? (I know for a fact that coding is important, and many people in my field consider looking for data science jobs as a back-up plan. I am already learning to code with R in my program, as part of our statistics courses, and I am also planning to start teaching myself Python this summer.) But what are some additional skills that I should try to acquire to make myself employable in industry? I could be interested in jobs in data science and in science journalism & media. (And perhaps other fields that could potentially trigger my interest. I am open to suggestions here. The most important thing is that I really enjoy jobs that are intellectually demanding and involve "research" of some kind. That's why data science and science journalism sound like attractive back-up plans to me, but I would be open to considering other career options that allow me to work on a "research" project and satisfy my curiosity.)

The second question is tricky: This is the question that is more specifically related to my status as an F1 student. Our international office firmly told us that as F1 students, we are strictly prohibited from seeking off-campus employment. It is against the rules and could result in deportation - so no joking there. This prohibition also extends to even short-term employments that result in a one-time payment. For example, a couple of weeks ago, my advisor circulated an email she received from a museum. The museum was planning to open a new exhibit and the subject of the exhibit was relevant to my research interests (they were literally asking for a student interested in the psychology of language to consult them on the planning of the exhibit, in return for monetary compensation). The ad captured my interest, and I thought it could be one first step for me to dip my toes in the non-academic ocean. But I sent an email to an advisor from the international office to inquire whether I would be allowed to work a short-term consultation job like this and received the frustrating response that as an international student, I can never work outside the campus. I need special permission from the Department of Homeland Security, and this permission is given only when the off-campus job is directly related to our dissertation topic. As a first-year student, I obviously don't have a dissertation topic yet. Besides, this warning also means that I will probably never be able to work in data science or in media, since neither of these things will (probably) be directly relevant to my future PhD thesis anyway. I feel that this places a huge burden on international PhD students like myself. Since the academic job market is a mess, we should be allowed to diversify our CV by working in related industry jobs, but our immigration status makes this practically impossible.

Is there a way to get around this? Should I try to pursue unpaid internships? 

Are there any international PhD students here who found industry jobs in the US (especially those with a psychology degree)? What would your advice be for a newbie?

Any help you can provide is greatly appreciated. Thank you very much for your time ❤️

[bibliophile222]

I'm not sure if you're interested in speech-language pathology (or have even heard of it-- but if you haven't that's fine, most people haven't), but there's a lot of overlap with linguistics and there's a huuuuge shortage of Ph.Ds. If you were to complete a Ph.D in it (most likely it would be called Communication Sciences and Disorders or something similar) you would be pretty much GUARANTEED a teaching position, maybe even at a top university. The field is also fairly new, so there are some large gaps in the research literature and great potential to make a significant research contribution. Some examples of areas to specialize in include autism, speech sound disorders like apraxia, brain injuries, bilingual language acquisition, literacy, or social/pragmatic aspects of language.

Most people entering the field get a Masters and complete clinical practica to be certified to work in schools, hospitals, or other settings. However, if you have no interest in the therapy aspect, you could get a doctorate without going through all that.

[Seeker of Knowledge]

On 5/15/2019 at 8:04 AM, bibliophile222 said:

I'm not sure if you're interested in speech-language pathology (or have even heard of it-- but if you haven't that's fine, most people haven't), but there's a lot of overlap with linguistics and there's a huuuuge shortage of Ph.Ds. If you were to complete a Ph.D in it (most likely it would be called Communication Sciences and Disorders or something similar) you would be pretty much GUARANTEED a teaching position, maybe even at a top university. The field is also fairly new, so there are some large gaps in the research literature and great potential to make a significant research contribution. Some examples of areas to specialize in include autism, speech sound disorders like apraxia, brain injuries, bilingual language acquisition, literacy, or social/pragmatic aspects of language.

Most people entering the field get a Masters and complete clinical practica to be certified to work in schools, hospitals, or other settings. However, if you have no interest in the therapy aspect, you could get a doctorate without going through all that.

Hi @bibliophile222, thanks so much for replying.

Yes, I did hear of speech-language pathology and I admit that it offers people a nice job alternative outside academia. Unfortunately, though, my subfield is not even close to this, and the things I work on and my skills aren't easily transferable to clinical practice. 

 

[bibliophile222]

15 hours ago, Seeker of Knowledge said:

Hi @bibliophile222, thanks so much for replying.

Yes, I did hear of speech-language pathology and I admit that it offers people a nice job alternative outside academia. Unfortunately, though, my subfield is not even close to this, and the things I work on and my skills aren't easily transferable to clinical practice. 

 

I actually was suggesting it as an option for staying in academia and doing research, since the job market for Ph.Ds in academia in our field is so much better than almost any other field. One of my professors never ended up doing clinical work because she didn't like it, so she went back for the Ph.D instead. I admit that there's not much in the way of coding, except maybe if you program AAC devices. However, I do feel that there is definite overlap with psycholinguistics, depending on what area you specialize in. Obviously I don't want to push it if you're not interested, just stressing that there's more to it than the clinical element!