Is it me, or is neuroscience insanely popular for grad study?

[ineedanak]

I myself am a neuroscience PhD applicant, so I am having trouble deciding if neuroscience is actually hugely popular or if it is just me being selective in what I expose myself to. I'm talking about actual neuroscience PhD programs and their applicants, which would exclude people studying in the field of neuroscience but are under a different graduate program (feel free to talk about this, though!). Law and med are being considered in arenas of their own here.

 

For example, the neuroscience threads in "Waiting it Out" seem to be the most popular threads in each cycle. I know that neuroscience as a field of study has benefited from huge leaps in the recent decades (especially the 90s). It is also more commonly becoming its own undergraduate major.

 

Here's some questions to start of:

-Has anyone else noticed the popularity of neuroscience on these forums? It would be nice to hear the perspective of non-neuroscience applicants/graduate students on this

 

-Does anyone have stats to support/counter this claim?

 

-If it is as popular as I think it is, what does this mean for the postdoc neuroscience world?

 

-If popular, do you think the popularity is justified in terms of the research available versus the interest in it?

 

-Why do you think it is growing in popularity?

[gliaful]

I do have some stats for you: http://www.sfn.org/~/media/SfN/Documents/Professional%20Development/NDP/SurveyReportAY20102011.ashx

 

"While the early surveys showed a steady increase in program size, this has stabilized in recent years and the average size of the graduate programs (~39 students/program; median 33) has been steady over the past few surveys."

 

"Indeed, overall, the results of the current survey, based on data collected for AY2010-2011, are remarkably similar to the 2009 and 2007 surveys."

 

One thing that this survey DID say has changed is the number of neuroscience programs that are actually titled "neuroscience". In the past, many neuroscience trainees were enrolled in programs called "biomedical science", "psychology", or "pharmacology". See fig 1b in the link, where "other disciplines" means neuroscience programs going under another name. The total of the blue and red bars is pretty stable, so NO, it is not actually growing in popularity, it's just that more programs these days are specifically titled.

 

Also, something to keep in mind is that neuroscience is HIGHLY interdisciplinary and is thus a pretty large field with many sub-fields. There are neuroscience programs loaded with psychology faculty, there are neuroscience programs that emphasize pharmacology, there are neuroscience programs that  essentially computational biology or biophysics  programs with a focus on the properties of neurons/glia. Vanderbilt even offers a grad program called "Neuroscience and Law". So, there may be many of us, but we're diverse.

[beccamayworth]

I don't think the Grad Cafe users sample is representative of the entire population of Grad students out there. For some reason, Grad cafe is widely popular in some fields (perhaps Neuroscience is one of them?) and not at all in others (most of my friends in linguistics haven't heard of it). 

 

That's not to say that Neuroscience is not a popular field!  I think neuroscience is growing in popularity precisely because, as pasteltomato said, it's hugely interdisciplinary. 

[GeoDUDE!]

psychology and neuroscience are two very popular majors in undergrad, especially among those who enter college and have no idea what they want to do (nothing wrong with that).  At my undergrad (liberal arts school) its the most popular major !

 

Unfortunately, I wish more people decided to study physics, but alas, getting people to sit down and learn math might be the greatest human endeavor.

Edited December 25, 2014 by GeoDUDE!

[GradStudent2015]

Yeah, I also feel the same thing - that many people are applying for Neuroscience programs. I actually just joined Grad Cafe, so, I haven't read that many posts yet to see if many people on here are also applying for the neuroscience program as well. 

 

I just feel that neuroscience is increasing in popularity. Currently, the Brain Project is going on and even MOOC's, such as Coursera, have recently started to offer neuroscience courses. I took the Medicinal Neuroscience course with Dr. Leonard White on Coursera and it was a really good course. I also agree a lot with basically everything 'pasteltomato' said. Many people conducting research in neuroscience are in interdisciplinary studies. 

[eeee1923]

I myself am a neuroscience PhD applicant, so I am having trouble deciding if neuroscience is actually hugely popular or if it is just me being selective in what I expose myself to. I'm talking about actual neuroscience PhD programs and their applicants, which would exclude people studying in the field of neuroscience but are under a different graduate program (feel free to talk about this, though!). Law and med are being considered in arenas of their own here.

 

For example, the neuroscience threads in "Waiting it Out" seem to be the most popular threads in each cycle. I know that neuroscience as a field of study has benefited from huge leaps in the recent decades (especially the 90s). It is also more commonly becoming its own undergraduate major.

 

Here's some questions to start of:

-Has anyone else noticed the popularity of neuroscience on these forums? It would be nice to hear the perspective of non-neuroscience applicants/graduate students on this

 

 

Good I'm not the only one who noticed this 

[agrizz]

Neuroscience is gaining popularity across the board, including in pop culture and media which is surely influencing interest cyclically.  It's funded fairly well compared to other fields too, which I'm sure contributes to its popularity within academicians, thereby granting opportunities for neuroscience phd hopefuls.  

 

To answer one of the OP's questions:

 

"If it is as popular as I think it is, what does this mean for the postdoc neuroscience world?"

 

There has been a lot of attention recently on this, particularly with regard to an increase in popularity and a decrease in funding and even faculty positions. For instance, look here.  Granted, this trend is true across academia, but in my experience, it appears to be affecting neuroscientists particularly hard.  

Edited January 7, 2015 by agrizz