Outside the Academy

Thank you for the PAW article “Ph.D.s Branching Out” (On the Campus, January issue). When I was a graduate student the only acceptable career choice was a tenure-track academic appointment at a high-quality research-based university. One of my professors told me that if I pursued a different career choice it would waste the valuable effort he had invested in training me.

Hopefully attitudes at Princeton have changed since 1978. I had a career outside of the academy, and I was pleased to read that this is now common. “Princeton in the nation’s service” does not have to mean that every graduate student must end up becoming a professor.