Serendipity again

I was finding that the rotation of my lunch in the microwave was not sufficient excitement as I sat in the lab, so I flicked through a pile of handouts and training materials about how to use a smartboard. I thought I really should look at these, but they didn't appeal sufficiently to stop me going further down the pile where I found the February 2008 issue of University Affairs/Affaires Universitaires, with a blazing headline "The big PhD debate". So that article provided me with interesting reading for lunchtime and where the serendipity fits in is that just before lunch I read an email Michael had forwarded to me from the Dean of Graduate Studies say he wanted to go ahead with our proposal for a PhD Supervision workshop towards the end of this month.

Two particular sentences struck me from this article: the number of PhD students in Canada has increased 48% since 2000 to 35000, and two out of three PhD graduates will not become university professors. The other linked idea is the paragraph "This begs the question: Does doctoral training need to be adapted to take into account these new career prospects?" That prompted me to wonder how current doctoral training helps the students become all round professors, rather than just researchers? Plenty to think about in planning the workshop and a deadline to keep me working.

Today's photo is of Mitre Peak, Milford Sound - one of the most beautiful places I have visited in New Zealand. It rains frequently - 186 wet days on average and 6249mm p.a. I was there in a drought - it hadn't rained for 5 days!

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