Workforce Retainment in Canada: Prepping Grad Students for the Real World
Workforce Retention in Canada: Prepping Grad Students for the Real World
Before you ask why I’m blogging about Canadian graduate students, perhaps you should ask how successful our graduate students in the US are at transitioning into the real world.
As Americans, we have an individualist mentality, you are responsible for your own success.
In other countries, such as Canada, there is a more guided and collectivist attitude: bring funding to the knowledge-makers themselves, help the graduate school to real world transition.
For example, the Canadian government is investing in science and technology to create jobs, to “strengthen the economy and improve the quality of life of Canadians,” states Minister Gary Goodyear.
Over the next 6 years, universities across Canada will share $32 million and focus on research areas including: nanotechnology, aquaculture, biomedical engineering, and biodiversity.
The program, called Collaborative Research and Training Experience (CREATE), “will allow our graduates to become in-demand, professional researchers nationally and internationally,” explains Dr. Suzanne Fortier.
The ultimate goal? To attract qualified employees and retain them in the workforce.
Meanwhile in the US, President Obama seeks to increase educational spending, but it is at the expense of other programs.
Regional representative jobs ($2 million cut) and state grants for drug prevention ($300 million cut), are just two examples of programs that have to go in order to allot more funding for education.
Additionally, it seems that the funding that is allegedly trickling down through big institutes, is not necessarily reaching the knowledge-makers: the graduate students and professional researchers.
While yes, the US is all about personal success and innovation through personal ambition, this oftentimes makes it hard for all graduate students to smoothly transition into the workforce after graduating.
We have advisers, mentors, and people that use their connections to connect us after we receive our MA’s or PhD’s, however does this equal an easy entrance to the workforce?
While the answer to that question is subjective, perhaps Canada’s funding that directly reaches graduate students is not such a bad idea.
But at the same time, the US is known for personal ambition, individuals who seek to capitalize on innovation, however it is also important to note that other countries are nipping at our heels when it comes to successfully being a dominant world power.
Something to keep in mind, to see what others are doing to successfully advance globally.
