As we close out another academic year, we end by looking ahead. We asked new physics doctorates what employment sector they hoped to be working in 10 years in the future. Eight in 10 hope to be working in academia (42%) or the private sector (38%). Almost one in six (15%) hopes to have a government job; most of these hope to be working in a government lab.

A similar proportion of men and women aspired to work in the academic and government sectors a decade after graduation. Men were more likely to have a long-term desire to work in the private sector than women.

Susan White is the Interim Director of the Statistical Research Center (SRC) at the American Institute of Physics. She can be reached at swhite@aip.org. All the reports from the SRC are available at www.aip.org/statistics

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