Fighting the Terminal Master's Blues


NISHAD H. MAJMUDAR reported in the The Wall Street Journal about the rise of a new science degree: the professional science master's (PSM).

Excerpted from the article:
Twyla Tiongson Pohar expected her bachelor's degree in molecular biology to help launch her career.

But employers told her she needed either a doctorate, requiring years of research, or business experience, which she didn't have, to land her ideal job as a biological information analyst. She turned instead to a newly available alternative: a degree that combines science and business. In 2002, Ms. Tiongson Pohar earned a professional science master's, or PSM, in computational biology from New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) in Newark. She parlayed it into a $55,000-a-year job managing the development of software for researchers at Ohio State University's cancer center.

While Pohar went to NJIT, some 900 students are currently pursuing PSMs at 45 colleges and universities in 17 states, in fields including bioinformatics, biotechnology, financial mathematics and environmental sciences.

PSM-granting schools say the programs will increase the number of students in the sciences, promote greater science literacy in business and government, and reduce the outsourcing of higher-skilled U.S. jobs abroad. But critics, particularly in the Ivy League and other top colleges, say the degree waters down standards in graduate science courses and accentuates textbook learning over independent thought.

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