But is it actually possible to combine a career in academics and business? Although the Winthrop Group has had some success in doing so, Ph.D. 's that have chosen academic careers find it difficult to fit consulting and business activity into their schedules.
Assistant Professor of Psychology Paul B. Andreassen, who studies economics and psychology says that a hard academic schedule makes it hard to find time to do consulting.
"In the first year of teaching, you spend all your time teaching. Each lecture involves around 10 hours of preparations, one hour to give and about six hours afterwards to recover. You're doing three lectures a week and the damage is cumulative," Andreassen says. Harvard allows faculty members to spend up to one day a week on outside consulting work.
But despite the lower salary he receives as a member of the academic world, Andreassen enjoys the freedom and rewards of his work. "I love to teach and be surrounded by students who are trying to change--you can have an impact," the psychology professor says. "Besides, you get a parking space behind William James Hall."
Historian Alan Brinkley also chose to apply his intellectual talents to education and research instead of in consulting or government. The Dunwalke Associate Professor of American History chose to follow his doctoral work with a career in academics, but he says his decision to do so developed while he was working on his dissertation.
"The reason I came to graduate school was not necessarily that I was committed to a career in academics. But the reason I finished is that I had developed a commitment to it," says Brinkley. A major source of his indecisiveness was the academic job market which, at that time, was "dwindling to the point of becoming invisible," says Brinkley, who finished his doctoral work at Harvard in 1979 and has been a professor of history since 1982.
Some advantages to a career in academics are the freedom to do research, the rewards of teaching and a work year of only seven or eight months, Brinkley says. But he quickly adds that the lifestyle is by no means an easy one.
"People who think that an academic life isleisurely as compared to other professions aremisleading themselves. At a major university, withheavy teaching responsibilities, graduate studentsand expectations of research, it's not a leisurelylife," the American history expert says. Althoughhe has consulted for a documentary film and amuseum exhibition, Brinkley says that he does no"serious consulting."
Ph.D.'s now work in fields such as consulting,marketing, banking and government, says Martha C.Leape, Director of the Office of Career Services(OCS). Her office conducts seminars and programsdesigned to introduce Ph.D. 's to theopportunities available to them.
"Ph.D. 's in business say that one of thebenefits of their Ph.D. background over the MBA isthat they can look at the broad picture--thesocial, political and economic factors involved ina decision that truly draw on their Ph.D.backgrounds," Leape says.
Due to a lack of career path studies, Leape wasunable to say what percentage of Ph.D. 's enterbusiness or academics. "Most still go intoacademics immediately, but because we have nofollow up studies, we don't know what Ph.D's aredoing five and ten years after receiving theirdegrees," she says