This essay is written for a particular group of Ph.D. students in oceanography, not the majority who are in the Ph.D. program to learn how to be researchers in research universities and research institutions, but the minority who do not want these careers—and more specifically—whose advisors disparage all other career paths. If you are one of the latter, then you are the kind of Ph.D. student or recent graduate to whom I have been listening. I have listened to students from four research universities and from disciplines as varied as oceanography, geophysics, neurobiology, zoology, English, Germanics, and exercise science. Like them, although you respect your advisor as a person, admire him or her as a researcher, and deeply appreciate the experience you have gained in learning how to conduct research in your discipline, you do not want a career as a researcher in a research university or research institution. Perhaps you are fortunate enough to have an advisor who realizes that different persons can hold different values, goals, and priorities, and can therefore seek other career paths than the one chosen by the advisor. But if you are not so fortunate, you are living with frustration, possibly with no one to talk to about it.

McManus, D.A. 2002. In the oceanography classroom: Are Ph.D. students able to explore career paths that their advisors disparage? Oceanography 15(1):142–143, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2002.48.

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