Stirring Things Up

Imagine a master’s degree that would train you to build computers capable of instantly translating a foreign language into English.

Or a master’s degree to help you calculate the body’s reaction to a new drug, by using computer simulations. Or a master’s degree that prepares you for high-tech jobs that do not exist--yet.

If this seems like science fiction, well, think again.

Universities have plunged into a type of academic alchemy, creating hybrid master’s degrees that promise students golden careers on the frontiers of science, industry and business.

Following one popular recipe, some campuses are blending a bit of molecular biology with computer science and mathematics to come up with “bioinformatics.”

Others mix computer and language skills to form “computational linguistics.” There are degrees in “chemical and material physics,” “human-computer interaction” and the more familiar “biotechnology.”

“These are going to be the hot professional degrees of the 21st century,” said Sheila Tobias, a science education consultant. “It’s just like the way the MBA was the quintessential 20th century degree.”

Hybrid Degrees

With start-up money from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, five universities across the country are launching 18 hybrid master’s degrees either this fall or next. All of these programs seek to apply science to real-world problems, giving students a practical bent that is supposed to appeal to employers.

USC is one of the universities that landed a $400,000 grant from Sloan. This fall, it enrolled its first master’s candidates in computational linguistics and physics for business applications. Next fall, USC will launch master’s programs in computational molecular biology, and environmental science and technology.

Other programs funded by the Sloan Foundation are beginning at Georgia Tech, Michigan State and the universities of Arizona and Wisconsin.

Last year, UC Irvine independently began a master’s degree program in chemical and material physics for students who are seeking employment in high-tech industries.

A new member of the Claremont colleges is about to open about 35 miles east of downtown Los Angeles. The Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences is searching for students to join its first master’s class in applied biosciences, set to begin next fall.

It was jump-started by a $50-million grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation in Los Angeles, specifically to train masters-level professionals for the emerging biotech and biomedical fields.

William H. Rastetter, president and chief executive of IDEC Pharmaceuticals in San Diego, said his company and others in the burgeoning biotech industry hungrily await the graduates from the Keck institute and other master’s programs.

“We cannot fill the positions we have,” Rastetter said.

Furthermore, he said, it takes 12 to 18 months to train newly hired employees. “If we could get people who are trained, they are going to immediately be much more productive.”

Filling a Demand

Many of the Keck- and Sloan-inspired programs have surfaced to meet the biotech industry’s unsatiable appetite for science-trained professionals with practical skills and business savvy.

Northwestern University, which blazed the new path by beginning its master’s degree in biotechnology eight years ago, now finds its graduates snapped up quickly.

Nearly all of those students who graduated in June have landed good jobs, said Leslie Wainwright, associate director of Northwestern’s Center for Biotechnology. Starting salaries range from about $40,000 for the more hands-on technical work to $80,000 for graduates who go into investment banking or consulting.

To be sure, not all of these futuristic fields are such a sure bet. Some may be downright risky--at least when it comes to jobs.

“There are no career pathways for people in some of these programs,” said Tobias, coauthor of “Rethinking Science as a Career.”

But she and others believe that high-tech companies will not be able to resist graduates who possess that rare combination of proficiency in science and the ability to communicate with the nonscientific types in marketing and other departments.

“We are going to take our chances that these people will get themselves hired and create a demand,” Tobias said. “This is a ‘supply will create demand’ model.”

Moreover, she and others note, these master’s graduates cannot fare much worse than science students with doctorates who have floundered in the job market.

For two decades now, American universities have produced more doctoral graduates--particularly in the sciences--than can be employed in academic or pure research positions. So the country is chock full of underemployed doctoral graduates salivating for professorships or positions in research labs.

Some academic leaders, in response, have called for academic birthcontrol--essentially cutting enrollment in doctoral programs, or at least easing their graduates into industry.

In addition, those with doctorates with little or no payoff for their seven- to nine-year academic investment have complained about U.S. immigration laws that permit foreign-born holders of doctorates to stay in America.

The professional master’s programs are seen as a solution to the PhD glut. Until now, undergraduates who studied biology, chemistry or physics had few options for graduate school other than competing for medical school or spending years to earn a doctoral degree.

In fact, a mere 3% of the 406,000 master’s degrees awarded each year in the United States are in the physical and biological sciences, compared with 23% in business and management and 26% in education.

“The master’s degree was a stepchild in higher education, the consolation prize for people who couldn’t quite make it in a PhD program,” said Karen Merritt, the University of California’s director of academic planning. She said that attitude is beginning to change.

Yet many professors, particularly in the sciences, continue to look down on the lowly master’s degree as a “terminal degree.”

Sizing up the shifting job market, UC President Richard C. Atkinson has spread some seed money to create a new degree for working adults he calls a “master’s of advanced studies.”

UCLA expects to offer one of these new degrees next fall in “digital media.” The idea is to train future managers for the multimedia revolution by steeping them in everything from the visual arts to copyright law, computers and management theory.

Roberto Peccei, UCLA’s dean of physical sciences, said it has been tough getting professors interested in professional master’s degrees. The UCLA master’s degree in digital media, he said, was possible only because as an interdisciplinary degree, no one department could lay claim to the area of study.

“I was the only dean at UCLA who thought that this was a good idea,” Peccei said. “Now, some others are thinking it might be reasonable. My job is to peck at the walls.”

Other UC campuses have some new programs in the works. UC Irvine hopes to launch master’s programs in criminology, law and society and urban and regional planning.

New Programs

Such professional master’s degrees are nothing new at the California State University system. Under the state’s Master Plan for Higher Education, the master’s degree is the highest degree a Cal State campus can award.

So Cal State campuses have awarded master’s degrees in an array of disciplines for decades and now are joining the gold rush into hybrid scientific degrees.

San Diego State has launched a master’s degree in computational science with an interdisciplinary approach that involves the departments of biology, chemistry, geological sciences, mathematics and computer sciences and physics.

Most of these new hybrid master’s programs are two years in length, although places like Northwestern require only 13 months with a four-month internship.

Most of them seek students who have a solid base in a scientific or technical field.

USC wants students who majored in biology, physics, chemistry or engineering for its master’s program in environmental science and technology.

“We are interested in science-trained students who can work their way into management,” said Hanz Bozler, a USC physics professor. “We want students who can read technical reports and help their companies make a good decision.”

The Keck Institute hopes to stack its first 30-member master’s class in applied biosciences with students who majored in engineering, chemistry, biology and physics.

Students will get a year of interdisciplinary science, said David Galas, Keck’s chief academic officer, and then specialize in computational biology, bioengineering, drug discovery, drug development or other new fields yet to be determined.

“A lot of jobs now exist in the biotechnology industry that weren’t here five years ago,” Galas said. “It’s hard to say what jobs will be here in the future, but we will try to prepare people for them.”

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Designer Degrees

Universities across the country are launching new professional master’s degrees designed to give students practical skills for careers in biotechnology or other high-tech fields on the frontiers of science.

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Degree: Start Date: USC Computational Linguistics Fall 1999 Physics for Business Applications Fall 1999 Computational Molecular Biology Fall 2000 Environmental Science & Technology Fall 2000 *KECK GRADUATE INSTITUTE OF APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES Applied Biosciences Fall 2000 UC IRVINE Chemical and Material Physics Fall 1998 *UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA Applied Biosciences Fall 2000 Applied and Industrial Physics Fall 2000 Mathematical Science Fall 2000 *GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY Human-Computer Interaction Fall 1997 Bioinformatics Fall 1999 Computational Quantitative Finance Fall 2000 *UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN, MADISON Environmental Monitoring: Remote Sensing & Spatial Information Management Fall 2000 Biomedical Informatics Fall 2000 Computational Sciences Fall 2000 *MIT Geosystems Fall 1994 *NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY Biotechnology Fall 1991 *NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY Technology, Education & Commercialization Fall 1999 *UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO Hazardous Waste Management Fall 1999 *UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS Microelectronics-Photonics Fall 1999

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For more information: https://www.ScienceMasters.com

Source: Sloan’s Science Master’s Outreach Initiative