Who are our Students – and Why does it matter?

Summary

Introduction

When designing courses in astronomy – or any other science – there is a tendency to assume that the students whom we are addressing are younger versions of ourselves. As undergraduates we studied astronomy and now we are practicing it: it is natural to assume that the students we teach are destined to go on to become scientists themselves. But while this was a perfectly valid assumption in the past, it is valid no longer; and if we do not adjust our teaching methods accordingly, we do our students a grave disservice.

The sad truth is that most of them cannot possibly go on to become practicing scientists – because there are not enough jobs to accommodate them. We are all familiar with the terrible employment market nowadays: there is no need to belabor the point except to make the obvious observation that the situation is not going to get better in the foreseeable future. It is for Malthusian reasons that the job market for scientists is bad, and is going to stay bad on the average except for temporary fluctuations. If each astronomer guided, say, ten students on to PhDs in the course of his or her entire career, the population of astronomers would have multiplied tenfold over that time span – obviously an impossible situation over the long run.