Out with the Old, in with the New: What the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine Got Right about Stem Doctoral Mentoring

The Chapter Four focuses on Doctorate in Philosophy (PhD), as the peak of academic achievement in STEM. The modern PhD, for most degree programs, follows the format developed by Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin, Germany, in which students undertake an intensive course of study and complete a research project that is defended before select scholars in the field and academic units. Academic coursework is classroom and lab-based, requiring most students to be accepted or invited into a lab by a supervising faculty. Learners typically pass qualifying or comprehensive exams in addition to completion of the classroom-based study and research. The chapter begins with an overview of the aforementioned qualitative study followed by an overview of best STEM education practices according to the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. It concludes with comparison of those best practices with the study’s findings to ascertain key considerations for STEM doctoral mentoring.