EQUALITY GUIdE - KU Leuven

Chapter 2 ! Career paths: recruitment ! promotion ! dismissal 83
to explore whether the choices of the male and female students are in fact determined
by different motives and factors.
2.4.1.2. Career expectations
The various theories on personal and social motives could also be applied to the survey’s
second section ‘career expectations’. To develop the second theme, the results
from the research on PhD-students 93 and the study ‘Wetenschap tussen roeping en
beroep’ 94 were taken into account. That way, the students’ general expectations concerning
job opportunities could be compared to their perception of a career at Ghent
University. The study ‘Wetenschap tussen roeping en beroep’ noted that young researchers,
though very motivated at the beginning of their career, often feel disappointed
with the daily routine. The discouragement is not so much the result of the
nature or content of the job, but rather of the disappointing terms of employment, the
working conditions and the competitive atmosphere 95 .
Both studies discuss the advantages and disadvantages of an academic career in great
detail. To summarize, it may be stated that scientists choose an academic career for
various reasons:
! fascination for a specific research subject;
! the freedom to develop an idea;
! the freedom to plan one’s day (e.g. flexibility, gliding office hours, teleworking)
enables a satisfying work-family combination;
! the social recognition of scientific research.
Potential bottlenecks, on the other hand, are:
! the ambiguous interpretation of the working conditions (in contrast to other sectors);
! the uncertain career perspective;
! the poor coaching of PhD students;
! the fierce competition between colleagues;
! the monotony of the work;
! the unexpected lack of freedom with respect to the research content;
! the lack of sufficient office space and solid office supplies;
! the publish-or-perish attitude.
Both studies also examined the best way to obtain an academic career. They unanimously
list the following ways: applying for a vacant position, contacting lecturers or
other staff members, excelling during lectures and thus being asked to write a PhD. In
the following part, it will be examined whether the conceptualization of the students of
Ghent University conforms to the findings of the aforementioned studies.
93
94
95
Verlinden et al. (2005), op. cit.
De Gier et al. (2001), op. cit.
De Gier et al. (2001), op. cit., p. 9.