Dear Tieu Tieu:

No matter what profession one chooses, he\she ought to excel in it so that to be competent in his\her milieu and lead a successful career path.

It is known that as one climbs higher in the ladder of education, he/she would limit his\her choices to fewer job opportunities and more aggressive competition.

As a career advisor, I will leave the choice for my children to choose their prospective profession, but before doing so, I will make sure that:

i) they have or can develop a passion for that profession,

ii) they are exposed as much as possible to the different professions,

iii) they know the difference between the different academic degrees and what potentials can they do with each, and

iv) they are aware about the job employment opportunities in the location that they decide to settle in.

Referencing articles with the following occupational hazards:

High Costs, Low Benefits

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/i-cant-say-uni-fees-wont-double-abbott/story-fn3dxiwe-1226926474920

http://theconversation.com/raising-the-cost-of-a-phd-26912

http://www.economist.com/economist-asks/doing_phd_waste_time

http://www.economist.com/node/17723223

Lack of Job Security & Poor Working Conditions

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/homeless-professor-protests-conditions-adjuncts/

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/30/nyregion/without-tenure-or-a-home.html?_r=0

Two. for Families, Multiple Bodies Problems

http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2012/aug/10/academic-spouses-two-body-problem

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/inside_higher_ed/2013/10/academia_s_confounding_two_body_problem.html

Quotation from above article: "At 22, I didn’t think much about it; I was young and single, and the sheer brutality of the market hadn’t hit me yet. At this point, though, I would not—and do not—advise my kids to follow in my career path. Life is too short for nomadic monasticism, and wanting a family you actually see doesn’t make you less intelligent or less capable. The core of the two-body problem isn’t the second body; it’s the missing job. I hadn’t figured that out yet at 22. I hope someone tells this generation before it does anything stupid."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/fashion/15love.html?pagewanted=all

Shafid, would that not depends on say, the market conditions for academics?

I take it that in the Middle East, there is a golden age emerging for academics [based on lazy anecdotal evidence] - which is quite contradictory to what is happening in the higher education sectors of many English-speaking countries [e.g., US, UK, Canada, Australia, etc.]...

Dear Tieu Tieu:

No matter what profession one chooses, he\she ought to excel in it so that to be competent in his\her milieu and lead a successful career path.

It is known that as one climbs higher in the ladder of education, he/she would limit his\her choices to fewer job opportunities and more aggressive competition.

As a career advisor, I will leave the choice for my children to choose their prospective profession, but before doing so, I will make sure that:

i) they have or can develop a passion for that profession,

ii) they are exposed as much as possible to the different professions,

iii) they know the difference between the different academic degrees and what potentials can they do with each, and

iv) they are aware about the job employment opportunities in the location that they decide to settle in.

Dear Tieu, nice question. Being an academician is one of the novel choice, no doubt in that. But i want my child to let him choose his profession. I will give full freedom to my kids to choose their own profession. Today we are having different statistic about the job disaster of different field but we can't predict about tomorrow.

You should give the choice to the child decide what is best for him/her based on his/her inclination, market conditions and peer pressures. No forcing of your choice.

Dear Tieu-Tieu

Our son has to take an active role in the choice of profession. Need to seek information from different sources: the school, the family, in the university he wants to attend and experienced professionals. I believe that parents have no right to "allow" the kid to do this or that course even if it brings great expense and difficulty. We should always be beside our son, guiding him and helping him.

Our son does not belong to us ! The Prophet of Khalil Gibran

I understand why you are concerned. This is not just a career decision. It is also a financial decision. You don't want to see your student with substantial debt and little chance to pay it quickly. Assuming career trajectories in Australia are similar to the situation in the U.S., a student is willing to pay tuition for medical school because he/ she is assured of a well paying (and depending on the student) a fulfilling profession. The path for the PH.D. Is not clearly defined. Tenure track positions are very difficult to get. Universities prefer to hire adjuncts, giving low compensation and asking for work (teaching) whereas the PhD is trained to do research. However there are other career tracks - industry, government labs, regulatory affairs, tech transfer, business development, consulting, publishing. There are also fields, such as computational biology, generating tissues and organs, that still have high demand and low supply. A PhD graduate has been trained to solve problems, to think critically, and to present complex ideas orally and in writing. Add entrepreneurial spirit and he/she could have careers that might not yet exist today.

Thank you Anna, I was hoping to hear some honest insights from within and and above. I must concede to being a bit sly about the child bit because some of you have been so earnest in your answers about your role as parent. I suppose I was using the child story as a proxy for yourself / immediate others - if only as a rhetorical device, thrown in with that nonchalant brand of Australian dry ironic humour, to disguise the sensitive nature of academic career development.

Also Anna, in the Economist article on The Disposable Academic*, you'll find that the skills acquired through PhD are nonetheless a tough sell to industry. My own very limited canvassing of potential employers seem to suggest an ingrained prejudice against PhDs ["all theories", "too specialised"...].

I know there are cultural differences too between the West and Far/ Middle East. For the latter, education is still held in extremely high esteem, specially with that "Dr" title - there's definitely a status symbol aspect to it.

But for the former, it seemed that being a Dr is no guarantee to employment. Not long ago, lots of Germans used joked that half their fleet of taxi drivers have PhDs. Germany has seemed to emerged well from its sick man of Europe status. So their universities seem to be not as under siege as their English speaking counterparts [US, UK, Aust, Can, NZ,...]. But under siege we are...

*http://www.economist.com/node/17723223