Reflecting on 25 years - from a PhD in Life Sciences to a Master's in Business Administration
- Moriyah Zik-Cherqui, Ph.D
- Jul 21, 2024
- 5 min read
Master's Degree Ceremony in Business Administration. An opportunity to share some personal reflections and general insights, from the perspective of almost 25 years between receiving this degree and my previous one, a Ph.D. in Life Sciences.
I didn't attend the Ph.D. award ceremony. At that time, I was already deeply into my academic path, doing post-doctoral research abroad (on the East Coast of the USA, in my case). A ceremony? It didn't really interest the scientist in me. This time, although I had already reached in the past this station in terms of "degree hierarchy," I find myself excited and wanting to celebrate it with a ceremony (and maybe a somewhat lengthy post 😉). Why? Mainly because it is a privilege to return and study in a formal framework, to check off exams and assignments, to study alongside students who could be my children, and to discover that the curiosity to learn new things hasn't faded over the years.
I did my Ph.D. at the Weizmann Institute of Science, not a classic university by definition, but nevertheless an institution partially funded by the state through the Planning and Budgeting Committee (PBC), on behalf of the Israeli Council for Higher Education (CHE). I did my master's degree in Business Administration at Ono Academic College, a private college (not directly funded by the state budget and tuitions not subsidized by the state). Ono College was established the year I started my Ph.D. (1995) and until 2001 operated as the Israeli branch of the University of Manchester. The reasons that led me to study at a private college were a schedule that allowed for the combination of studies for working people, for whom studying is not the central part of their lives, and the possibility of completing the degree within one calendar year. However, it seems that my considerations aligned with a "trend" among young people, as more and more students are opting to study at colleges rather than traditional universities (by 2021, Israel had 9 private colleges, alongside 9 universities and 20 academic colleges affiliated with them, funded by the state budget[1]). So what drives more and more young people to study primarily at colleges? In my opinion, in the super-dynamic world we live in, there is an advantage to smaller and less traditional entities, which can respond more quickly to the changing needs/wants (“Change with the speed of relevance”[2]) of the "customer base" ("Customers"? It seems that only in recent years have universities started to understand that in our world, they have no choice but to treat students (also) as "customers"). One of the main desires of students today is that their studies be closely related to the practical world, with much less need for the prestige of the "ivory tower." The vast majority of my lecturers at the college were active professionals, for whom teaching in academia was an "extra soul," and as such, they could connect their students to the "field."
You might rightly say that this academic mix may be appropriate for Business Administration, but research, especially in the natural sciences, often starts with questions motivated initially by academic interest. Although many of these studies eventually open up (often surprising) pathways to application, getting there requires many years of "non-profit" investment. In these fields, public academic institutions still have a clear advantage. Particularly in our "monopoly state," where the CHE and its funding arm, the PBC, aggressively make it difficult for private institutions to grant degrees (especially advanced degrees) and secure a share of research funding. In the last 25 years (and indeed since the 1980s), one new medical faculty has been established (another one is set to open next year, surprise... at the Weizmann Institute of Science), and only three colleges (two public and one private) have managed to cross the CHE barrier and be recognized as universities.
That said, even the research pendulum has started to swing towards commercial companies. Towards the end of my Ph.D., two students from the neighboring lab (Dr. Haggai Kerachy and Dr. Rafi Meizner) founded a start-up to apply "computational biology" tools to improve genetic traits of seeds (Evogene[3], which split from Compugen). I admit that, like most of my colleagues, I was busy looking for a suitable post-doc position and didn't realize that my neighbors were among the first to follow a path that would later gain tremendous momentum. This lack of awareness might be forgivable if you remember that the possibility of establishing a profit-oriented company based on venture capital investments, competing "head-to-head" with academia in an academic research race, is attributed to "Human Genome Sciences," which won the race to fully map the human genome. This "Harbinger" was established just a few years before I finished my Ph.D. (1992-1993)[4].
Looking back at myself from 2000, I was a research scientist, in love with life sciences and fulfilling a dream that started to take shape in 6th-grade nature lessons (with teacher Hannah Karen). Business? That was in a very distant circle from my "Venn diagram." What would I have suggested today to the woman I was then?: Great that you did a Ph.D. By no means should you give up a post-doc abroad – it's an opportunity for independent research but still accompanied by (official) stabilizing and enriching mentoring (an opportunity to thank my mentor Prof. Vivian Irish @Yale); it's also an opportunity to meet and build deep relationships with students from all over the world, with whom you share a common ground of scientific research alongside the richness of multiculturalism (this is what I would like to recommend, but unfortunately, with the antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment spreading in recent years on campuses abroad, especially in the US, it's unclear if such a recommendation can still be made, but that's a separate discussion). And after the post-doc? Here's the turn. I would tell myself to go work in a biotech company. Start in research roles and aim to progress to management roles. At the same time, study Business Administration. Later, find your way into an analytical role in a venture capital fund investing in biotech companies. You'll find that your research tools and "scientist's mind" will also serve you well in this type of research. You will have the opportunity to continue being exposed to and learning new things constantly, and you'll have the chance to be involved in making a real impact on advancing the world.
I am receiving this degree during the “AI Gold rush”[5], the year when the magic word ChatGPT became commonplace. Some of the lectures in various courses (mainly those dealing with innovation) and some of the assignments we submitted as students were already, of course, done using AI tools. For translating this post into English, I certainly harnessed ChatGPT. However, to write it from “scratch” authentically, I still count on myself much more. In comparison, I finished my Ph.D. when the world anxiously watched whether the Y2K bug nightmare would come true, and in Israel, broadband internet access via ADSL technology was introduced for the first time for home use. It is clear to all of us that AI is changing and will change our lives beyond recognition. How will it change our lives? Countless experts (recognized and self-proclaimed) in countless lectures, discussions, and podcasts try to provide answers, make declarations, and predict (doom or salvation), encompassing a very wide range of possible impacts. But what seems clear to me, and this might be the conclusion of this entire post: the value of human curiosity will only increase, the need to sharpen human creativity will only increase, and the importance of knowing how to ask smart and precise questions has remained unchanged since the beginning of human history, and also in my personal academic history.
[2] Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford
[4] Webb, A and Hessel, A, “A race to the starting line”. “The genesis Machine”, Hachette Book Group, pp. 29-38.
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