• Question: what careers are there in science and what made you choose yours

    Asked by amtoajvasdev to Christine, Edd, Jess, Nicolas, Zara on 17 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Nicolas Biber

      Nicolas Biber answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      There are countless ways to have a career in science. Once you are in science I would look at a choice between three areas you could work in: 1. You stay at university and do research and teach there. This is great because you (mostly) get to choose what research you want to do, universities are pretty open about that. 2. You go into private sector and work as a scientist for a company. The company will then determine what purpose your research should serve, and you will have to work for that aim. 3. You go into public sector and do research for governmental organisation. You will then have to do research that suits the agenda of that organisation. I would like to go into public sector, because I feel that especially in ecology this is where I can make a difference.

    • Photo: Zara Gladman

      Zara Gladman answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      Hi amtoajvasdev… wow, your name is hard to spell!! 😛

      Like Nicolas said, there are MANY careers in science! This website lists over 100: http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/science_careers.shtml?gclid=CMK8-veGvakCFQNP4Qod21Cffw

      If you want to work in science, you can do research at a university or research institute, teach (kids or adults), work in a lab for a company or business, work for an organisation e.g. WWF or the Environment Agency, work for the government… and many more!

      So.. science is a great thing to get into if you want to keep your career options open 🙂

      I chose to work at a university doing research because I want to learn more about animals and how they interact in their environments! There’s information about why I think crayfish in particular are cool in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWn5H2XTl-I

    • Photo: Edward Codling

      Edward Codling answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      The other guys above have mentioned different types of science career so I won’t repeat what they have said.

      I went down the route of getting a job at a University. This means I have a lot of freedom about what research I can do (I can choose!), but I have to make sure that I keep writing scientific papers and getting grants to pay for research projects. It is this freedom that made me decide I wanted to work in a University. I did work in a public sector lab once like Nicolas mentions (the Irish Marine Institute). This was good fun but I didn’t have as much control over what research I could do. Although while there I did get involved in some science projects that helped improve the management of fisheries and this was very worthwhile.

      Part of my current job also involves teaching and doing admin tasks – I do like teaching but this can take up a lot of my time.

    • Photo: Jessica Chu

      Jessica Chu answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      I will answer the second part of the question too so you won’t be reading the same thing.

      Some professions that are a mixture of different things are e.g. a patent lawyer- need to know enough science to protect someone else’s work or more consultancy stuff e.g. someone who have done a science degree and finance degree can offer advice to people who are just starting up a small science company.

      I have chose to do more research after my undergraduate degree is because I find it really interesting and wouldn’t really want to trade it to more ‘officey’ jobs that are more paperwork stuff! I like to do things – practical lab work and then summarise what I have found.. so a bit of paperwork is involved 🙂

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