[avalon68]

Occupation – Research Scientist (Microbiology/Immunology)
Qualifications held – BSc Microbiology, PhD in Microbiology/Immunology
Age bracket – 25-30

General comments – I started out in a general science degree and chose to branch into the microbiology path in the 2nd/3rd year of that. I enjoyed the lab classes, and particularly enjoyed the research project module during the final year of my degree. When I graduated I decided that working in a pharmaceutical company wasn’t for me – I wouldn’t enjoy the highly structured environment. At this point I decided that I wanted to further my education so I applied for a PhD. I enjoyed the PhD for the most part but it was hard work – you will be expected to design your own experiments and drive your project forward so you need to be robust and able to accept criticism and you must be pretty organised. After gaining a PhD you can expect to work as a postdoctoral fellow/associate for 3-4 yrs. The money is reasonably good but you will likely change jobs at least 2 times during this time (short term contracts), and chances are you will need to emigrate due to lack of positions in Ireland. The plus side of this is that your PhD is your ticket to travel the world, the down side is you have little job security and moving jobs so frequently can be tough on your personal life. After a few years of postdoctoral work you will hopefully have published enough papers to be able to compete for a permanent academic position (lectureship & running your own lab) – however these positions are few and far between and applications are highly competitive.

Day in the life – I work in immunology research. No two days are the same. Its not a 9-5 job – some days I finish at 3pm, some days 10pm. I often have to work weekends. However, I love my job – I am continuously learning new things, I get to ask interesting scientific questions and design the experiments to answer them. I travel to a couple of conferences per year and hear about the cutting edge research being carried out around the world. I also spend time training junior lab members in new techniques.

So basically – Its an interesting job with a lot of variety. You will constantly be challenged and rarely bored. You will have opportunities to travel. If you have good organizational skills and the ability to drive yourself forward than you would probably enjoy this job.



Hope this was informative to anyone considering a career in science

[jumpguy]

Where did you do your general science course and PhD?

Is most of your work experimental (laboratory based) or research, or a decent mix of both?

Is it relatively easy to get a career out of a general science degree, or does it depend heavily on what options you chose as you work through the course?

[avalon68]

Originally Posted by jumpguy

Where did you do your general science course and PhD?

Is most of your work experimental (laboratory based) or research, or a decent mix of both?

Is it relatively easy to get a career out of a general science degree, or does it depend heavily on what options you chose as you work through the course?

I did my degree and PhD in Dublin. Most of my work is lab based, but I do spend a lot of time reading other peoples publications as its important to keep up with whats going on in your field. I also spend a lot of time analysing the data generated in my experiments.

In relation to your question about getting a career easily out of a science degree - I would have to say I dont think its all that easy. I remember when I was doing my Leaving cert and there was a big push for people to do science as we needed science graduates - I hear the same things now but for the life of me I cannot see where all these science jobs are! With just a primary degree you would probably be looking to find work within the pharmaceutical sector - maybe doing something like QC etc (depending on what degree area you specialise into). However, there are a limited number of these companies in Ireland and they can only employ so many people - several friends of mine (even those with industry experience) have been forced to emigrate over the past 2 years in search of work. Many more have chosen to qualify in something else after their science degree - eg business etc. If your aim is to work in the pharma sector then try and do your degree somewhere that offers work experience as part of the degree as this will give you an edge when you graduate.

[djpbarry]

Originally Posted by avalon68

After gaining a PhD you can expect to work as a postdoctoral fellow/associate for 3-4 yrs. The money is reasonably good but you will likely change jobs at least 2 times during this time (short term contracts), and chances are you will need to emigrate due to lack of positions in Ireland.

Few points on this. Postdoc salaries vary quite considerably depending on location. As far as I recall, positions I was looking at in Dublin were paying around about the national average, which is pretty good by European standards. However, I’m doing a postdoc in a fairly high-profile institute in London, but I really couldn’t call myself well-paid. I’m definitely below average for London and after tax, I don’t come out with much more than the PhD’s in my lab.

With regard to job changes, I don’t know too many postdocs who change positions at least twice in the space of 3-4 years! It would be impossible to build any momentum in such circumstances.

Finally, there are some very good postdoc positions in Ireland and they can be pretty well-paid. But, I would still think it a good idea to work abroad at some point. It looks good on the CV apart from anything else.

Originally Posted by jumpguy

Is it relatively easy to get a career out of a general science degree...

It really depends on what you want to do, but I would say that no degree is going to lead to an “easy” career – there’s always going to be hard work that needs doing post-graduation.

EDITS: Whoops, I've only just realised this thread is relatively old!