Careers in Science without lab work

riverplugs

Hey, I'm a second year Science student in college, and I'm about to choose which moderatorship or specialty I'll be studying for the final two years of my degree.
I'd like to know which areas in Science offer careers without lab work - although it can be interesting and enjoyable, I'm not sure I'd like to have a career that involves working in a lab. It seems like every chemical or material we use is toxic or carcinogenic in some way. Any help is welcome.

banjopaul

Working in a lab is pretty safe overall.

I'm guessing you're in TCD science? In which case genetics would be your best bet prospect wise for scientific work not in a lab. Lots of bioinformatic type work being done there.

Outkast_IRE

lots of jobs in quality side of things too, other half has a chemistry degree and does lots of work regarding quality testing, documentation, internal audits, liasing with customers who want additional info on products etc.

But honestly lab work is pretty safe work on the whole, you would be in far more danger on a building site .
Also even if you dont want to do lab work longterm , you are better off having a few years labwork behind you before you apply for jobs in related areas .

darjeeling

As the others have said, I don't think there should be major concerns over lab safety these days, with hazardous reagents being phased out more and more. I would advise you not to let any such concern influence your subject or career choice.

That said, if you have an aptitude for computational work, you'll find that bioinformatic opportunities in biology are opening up all the time, perhaps most notably in genetics and genomics.

cookie1977

have you ever read the msds sheet for water? You'd avoid that too

hidinginthebush

You could get into QA / QC, where I work at the moment (pharmaceutical manufacturing) you're guaranteed that the quality people will be properly gowned at all times. Nothing against them, its their job to look out for everyone's safety, so they have to lead by example by taking the proper precautions that may seem trivial, but are definitely a prerequisite for some of the horrible stuff we handle.

doctoremma

Bioinformatics, of the genetics kind. The next few years are going to see an unprecedented need for people qualified in data analysis of genome sequencing, RNA sequencing and so on.

You get to wear proper clothes as well (as opposed to jeans and T-shirts).

cookie1977

What about writing for science. I know someone who got in to it by submitting articles to various science magazines/journals and then got a job writing for http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/ and now works as a career advisor in a large UK university.

Capt'n Midnight

cookie1977 wrote: »

have you ever read the msds sheet for water? You'd avoid that too

Or most household chemicals.

Things like nail varnish remover and domestic bleach are worse than lab chemicals like pure acetone / sodium hypochlorite because of all the extra additives they put in

Health and safety legislation means all employers have to provide a safe working environment / personal protection equipment.

lockman

cookie1977 wrote: »

have you ever read the msds sheet for water? You'd avoid that too

The MSDS for common salt (NaCl) can make for some frightening reading also.

lockman

riverplugs wrote: »

Hey, I'm a second year Science student in college, and I'm about to choose which moderatorship or specialty I'll be studying for the final two years of my degree.
I'd like to know which areas in Science offer careers without lab work - although it can be interesting and enjoyable, I'm not sure I'd like to have a career that involves working in a lab. It seems like every chemical or material we use is toxic or carcinogenic in some way. Any help is welcome.

Just to add my 2cents worth.

As other have pointed out, the area of bioinformatics is emerging as one of the 'hot' areas in the biosciences. Currently is a serious skills/people shortage in this area (globally) and is seen as one of the growth areas for the future. Couple that with systems biology, which is also expected to grow considerably. You would probably need further training and/or further IT skills to get into these areas.

UCC offer a bioinformatics & systems biology one year taught masters.

DCU offer a one year taught bioinformatics masters.

Note that demand for bioinformaticians hasnt really hit irish shores as of yet, but probably will do in the future.

As another poster mentioned, you could try science writing, and a good link was provided. Very limited opportunities in this country for science writing though - a quick search online suggests the UK and East Coast of the USA are the main areas for employing science writers.

Quality/Documentation people are very much in demand in the pharma/biopharm industries in this country (and globally also). From what i can gather, with a few years experience, one can command a fairly handsome salary in this area. I'd anticipate this demand to remain strong / grow (unless the aforementioned industires up and leave en masse).

Following on from above, Health & Safety people would also be in demand a lot. One can easily to a night-time /part-time course in this area to supplement your science background. A good area to get into (pay-wise and demand-wise).

RDM_83 again

Just to point out though lab work in general is apparently grand you do hear of some dodgy stuff, most recent one was a fume-hood fitted with a bathroom extractor fan (and a guy who tests what type of plastic it is with a burn and sniff method, though I suppose that falls under personal stupidity)

Kevster

I just passed my PhD viva on Wednesday here in the UK (2-year PhD). I did a fair bit of lab-work but it turned into a bioinformatic PhD (I studied both computer science at DIT and biology at IT Carlow).

I recommend doing bioinformatics because there is a large demand for it, especially amongst academics/researchers who did their PhDs and early careers after computers really took a prominent role in science.

QA/QC, GCLP, et cetera, are also good bets, but basing an entire career on them is a bit risky I feel. I'm doing some QA/QC in my curent postdoc role but it's by no mans the main focus of my work. i'm basically continuing my PhD studies on breast cancer as postdoc.

Take care
Kevin

danlen

Hey Kevin,

Thanks for the good info you have been passing on in your posts on the threads related to this, I have found it helpful.

Could you give me an idea of what sort of work you carry out day-to-day as a researcher in bioinformatics? I know this can vary but I would find some specific examples quite helpful.

I have been leaning towards a MSc. in Bioinformatics lately. Can you then specialise in a certain area once you go onto a PhD or research? I would love to work in research related to nutritional science, I would imagine there would surely be a role for bioinformatitions in this field.

Any info you could give would be great.

Thanks.

cookie1977

A 2 year PhD is very unusual. In Ireland for instance most people would have to be a minimum of 3 years on the PhD register in what ever college to qualify. In fact most people I know would have done anything from 3-4 years for their PhD.

The APC in UCC would have a good track record on nutrition:
http://www.ucc.ie/research/apc/content/
Bioinformatics would cover lots of areas and it's applications would be in all fields of life sciences. You could be looking at genes (defective or normal) in a wide variety of organisms, animals, plants humans, bacteria etc...

Some people specialise in their postdoc (post their PhD) years as invariably you're following the guide of your PI (principal investigator) while doing your PhD so scope for your own interests could be limited (emphasis on could be as it depends on your PI). They hone in on a particular areas and try to become an "expert" with a track record of publications around that field. It helps with grant applications to show you've experience in a particular area.

Kevster

The PhD was done in 2 years because I just worked very hard, almost 10 hours per day, every day, in the 2nd year. I had funding up until the end of this year, but that has now been reimbursed into the university coffers. Even now I'm doing 9-10 hours each day, as I am struggling to change habits.

As a bioinformatician, your work will vary a lot. For my PhD, I was mostly looking at Affymetrix SNP 6.0 microarrays and all algorithms/processing associated with that. As postdoc, I've come to also look at the Affymetrix Human U133 (not sure on the exact name) expression array too. I never did a MSc in bioinformatics, so I'm not really a specifically-trained one. It was just part of my PhD and I also did a lot of lab work.

I'm sure there is a role for bioinformatics in nutrition ... every research group would like to have a trained computer 'expert', as most currently have to make do with a centralised bioinformatics and statistics service that never really understands the meaning of the data...

Take care
Kevin