I don't know what to do with my life...

Hi,

I’ve just gotten my bachelor’s degree and am not quite sure where to go from here… Any advice from dopers would be appreciated! My interests lie in human disease, virology and bacteria and I might consider something with an environmental twist. I’m hoping at least one doper has some experience or has/ had similar interests. I would love to hear about your experiences in your careers, particularly if you are in health related fields like epidemiology or a science grad student (or anything related). Tell me about the ups and downs, and why you chose the said field and any advice you may have for others (like me) who are a little lost at the moment. Much appreciated!

Cheers.

What bachelor’s degree did you get?

Well, I can tell you right now that if you’re interested in science, you’re almost certainly going to need to get a PhD. A bachelor’s degree in science will get you the kind of job that a high school diploma will get in many other fields. Trust me, I’ve been there, done that, then quit and went back to grad school. But yeah, more information about what you’ve done and want to do would be good.

Sometimes, what you want to do with your life comes more from your hobbies and things you enjoy doing, more than what you’ve studied in school. What’d you study in school? Why did you pick that? When you started, what end result did you envision, have you changed since then?

If you go to a doctoral program, you should expect to do the following.

  1. Attend many talks, seminars, colloquia, and conferences that you don’t understand and can’t get any use out of.

  2. Work on a research problem that is determined by your advisor’s interests, rather than your own interests.

  3. Spends five years, give or take, working on a paper that will probably be published in one of the more obscure journals and not read by very many people.

  4. Teach or assist in one of the more boring undergraduate classes.

Now it may seem like I’m trying to shove you away from graduate school, but I’m not. I’m just saying that it’s for some people but not others. Some people are able to tolerate the things I listed above because they have a genuine, strong interest in the subject matter and a determination to get that Ph.D. Others do not, which is why a lot of people don’t stay the course for the entire five years. I’d just advise you to think carefully about whether you’re the sort of person who can plough onward when the going gets tough.

Thanks for the responses! I did a Microbiology degree in undergrad. I chose it because I was interested in human disease and Medicine. I thought about a plethora of majors, but decided on something geared towards that, but I had many other interests so choosing a major was hard. I do like to learn. The Medicine thing hasn’t really been working out, so I’m exploring my options. Does that help? I’ve also come to the realization that BSc won’t get me where I want to go… I wish they had made that a little more clear at the beginning! I think more education is a must for me for that reason.

Consider getting a Masters in Public Health? Lots of disease work, from the epidemiologic standpoint. I find it quite interesting.

You can get a start in biomedical research, working as a technician. It’s what I’m doing currently, and I’m planning to enter a PhD program in another year or two. That would give you a taste for the actual pace of science, though there’s little opportunity for much of a career in the long term unless you get some kind of graduate degree.

Many labs will hire junior technicians for a year or three, though they prefer those with a bit of research experience under their belt (usually from a summer during undergrad). The kind of work you’ll do in a position like that really varies. Some labs treat a technician like the lab bitch, where your job will be to clean glassware and mix up media. On the other hand, in some you’ll be doing the same sort of work that a first or second year grad student would do – running and designing experiments, though you’ll be working on someone else’s project. That’s what I’m fortunate enough to be doing.

Most technicians land somewhere in between. For example, two of the techs in my lab are basically doing the grunt work of a large scale screen, where they repeat the same kind of assay, with minor variations, hundreds or thousands of times. This is more monotonous, but not too bad for a short term position.

If you had a good relationship with any of your professors, they’re good to talk to to find labs that are hiring. A good recommendation from a colleague goes far. And if that doesn’t work, you can simply start applying for tech jobs at major research institutions (hospitals and universities will post these jobs on their hiring pages). It doesn’t hurt to try to directly contact researchers who do work that you’re interested in, particularly if you write a good cover letter telling why you’re interested and showing that you’ve done your research and read a few of their papers. IME, that’s a bit more fruitful than trying to run the HR gauntlet, where you’re just another resume on a humongous pile.

ETA: In the better labs, techs will be acknowledged for the work they do, with opportunities to present their work at conferences and even get credit on publications.

ETA2: On the more medical side of things, the job title you might want to look at is “Research coordinator”. These guys do the legwork for clinical trials: talking to patients about the trial, enrolling them, making sure the regulatory boxes are ticked, analyzing the resulting data, etcl.

The numbered points ITRChampion makes are garbage generalisations, by and large, and may safely be ignored. His main point about PhD programs being tough is indisputable, though. Whether it’s right for you is a big question - you can get through a PhD on enthusiasm and hard work, but they only really make sense if there’s some talent mixed in there. So I guess try and attempt an honest appraisal of your BSc, were there parts you were good at or where you felt real intuitive understanding?

I recruit PhD students to my research group each year and the key to success, for both sides, is to find people who are still developing intellectually, who have not yet reached their ceiling. This is sometimes not closely correlated with undergrad performance, although a good cv is important for getting a foot in the door of the best Schools. Another thing to bear in mind is that a lot of science PhD programs have the option of leaving with an MSc. This is often used as an escape route if things don’t work out, and gives some critical flexibility for some folk. I’m in the UK, but did postdoctoral work in the US - an appreciable number of graduate students left each year in their 2nd or 3rd years with an MSc. Almost all walked straight into jobs, given the subject and School (organic chemistry, Penn).

You could always look into Forensic Science. A bachelor’s degree in microbiology might be enough to get you into a Forensic master’s program.

Qadgop the Mercotan, could you tell me a little more about public health? I was looking into this option, but would like to know more if you have any personal experience in this?

lazybratsche, I’ve worked in labs for a number of years (both as the “bitch” and someone with tons of input) so I’m not too sure if spending a few years working would do much. That kind of work can be quite enjoyable, but… I don’t wake up every day wanting to go to work because I love it so much (maybe I’m expecting too much? Do you?). Running experiments over and over can be frustrating if they don’t work, and I find myself liking the analysis of the data and the end result a lot more than running the experiments.

Busy Scissors, that’s good advice. I’ll have to think about that. I loved learning about the interactions between humans and disease and was quite good at retaining that. The clinical stuff was a joy to learn. I can see myself doing a job such as yours, post-PhD, but did you love obtaining your PhD? Why? Do you find you’re happier now that you’re done with graduate studies?