I know a lot of failed writers and editors—and pilots and athletes and actors and physicians.
They’re all working in labs.
Science!
A long time ago, I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. We had careers talks at school, but this was before I sat my ‘O’ Levels and I couldn’t begin to comprehend the idea of knowing, at that tender age, what career one might want to pursue. I found those sessions to be unbearably tedious, to such an extent that until about five minutes ago (when I googled it) I couldn’t remember if mastic asphalt spreader was a ‘do’ or a ‘don’t do’. I really didn’t want to think hard about about a career—I was having too much fun learning lots of different stuff and a job choice was for ever. So I did the subjects that interested me, and chose science ‘A’ Levels because I enjoyed science most. After seriously considering joining the RAF—as aircrew, natch—I went on to read Biochemistry at university not so much by choice but through a process of elimination.
And that was all very well because then somebody asked me if I’d sorted out a PhD position yet and did I want the MRC fellowship he’d got going? So the future seemed pretty mapped out at that stage—do a couple of postdocs, perhaps find a research position in industry, perhaps see if I could figure out how to be an eternal postdoc. That turned out to be untenable, especially seeing as I’m a bit of a flibbertigibbet; I get bored easily and find it a lot easier to start projects and get them going than continue doing the same thing for months and years. I’m a knowledge whore: I’m interested in all sorts of unrelated and random stuff and it all sits there in my brain and I end up getting excited about the most unlikely things and making even more unlikely connections. So the couple of years I spent as a part-journalist, part-writer, part-know-it-all for F1000 was pretty inspiring.
For nearly a year now I’ve been working in a small agency. My official title is ‘Senior Writer’, but as I’ve mentioned before, that’s only a small part of it. To be honest, I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up, but what doing at the moment seems to fit my personality pretty well. I get to bring my scientific training to bear on diverse fields; I get to write about all manner of topics; I explain science and medicine to artists and animators and programmers (science communication is built in!). Today, for example, among other things I was converting a bunch of risk calculations into a form that our programmers could understand so that they can program the iPhone app we’re building. It’s a neat job, and perhaps I’ll continue doing it and just not bother growing up.
More science!
It is arrant nonsense to describe what I do as an “alternative career”. Being a lab head—which is what everybody higher up the lab food chain assumed I’d become—is the real “alternative”. Most people with PhDs never become a principal investigator. We do a lot of very bright and able people a great disservice by talking about life outside the academic research environment as if it were an alternative, or worse than that, a failure.
Yes, I know that leaving the lab feels like failure at the time—believe me, I’ve been there. But you might as well call Sir Winston Churchill a failed cavalryman.
Having said that, I’d be pushed to name more than a couple of careers where I’d feel a PhD-trained scientist would be happy using their skills. That’s not because they don’t exist; rather it’s that I don’t know about them. The timing of career advice is arse-backwards: you don’t want it while the yolk is still dripping from your ears; you need it after you’ve been around the block a few times and know what you enjoy and what you’re good at. So that’s after exams, after university; perhaps even after a postdoc. I know that the Research Councils are quite keen on training their fundees to get involved in science communication and the like, but are they helping people to serious consider careers to which lab-based research is an alternative?
Even more science! Well, sort of…
For example, did you know the Ministry of Defence employs scientists in non-lab roles? I used to be vaguely aware that the armed services need medics, and that physicists would probably be in demand for comms and the like, but I didn’t know about Scientific Advisers: in this case a chap who’s been sent to Afghanistan as a trouble-shooter, a real-life scientific detective. I certainly didn’t realize that one’s discipline doesn’t matter:
…how can the Scientific Advisers possibly be expected to know about all the areas of specialism that affect their military colleagues in theatre? Well of course they cannot, nor do they need to.
What’s more important for the MOD’s Special Advisers is the ability to think scientifically about a problem, to break it down into its component parts and, perhaps most importantly, to be able to talk about it to their military colleagues. Here’s Dr Peter Harvey talking about top-level science communication:
“The first question you ask is ‘how much time have I got?’ If it’s seven minutes, you make your pitch last six minutes – and you make sure you get all the main points into the first three in case [the Brigadier] gets called away. It’s the reverse of how you would present a scientific paper, where you work through the methodology and explain your findings at the end.”
In fact, it sounds like the sort of thing I might have enjoyed if I’d known about it sooner.
Now, if you work in a lab you will get the pleasure of discovering things, of seeing things that nobody else has ever seen, and maybe, just maybe, making a bit of difference to people’s lives. That’s quite alternative. But don’t ever believe it’s the only thing worth doing.
“The responsibility of getting it right hits you like a sledgehammer when you get here,” said Dr Harvey. “Everything you do really matters. How often can you say that in a career?”
“I know a lot of failed writers and editors—and pilots and athletes and actors and physicians.They’re all working in labs.”
I know a lot of failed scientists working in labs, too!
A couple of more serious comments:
I completely agree that “alternative careers” for scientists outside a lab environment is a complete misnomer. It’s also unrealistic to assume or propose or expect most PhDs to stay in academia or even lab-based work. This realization is, thankfully, finally sinking in. Universities and departments across the US (including our own) are spearheading programs aimed to expose, encourage and prepare graduate students for a wide variety of careers in which their knowledge, critical thinking and overall training will be greatly appreciated. This should NEVER be considered a “failure” or “alternative” or inferior career in any way.
My own conviction is that the more people who earn PhDs, the better for society. The training serves well for any career, and generates a generation of highly science-literate people who become ambassadors for science–even if they move into completely unrelated fields. Yes, they may take longer until they begin earning higher salaries compared to more “focused” and “career-oriented” peers, but the satisfaction of discovering new things, at least to me, makes up for a slower accumulation of wealth. The important thing is that every aspiring student be aware of her/his options in advance.
Excellent post mate. And fits a lot of what I’ve been pondering as I progress down (up) my alternative career.
I spend a bit of time helping and ‘mentoring’ postdocs, grads & UGs, and this is thematic to my new approach. UGs have years to figure it out, so…go…play, figure it out. It took me 11yrs post UG to find my niche and I’m still now only a n00b.
But – we have to push this because The Man/System is used to an alternative – Tradition.
I shall use this post as reference material from now on.
Very interesting about the MOD Special Advisers. Reminds me a bit of another “alternative” science career (and yes, I use those inverted commas advisedly). I’ve come across a number of people in government ministries here with titles like “Scientific Advisor”, or “Senior Scientific Officer” or similar, who act as, you guessed it, scientific advisors to policy makers in various government departments, agencies, or technology-related NGOs. Provincial Ministry of Economic Development and Innovation, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, that kind of thing.
You also remind me that here in Toronto in one facility of Defence Research and Development Canada (http://www.drdc-rddc.gc.ca/), which of course also employs scientists. The ones I know of work on human factors research (kinesiology and the like), although I imagine others might do a whole raft of things related to engineering, robotics, nanotechnology, biodefense… who knows? All kinds of interesting things to study, I expect.
@Steve—heh. I have no argument about the number of PhDs. The training does serve well, and it’s not just about being ambassadors for science; it’s about being able to think and analyse and take an enthusiastic interest in the world around you (more about this next week at OccamC…). Of course you can do that without a PhD, but I think it helps.
@Tiddles—thanks mate. Long time no see! Please feel free to use whatever you like from here.
@Winty—Yes! See what I mean? Fascinating stuff.
Tiddles! I’ve missed you so much. xxxxxx
Richard, I can totally see you working for the MOD.
I’d have to shtart working on my akshent, Mish Moneypenny.
I’m trying to work out what a ‘knowledge whore’ is. Do you get knowledge in exchange for sex? Or do you ‘sell knowledge’ on a seedy street corner in Kings Cross? Nice post by the way!
haha! Thanks.
‘you don’t want it while the yolk is still dripping from your ears’
I had an egg cup like that once.
The career advice at my school for students who liked science went like this:
“Have you considered medicine?”
“I don’t want to be a doctor”
“How about engineering?”
“No”
“Hmm… have you thought about medicine?”
I’ve been very lucky in that the advice I’ve had since then has improved in quality. Both my PhD and postdoc advisors were very supportive about their trainees pursuing non-standard academic careers; the latter set me up with meetings with colleagues who she thought might be able to help me, and one of those meetings got my my next job. (The job wasn’t for me, but the skills I learned there helped me move into my current field). I’ve definitely met lots of people who haven’t been so lucky, though… and so I’m trying to make sure the trainees I work with now have access to information about many different career paths.
Speaking of which, have you checked out My Individual Development Plan for postdocs? (As seen in Science). It looks like something that could be very useful. I’ve sent the link to “my” trainees and asked them to let me know how well it worked for them if they try it out, but no feedback as of yet.
“I know a lot of failed writers and editors—and pilots and athletes and actors and physicians.”
This idea of failure is orribly depressing. – My dog Pugsley never gets depressed. – If he doesn’t catch the rabbit he’s chasing (and he never does) he just keeps happily looking for another rabbit. – The idea of failure doesn’t come into it, – It’s the same with bones. – He burys them and forgets where he’s buried them. I asked him about this – ‘Do you get upset when you lose them? – he said, ‘It’s not the bones – it’s the digging that counts.’
From somewhere we have got the idea of running round ragged trying to chase the dream of being the best. – Something to do with Lamarck Darwin and Herbert Spencer’s view of evolution. In chasing the dream contained in that interpretation of evolution, we are consuming the planet.
Pugsley’s say’s he’s happy simply to continue being more or less the same. – He’s not looking to change anything.