Explore Your Career Options

What’s it like to actually work at a museum? Many of us visited museums as a child, on a school trip or with our parents. Some of us continue to visit exhibitions as a day out. Others are likely to end up taking their kids one day! If you have studied science at university, you may also end up doing research-based work in partnership with a museum. This could have sparked your interest in what it would be like to work in a large cultural institution.

There is an appeal to working as part of a s…

It’s very common for scientists to wonder what working in the Pharma industry would feel like. This feeling can be especially strong if you have been in academia for a while. You may want to shift from academia to industry but are unsure about whether your experience would be any better. You may have just completed your Bachelor’s degree and know that you want a career in a science-led industry. Pharma seems like a good prospect. The Pharma industry can be a good option to retain your research s…

You may be looking for work experience whilst working a full-time job because you want to make a career transition. Perhaps you want to change your career from a role in academia to a role in industry. Or maybe you have a science degree but want to work in finance. In any situation, getting work experience is an important step in making this shift. When you think of work experience, you might associate it with something you did in high school to tick off a compulsory activity. Or you might relat…

Pursuing an academic career in scientific research is inherently purposeful. You are striving to discover, learn and educate others. But what are your other options if you want to know what science-based careers are out there with a purpose? What if you don’t want to work in lab but still want to make an impact in the world? You might want to make a different kind of impact, where you see the effects of your work on people, products or systems. You might want the work you do every day to have an…

There are many reasons why we have chosen not to work as a scientist in a lab. For me, one of them was that I realised a lab was not the right work environment for my personality. Often when we apply for jobs, we don’t take our place of work and the effect on our job satisfaction into account. A lab is a very specific environment suited to people with specific personality traits and characteristics. A lot of the work may be independent and self-driven even if you are part of a wider team. The en…

You are studying for a Bachelors degree in science and realise that you don’t want to pursue further education in that subject through a Masters or PhD. You just want to complete your Bachelors degree in science. Maybe you are feeling fearful about the logical next step in your career. And you might still want to keep a link to science in the working world. You could even be having a crisis on what alternative choices there are. Is there no choice but to study more?

Whether you are at the under…

When I first wanted to discover my ideal career, I Googled articles about my profession of interest. I also looked at LinkedIn or Indeed for jobs that interested me and read their job descriptions. Often, these articles and descriptions can be a bit vague. Many times, I ended up going down a rabbit hole consuming all this content. I usually didn't feel any clearer about my next step. Even if I did get a job I wanted, it sometimes ended up being nothing like it was described on paper.

Is there a…

Volunteering is something that we often heard about in school or college. We were encouraged to spend a few weeks at our local charity shop and include it on our CVs. Its purpose was to give us work experience when we couldn’t get a job yet. And to help our applications for whatever next step we wanted to take. I later came to realise that volunteering can still help us further down the line in our careers. On top of this it allows us to give our time helping an organisation’s cause. We can gain…

The Wellcome Collection held an exhibition in central London called the Psychology of Magic, which immediately catches the attention of anyone interested in magic tricks. Whether you watched the occasional show on TV when you were younger or were one of those kids who bought kits and demonstrated tricks for whoever would watch, this exhibition brought you right back to the fascination many of us have with the subject. Not only that, but it uncovers the history, evolution and psychology of magici…