Tim035
Member
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2005
- Messages
- 857
- Gender
- Male
- HSC
- 2006
I believe that many people like myself probably chose science at university as they had a passion for it, or were successful in science subjects during high-school. To this day I still find science extremely interesting, exciting and a fulfilling area to expand my knowledge in. However I'd be surprised if a large percentage of individuals were able to assert that they knew where their science degree would take them upon graduation. For this reason I thought I'd do a bit of a breakdown based on what I've learned over the years as to what one can achieve with a science degree.
1). Postgraduate courses
I will keep this short as it is probably the option most people are aware of and one that many people pursue. Most universities offer a Masters in various Science/biotechnology fields that can be 100% coursework or 50/50 coursework/research. These courses can be good for fulfilling the expertise required for a couple of specialized jobs including Clinical trial officers (CTOs) and quality control officers (QCs). However I would not do one just as a time filler because you weren't able to find employment 3 months after graduating with your bachelors. Otherwise there are the highly sought after postgraduate medicine, pharmacy, dentistry & physiotherapy courses, most of which will require a high credit / distinction average as a minimum to get in to (med will also require a high GAMSAT score).
2). Honors & PhD
Honors is an extra one year on top of your bachelors during which time you will be under the guidance of an academic expert and complete a research project. Typically this will be a small project that your mentor simply doesn't have the time to look in to themselves, thus you basically become free labor to them for a 9 month period. If doing academic style research appeals to you and you manage to achieve 85% or higher in honours (Hons I) you can apply for an Australian post graduate award scholarship (APA) and do a 3 - 4 year PhD. The APA scholarship is an award allowance paid in fortnightly installments of ~$800 over the course of the PhD.
Now finally after 7 years of uni you can technically put the title Dr. in front of your name, although without a significant number of journal publications you are still unlikely to be taken seriously in the scientific community. So you now undertake what is called a post-doctorate position. These can be hard to find and often require traveling overseas, often to work long hard hours for $60'000 a year if you are lucky.
After completing your post-doc, you may attempt to find a position as an academic professional within a university. There are 2 types of academic professionals: 1). 100% research based professionals- Under this position you are on a 5 year contract, where if after 5 years the university feels you are not conducting high quality research & publishing quality papers, you will be fired. Otherwise your contract is renewed for another 5 years. 2). Research & teaching positions- These individuals are not under the risk of being laid off every 5 years, however they are expected to organize, teach and mark courses, which is a lot of work to try and do on top of scientific research. Academic professionals must additionally seek grants and funding from the various research councils in Australia to support their research as rarely will university funding allow for enough budget to perform the experiments needed to make a publication. Once you climb to the ranks of Associate Professor / Professor you can expect to make $70 - $90'000 a year.
3). Research assistant
Pretty self explanatory, you are basically a servant to typically a professor in a university or research institute and will aid them in designing and conducting experiments, writing papers and grant applications & preparing presentations for conferences. Often your salary comes from the professor having managed to get a grant from a funding body to hire a research assistant. As a result these positions can be very temporary, and will very rarely fall outside the salary range of $35k-$52k pa.
Most individuals who become research assistants do so because they failed to get first class honours, which is basically mandatory to get an APA scholarship. Once they've worked for a few years, any papers they have helped published give them bonus points on their submission for an APA scholarship, which may allow them to succeed in getting one and thus do a PhD.
4). Industry / private sector
I can't stress enough that in Australia this sector is so tiny and pathetic it may as well not exist. No major pharmaceutical or biotechnology companies have their research & development centers in Australia. We have a small hub of start-up companies down in Melbourne, as well as a few companies that help run clinical trials in the Sydney / North Ryde area, and that's it. Often these companies really don't want to waste their time training up a graduate student in the protocols and methods of good clinical practice (GCP) and good laboratory practice (GLP); thus they will routinely advertise for 3 - 5 year experience minimum. Despite this however, they are still willing to only pay such individuals $50-65k a year.
What we do have a decent amount of in Australia is manufacturing plants for various food & beverage companies and some pharmaceuticals. These places aren't interested in researchers, but do require quality assurance managers that will make sure the products they are making are all up to the standards required by law. As the fines can be massive for breaking any of the laws required in the production of consumed goods, these companies are willing to pay a good quality assurance officer upwards on $90-$110'000 a year. This job is extremely fking boring though as it requires basically being able to memorize and apply a 3000 page book filled with laws and legislation's to a manufacturing plant. Often it is also required that you are capable of testing batches of products for consistency and high quality, which requires knowledge in processes such as high performance liquid chromatography and other specialized testing methods. As you can imagine, if the company does get in trouble with the law whilst you are the QA officer, you can kiss your job and any further jobs in QA management down the toilet.
5). Applying your science 'skills' to other areas
Throughout undergraduate you will likely be told in various courses that they are developing skills in you that will make you sought after by employers. These include things like leadership skills, presentation skills, ability to solve complex problems, analytical thinking etc. 90% of these are complete garbage and you come out of uni no better at them then when you began your course. However the analytical thinking and critical problem solving skills can help you land a job in sectors such as consulting, market research & investment research. Of course most of these areas would rather hire a commerce student, so you really should have done that degree in the first place. However if you honestly did a decent amount of mathematics, physics or computing courses then you could probably scrape an entry position at one of Australia's MANY, MANY finance related companies (seriously you commerce grads have it so fkin easy, you have no idea).
Some final thoughts.
Science is a lot a fun and some days in the lab are honestly a real rush when you make a major advancement in your project. However employment opportunities are low, salaries are garbage and the hours are very long. If you are serious about doing research, look in to going overseas for an internship that may lead to a scholarship / employment upon graduation. The one area that Australia is backing a lot of funding in to at the moment is environment / climate based research. If that interests you then there are some well paying positions as an environmental adviser to various climate control committees. Otherwise the sciences I'd recommend are the ones that are based upon industrial processes, such as synthetic chemistry and mathematical modeling.
Also for high-school graduates, don't fall in to the trap of thinking that the higher entry score science courses like medical science are any different or special. They are EXACTLY THE SAME AS A REGULAR SCIENCE DEGREE REQUIRING A 75 ATAR. Basically in these supposedly specialized science courses they've simply chosen all the subjects for you, whilst if you are doing a science degree, you have the option to pick any science subjects you like including, but not limited to all the preselected courses in the specialized science degrees. The trend seems to be that if the word med is thrown in to a science degrees title, the ATAR jumps 20 points, as evident in the medical science & medicinal chemistry course offered at various uni.
1). Postgraduate courses
I will keep this short as it is probably the option most people are aware of and one that many people pursue. Most universities offer a Masters in various Science/biotechnology fields that can be 100% coursework or 50/50 coursework/research. These courses can be good for fulfilling the expertise required for a couple of specialized jobs including Clinical trial officers (CTOs) and quality control officers (QCs). However I would not do one just as a time filler because you weren't able to find employment 3 months after graduating with your bachelors. Otherwise there are the highly sought after postgraduate medicine, pharmacy, dentistry & physiotherapy courses, most of which will require a high credit / distinction average as a minimum to get in to (med will also require a high GAMSAT score).
2). Honors & PhD
Honors is an extra one year on top of your bachelors during which time you will be under the guidance of an academic expert and complete a research project. Typically this will be a small project that your mentor simply doesn't have the time to look in to themselves, thus you basically become free labor to them for a 9 month period. If doing academic style research appeals to you and you manage to achieve 85% or higher in honours (Hons I) you can apply for an Australian post graduate award scholarship (APA) and do a 3 - 4 year PhD. The APA scholarship is an award allowance paid in fortnightly installments of ~$800 over the course of the PhD.
Now finally after 7 years of uni you can technically put the title Dr. in front of your name, although without a significant number of journal publications you are still unlikely to be taken seriously in the scientific community. So you now undertake what is called a post-doctorate position. These can be hard to find and often require traveling overseas, often to work long hard hours for $60'000 a year if you are lucky.
After completing your post-doc, you may attempt to find a position as an academic professional within a university. There are 2 types of academic professionals: 1). 100% research based professionals- Under this position you are on a 5 year contract, where if after 5 years the university feels you are not conducting high quality research & publishing quality papers, you will be fired. Otherwise your contract is renewed for another 5 years. 2). Research & teaching positions- These individuals are not under the risk of being laid off every 5 years, however they are expected to organize, teach and mark courses, which is a lot of work to try and do on top of scientific research. Academic professionals must additionally seek grants and funding from the various research councils in Australia to support their research as rarely will university funding allow for enough budget to perform the experiments needed to make a publication. Once you climb to the ranks of Associate Professor / Professor you can expect to make $70 - $90'000 a year.
3). Research assistant
Pretty self explanatory, you are basically a servant to typically a professor in a university or research institute and will aid them in designing and conducting experiments, writing papers and grant applications & preparing presentations for conferences. Often your salary comes from the professor having managed to get a grant from a funding body to hire a research assistant. As a result these positions can be very temporary, and will very rarely fall outside the salary range of $35k-$52k pa.
Most individuals who become research assistants do so because they failed to get first class honours, which is basically mandatory to get an APA scholarship. Once they've worked for a few years, any papers they have helped published give them bonus points on their submission for an APA scholarship, which may allow them to succeed in getting one and thus do a PhD.
4). Industry / private sector
I can't stress enough that in Australia this sector is so tiny and pathetic it may as well not exist. No major pharmaceutical or biotechnology companies have their research & development centers in Australia. We have a small hub of start-up companies down in Melbourne, as well as a few companies that help run clinical trials in the Sydney / North Ryde area, and that's it. Often these companies really don't want to waste their time training up a graduate student in the protocols and methods of good clinical practice (GCP) and good laboratory practice (GLP); thus they will routinely advertise for 3 - 5 year experience minimum. Despite this however, they are still willing to only pay such individuals $50-65k a year.
What we do have a decent amount of in Australia is manufacturing plants for various food & beverage companies and some pharmaceuticals. These places aren't interested in researchers, but do require quality assurance managers that will make sure the products they are making are all up to the standards required by law. As the fines can be massive for breaking any of the laws required in the production of consumed goods, these companies are willing to pay a good quality assurance officer upwards on $90-$110'000 a year. This job is extremely fking boring though as it requires basically being able to memorize and apply a 3000 page book filled with laws and legislation's to a manufacturing plant. Often it is also required that you are capable of testing batches of products for consistency and high quality, which requires knowledge in processes such as high performance liquid chromatography and other specialized testing methods. As you can imagine, if the company does get in trouble with the law whilst you are the QA officer, you can kiss your job and any further jobs in QA management down the toilet.
5). Applying your science 'skills' to other areas
Throughout undergraduate you will likely be told in various courses that they are developing skills in you that will make you sought after by employers. These include things like leadership skills, presentation skills, ability to solve complex problems, analytical thinking etc. 90% of these are complete garbage and you come out of uni no better at them then when you began your course. However the analytical thinking and critical problem solving skills can help you land a job in sectors such as consulting, market research & investment research. Of course most of these areas would rather hire a commerce student, so you really should have done that degree in the first place. However if you honestly did a decent amount of mathematics, physics or computing courses then you could probably scrape an entry position at one of Australia's MANY, MANY finance related companies (seriously you commerce grads have it so fkin easy, you have no idea).
Some final thoughts.
Science is a lot a fun and some days in the lab are honestly a real rush when you make a major advancement in your project. However employment opportunities are low, salaries are garbage and the hours are very long. If you are serious about doing research, look in to going overseas for an internship that may lead to a scholarship / employment upon graduation. The one area that Australia is backing a lot of funding in to at the moment is environment / climate based research. If that interests you then there are some well paying positions as an environmental adviser to various climate control committees. Otherwise the sciences I'd recommend are the ones that are based upon industrial processes, such as synthetic chemistry and mathematical modeling.
Also for high-school graduates, don't fall in to the trap of thinking that the higher entry score science courses like medical science are any different or special. They are EXACTLY THE SAME AS A REGULAR SCIENCE DEGREE REQUIRING A 75 ATAR. Basically in these supposedly specialized science courses they've simply chosen all the subjects for you, whilst if you are doing a science degree, you have the option to pick any science subjects you like including, but not limited to all the preselected courses in the specialized science degrees. The trend seems to be that if the word med is thrown in to a science degrees title, the ATAR jumps 20 points, as evident in the medical science & medicinal chemistry course offered at various uni.
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