Question: would you work as a scientist for the rest of your life?

Ailsa Powell answered on 14 Jun 2011:

I’d like to, it’s what I’ve trained to do and it’s what I love doing.

The type of job I have always aimed for is to be a university lecturer where I would run a research group and lecture undergraduates. I would even prefer a larger lecturing role and a small research group as I think it’s important to teach others what you know so they can build on your knowledge.

However, having worked in the university environment for many years now I see people weren’t joking when they said those permanent jobs were hard to get. And one of the reasons is that aren’t many of those jobs (and there are even less being offered now with the funding cuts). For a lecturer position there are typically 50-100 applicants for every job advertised and in all the years I have worked in labs I have only known one person progress up to that job. Others have had to leave academic science for other careers as the bosses don’t want to pay the larger salary of an experienced researcher when they can pay less for a newly qualified one.

The next few years will determine what happens but I don’t want to stay on the short term jobs that research scientists have – typically 3 years a time. I have had to move a lot and would like to be able to plan to stay in one place long enough for it to feel like home and maybe even choose where I want to live rather than follow the jobs.

But if I have to leave academic science I would still stay in a science job – it’s what I love and I can’t imagine not doing it. 🙂