Career Options

How many of us know what we want to do once we leave university? Half of my year has just finished sending off their applications for medicine, a quarter of them are preparing for the 2015 entry into medicine and the handful of us left, have varying interests. 

And then there’s me, I have no idea what I want to do. 

     Last year I did a two week hospital placement at The Medway Hospital; which was absolutely amazing! I met some amazing Consultants, Biomedical Scientists and Medical Lab Assistants and got to see the inner workings of a hospital lab. I learnt a great deal and one of the main things I took from this experience was that I did not want to become a Biomedical Scientist!!  Personally, I found the job to be quite mundane. It was only exciting and fun because of the individuals that work there. 

Currently, the government wants to close down all hospital laboratory’s and create two main laboratories that will be located at opposite ends of the UK. They hope to keep ‘satellite labs’ in hospitals that will only require one person to man. The individuals I worked with explained that all of them did not know if they were going to continue working because none of their jobs were safe. I am not entirely sure how long it is going to take the government to achieve this; however, they have already started working towards this. This isn't the reason why I don’t want to be a Biomedical Scientists, it’s something I learnt while I was working and wanted to share with you all. 

   My search continued I was then drawn to becoming an MP for science! I loved the sound of this! Consulting the government on science related topics, being able to have a say when important decisions were to be made, that sounded so amazing! I started to look into what I needed to do and found out I needed to get in touch with my party of interest in my local area, stay up to date with current affairs, etc… As I live out during the academic year, this started to become very difficult and by the end of the academic year, I had forgotten about it completely! 

  During the summer I was supposed to ‘confirm’ my chosen career path and look at possible routes and vacancies. I was not able to do this properly but I have come up with three plans. Plan A is to get a job (what exactly, I’m still unsure), Plan B is to do a Masters (possible topic areas are Biotechnology or anything technology related) and Plan C is to do a PhD (in neuroscience). 

  Those of you who are unsure about what career path to take, try prospects, they list all job types and generate suitable jobs for your ‘personality type’. Also read up about where science degrees can take you-that’s what I did and found to be quite useful.  Go to career fairs and talk to people about what they do and why they do it. Ask questions and don’t give up.