Re: OT: I wanna be a scientist

Frank Sullivan wrote:

> Hey guys, after spending a lot of time here as a lay person, I decided
> that I want to be a scientist when I grow up. =) I could really use
> some advice, if anyone here can offer any to me. I need to have some
> sort of career path for this. Maybe I should be asking my school's
> career counselor about this. My family sure can't help.
>
> Here's my basic situation. I'm 24. I have a GED. About the best school
> I can get into is the local cmmunity college. The nice thing about
> that, though, is it is actually a fairly nice community college (Salt
> Lake Community College) and the credits are transferrable to any state
> college or university in the state, including the U of Utah. So that
> may be an open door for me. Or not. I really don't know.
>
> I don't know much about higher education in general. What is usually
> required to get a job? A Masters? A PhD? What does getting a PhD
> entail? Do I have to do research papers and get them published?

If you want to get a job *as a scientist*, then a PhD is generally
required. You can get jobs more or less in the science area with lesser
degrees, i.e. as lab tech, field worker in conservation or environmental
biology, etc.

For a PhD, you have to first get an undergraduate degree. Where you get
it is not all that important. Then you have to get into a PhD program,
and spend 4 or more years doing research, taking graduate courses, etc.

To get into a PhD program, it helps to have good undergrad GPA in
relevant, upper division courses; to have really good GRE scores; and to
have some kind of advance interest from your prospective advisor. To get
out of a PhD program (with a degree, I mean), you have to convince your
PhD committee that you have done a useful amount of original research in
your field, meaning that you have to write a PhD thesis and get it
accepted. If you handle the thesis right, publications will naturally
follow from that, but they aren't part of the degree process.

> Sorry about the vagueness of my questions. I do not know what field I
> want to get into at the moment. The only reason for this is that there
> are so many fields that I am interested in.

Step #1: Spend a year or two at the community college, getting the best
education in science that you can get there. And also getting good grades.

Step #2: Transfer to a 4-year school and get a bachelor's degree. Again,
good grades in tough courses would be a good idea. Somewhere during this
step, you will have sampled enough sciences to get an idea of what you
want to do. While you're there, hang out with faculty in your chosen
field. You may have opportunities to do work in their labs, or in the
field (depending on discipline), perhaps even get publication credit.
There are all manner of summer internships and such these days, and
volunteers are often welcomed. Not only do you get resume material, you
also get real experience that, among other things, will tell you if you
really like this as a career.

Step #3: Read enough of the literature in your chosen field to know what
you find interesting. Locate faculty at several universities who are
interested in the same sorts of things. Contact them, asking for advice
on good schools for your specific field. Not only will they give you
advice, you will also have made contact with potential advisors.

Step #3.5: Are you really sure that you want to do this for a living? It
probably means several years of peonage as a postdoctoral fellow (small
salary, but few responsibilities other than research) before you get a
real job. The real job will probably be teaching at some university and
won't pay all that much compared to many other things you could try,
like business administration, medicine, or plumbing. How much teaching
you do, and how much time that leaves for research, depends on where you
are. But if you don't like teaching, it's time to reconsider.

Step #4: Get big numbers on your GREs. 800 is advisable.

Step #5: Apply to the schools where there are professors whose work
interests you, and/or with whom you have had personal contacts. Also
apply for an NSF predoctoral fellowship, or anything else that promises
to pay your way. Grad schools love free students.

Step #6: Wait. On the plus side, most PhD programs will pay you (though
not all that much), rather than you having to pay them. Often you will
be expected to teach in return for this, but that's another taste of
what your life will be like when you get a real job.

.

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