Science Jobs
Research Scientist - Is it in you?
Is a Research Scientist Job right for you?
The beauty of science is that it strives to uncover the hidden in the world around us. Everyone has a natural curiosity while growing up. Think back to your elementary school days when you watched plants grow and bloom, a tad-pole grow into a frog, or a meteor shower. Unfortunately, that natural curiosity is not generally fostered past elementary school. If you still have that sense of wonder and amazement at the world, perhaps science is a good career path. A career path in science is generally a long one before getting the first job, but the path is fun and rewarding.
Educational Requirements
Research science is unlike a lot of traditional career paths in that it requires many years of education before landing your first full-time job. Simply getting a high school  diploma is not going to land you a job, but the advanced skills needed for a research scientist begin in high school. Advanced mathematics and science classes are pretty obvious. Other classes of importance are English, especially reading and writing, foreign language, and speech. Writing papers and giving presentations of your work are extremely important to research scientists. Great research can go unnoticed if the paper is poorly written or the oral presentation cannot be followed well.
A college-level degree is required for a research position. A good college will have opportunities for undergraduate research. Like student teaching for education majors, this undergraduate research is vital to understanding the day-to-day requirements of a research scientist. Getting papers published in peer-review journals can be extremely valuable as they show the ability to participate in high-quality research. Most research positions typically require a Bachelor’s-level degree.
At this point, the student must make a choice to continue their education to a PhD-level or get an entry-level research position. A scientist with a BS or MS degree will typically work with a more senior level scientist to conduct research. Many years, 10+ years perhaps, may be needed before this level of scientist can lead other scientists.
A PhD-level scientist will be expected to lead more junior-level scientists right away. The choice really comes from the career ambitions of the scientist.
Types of Career Paths
All aspects of our lives are touched by science. As such, there’s a scientists that needs to research new technologies. The type of science to pursue is really up to what interests you. Do you love fashion? Scientists are creating new fragrances, better dyes for clothing, and better synthetic fabrics. Do you love computers? Scientists are creating new materials to make computer chips or ways to make computer code more efficient. Do you love food? Scientists are creating new foods and crops that have more nutrition and less environmental impact. Scientists have to make sure that batch of ice cream tastes good enough to be released for sale. Do you love sports? Scientists are creating finding new ways of training athletes to reduce injuries or make them break records. The types of research available to scientist are really up to your imagination and ingenuity.
Day-to-Day Work
One of the best aspects of the research scientist’s career is that no two days are the same. Some days may require being in the library getting background information. The next day may be spent at the bench doing research. Other days may be spent traveling to scientific conferences. Some days may require twelve hours and a few hours on the weekend before an experiment is done. Some beautiful experiments simply go up in smoke. When that happens, we joke that we are emphasizing the “re” in research.
Overall, doing research can be extremely rewarding. I love the rush that occurs when you look at data and know that no one has ever discovered this result before.
Conclusion
If you have a natural curiosity about the world and love learning new things, a career in science may be right for you. Science is about knowing what's possible in the world. Do you think you can discover what's new?
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