You need a PhD, not a blog.
Or so I’m told.
In science, after finishing your bachelors and your honours degrees you’re presented with just 2 options:
A scientist could be a lowly PhD student, an obsolete paper-pusher at a large biotech company or a soulless research assistant in big pharma’. But importantly your degree got you into science — and that is your job, to do science.
Conversely, a mere graduate keeps the same no-end non-science job that they might have had already — this could be making coffee, ripping tickets to cinema 2, or fitting overpriced shoes for those with a bit more money (non-scientists).
So what do you do? Baristas earn more than PhD students, research assistants are overpayed and uninvolved, your casual weekend retail-job gets you no-where, and the price of admission to big-pharma is self-loathing [citations needed].
Throughout the many academic establishments, supervisors are gagging for funding and more PhDs to do their work. They put on recruitment soirées to emphasize the importance and reward of research. They want us, and WE WANT IN!!! In fact, many of those students who even get to their honours degree have already planned to sign away the next 4 years of their life to a PhD anyway. No reasonable argument will stop us. For some of us, researchers with published work appear to sit up on a pedestal of achievement, they have fame, glory, respect and can generally afford to buy nice shoes (but often don’t).
But PhD’s are hard. They take years to complete with respect and recognition being hard-won. You’ve got to fight with reviewers, people will discredit your efforts and if you survive the process you might be able to start a career. Wouldn't you rather have your opinions verified and shared by an online community right now? You’re smart enough to shape your own career ahead of those doing a PhD. But perhaps most importantly, you know how to write a blog. This leads me to graduate choice number 3, a choice unforseen by many.
3. Blog
Most other bloggers have unverified opinions and write about things that aren’t actually important. But you’re educated (BSc, Hons) and very qualified to write a science blog — You keep up to date with the latest science, have seen your fair share of educational videos on YouTube and you follow Neil deGrasse Tyson on twitter. You’d take the science communication world by storm!
for simplicity, and because science graduates don’t really know how to write anything else — I’ll explain the rationale for this blog in ‘lab report’ format.
Title: Etalogy (very clever).
Alternative title: “The way to a science communication career: Exploring the use of blogging as a substitute for formal education and experience”.
Primary Aims: Examine recent scientific advances, filter bullcrap and scientific misconceptions from the internet, consolidate and present important and complex scientific ideas for science readers.
Methods and Materials: Internet blogging, requires device for input and publication of words positioned carefully with well captioned images, memes and important links. Participants recruited by self-direction and are volunteers.
Results: So far, no good.
Conclusions: The preliminary results warrant further investigation.
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