CAREERS
Carving Out Another Path
Scientific freelancing and self-employment
The scope of graduate, postdoctoral, and institutional training in the hard sciences is confined to few career possibilities. During my PhD, I thought myself a maverick for cross-listing even a single course in the business school, and taking personal time to attend events and conferences in the biotech and healthcare sectors. At the time, many of my contemporaries and I viewed such opportunities with a grass-is-greener mentality. However, I have since realized the perspectives gained from such events and conferences are useful to supplement, not replace, my true interests in discovering and building new works and ideas. For those who wish to stay technical, but operate outside both academia and narrow industry research roles, this article illuminates alternative means of such work through freelancing and self-employment.
Consulting, freelancing, and self-employment are often used interchangeably, so added clarification will be helpful for the rest of the article (note these terms may be used or viewed differently by others). A distinction is made between individual consultants and Consulting (capital C) (e.g. McKinsey or Boston Consulting Group), which is not discussed here. Rather, consulting may refer to a technical or non-technical “consult”, or a project…
