• Question: If you had a chance to go back and change your line of work, would you or would you stay and why?

    Asked by knew520unco on 21 Jan 2025. This question was also asked by rest520ruck.
    • Photo: Zoe Vance

      Zoe Vance answered on 21 Jan 2025:

      I don’t think I would change where I’m at now. I might take a slightly different route? I went into biology initially and while I’ve stayed in bio research I’ve moved into a much more computing and statistics heavy area of it than my degree necessarily prepped me for! I think I might go into maths/stats/computing if I could go back just to really lock in those hard skills, I think the biological facts of your current project are probably easier to pick up on the go. I would maybe also do more science communication work earlier on because I really enjoy it and have only started doing that in the past couple of years, but overall I’m pretty happy where I’m at!

    • Photo: Carly Bingham

      Carly Bingham answered on 28 Jan 2025:

      It’s hard to say because I’ve changed my mind a lot of times about what I want to do in my career and while I’m happy in my current role, I do sometime wonder what would have happened if I had made different choices – would I be a computer scientist, would I be working for an engineering design consultancy, would I be a maths teacher – these are all things I decided not to pursue along the way!
      I don’t think I would change, because I lot of who I am as a person is related to the things I’ve tried along the way – I might be someone completely different if I changed everything!

Comments

  • Photo: giorgiaperri

    giorgiaperri commented on :

    Oh that’s a good question! I do like my current work, but I am also interested in other routes and careers. I’m really interested in physiology and would consider being a physiotherapist, or a dietician. I also really enjoy Exercise Science so may have done this as an undergraduate degree, but I loved studying Zoology too!

  • Photo: Tina-Jaine H

    Tina-Jaine H commented on :

    No. I’m very glad I found the career I have.
    The only thing I would change is that while I was a student, my understanding of what engineering jobs were like was incorrect, and that meant it took me longer to find what I wanted to do. I thought all engineers worked in dirty workshops or building sites doing manual tasks and wore boiler suits. My views came from stereotypes and TV, and they were wrong. So that’s why I’m here trying to help young people have a better understanding of the world of work.

  • Photo: Laura

    Laura commented on :

    This is an interesting question – I’m very happy with where I’m at in my career as the area of science I work in is constantly changing, so there’s a lot of room to grow alongside it. At the same time, I do often wonder what life would be like if I’d gone down the path of being an astrophysicist, or a zoologist, or a computer scientist… but then again, nothing is set in stone and it is always possible to change careers and try something new!