Dear fellow scientists, I hope the more experienced scientists on the listserv can help me and my fellow recent graduates.
The job market for a recent graduate in biology is ... daunting, to say the least. Some of my peers simply went to graduate school because "they had nothing else to do" and hoped it would give them a competitive edge. I took a different route, as I am very reluctant to invest in a graduate degree unless I am very sure I want a career in that field. So, like many of my peers, I searched for low level jobs to "get a feel" for what type of science interests me the most. This search has been needlessly complicated by what I like to call the "name game." People keep coming up with more and more innovative names for a job to make it sound so much more exciting than it really is. That makes searching for a low level science job very difficult. For example, a recent job advertisement boasted that you needed little to no experience, and was titled "Environmental engineering assistant." When I followed up on this (it was under the "science/engineering category of a job site)", I discovered it was actually for a housekeeper. Searching for "internships" usually returns jobs for students still in undergraduate, although not always. So I ask everyone here, what would you name a position for a young scientist, with only a B.S. degree and little experience? It can be field specific or not. Where would you advertise and post these jobs? The more the merrier; as I am sure I am not the only recent graduate struggling with that "next step" decision. If you respond to me, I will compile a list and post on the server so others can benefit. Kind Regards, Sarah Fann Research Assistant Marine Environmental Research Institute www.meriresearch.org
