Question: Hello! I'm 17 years old and I don't know what to do in the future. I'm sure I want to keep studying and learning new things. I love being stimulated and I love challenging myself every day. I always wonder what is the job that really fits with me. My question is: what helped you to choose your way/university/job?

Heidi Gardner answered on 12 Nov 2018:

Hello! Firstly, don’t worry about it – when I was 17 I had literally no idea what I wanted to do with my life so it sounds like you’re in a similar position to the one I was in 9 years ago 🙂

Things that worked for me when finding a degree/university:
– Where did I want to live? I wanted to be in a city but not a huge city, somewhere in Scotland, and somewhere that I knew at least a few people (my best friend is a year older than me and studied English at Aberdeen so I didn’t feel so homesick when I moved up!)
– Where did I want to go? I wanted a university that was really, really good for whatever it was that I wanted to do. I chose to study Pharmacology and Aberdeen is ranked 2nd in the UK for pharmacology research (Dundee is number 1 and that’s only an hour or so away!), but Aberdeen came with the option of a 12 month industrial placement where you take time away from uni and work for a year. I knew I wanted to do that because it would give me knowledge of what jobs I could do, and I could try something and see if I liked it. My placement year was in clinical trials recruitment (I’d find staff for big companies) and by the end of it I knew that I wanted to work in trials, but not trials recruitment.
– What did I want to study? I figured a science degree would teach me lots of transferable skills so I wanted to find a specific branch of science that interested me – if you’re interested you are way more likely to work hard and enjoy your degree! I chose Pharmacology because it’s a good mix of Biology and Chemistry (I was never very good at Physics so wanted to avoid that), and there was also some Maths in there too with practicals and working out dilutions and molar calculations etc. What’s important to bear in mind though, is that lots of universities can be quite flexible even after you’ve started your degree – I stuck with Pharmacology from the start, but one of my best friends started in Biotechnology, then changed to Biochemistry, and then settled on Pharmacology in 3rd year, you learn a lot of things that are very common to other degrees so there is time to change your mind if you don’t like the specific subject you’ve chosen!

Things that worked for me when finding a job:
– Writing a list of things that are important; mine were learning, being challenged, working with people that make me laugh and make me feel like I can push myself without making myself look stupid, being able to travel, having ‘enough’ money but money not being a big driver, being able to work flexibly so I can see my family and friends (lots of them live far away so in my job I’m now able to start work and finish early on a Friday so I can spend the weekend at home with my Mum)
– I also wanted to be able to do ‘extra’ things on top of my job (like I’m a Scientist for example, but I also blog about science and run a little science-themed Etsy shop too – take a look here: http://etsy.com/shop/scienceonapostcard), I knew I loved talking about science and I wanted a job that would encourage me to spend some time doing that along side my normal research work.
– At job interviews think about it like you’re interviewing the interviewer – you want to know as much about the job as possible so you know it’s right for you, not just that you’re the right candidate for them! 🙂

This is a super long answer, but the best advice I can give you is to try as many things as you can fit into your life! During Uni I had 3 jobs at one point (working in a shop, working in a bar, and working in a design studio – all taught me different skills) and made sure that I used my summers for exciting but useful things – I did a summer working as a Camp Counselor at a summer camp in America, I did a summer interning with a biopharmaceutical company in America (this was through the Saltire Foundation – if you end up at a Scottish uni then check them out https://www.entrepreneurialscotland.com/saltire-scholar-internship-programme), and I did a few summers working to save some money so that I didn’t have to work when it came to exam season – this meant I could just focus on studying and getting good grades.
All that sounds like a tonne of hard work, and it was, but now I’m 26 years old and in a job that I absolutely love and will happily stay in for the next 10 years – so it worked out pretty well!

TLDR: Don’t stress, grab every opportunity you can, and spend some time during uni figuring out what will suit you best 🙂