Story time! If you’ve ever wondered about your future in academia or what degree path you wanted to pursue, I’ve been in your shoes. While I certainly don’t have all the answers, I’m happy to share my personal experience in making these decisions and figuring out what was right for me.
Flashback to 2017. After completing my Bachelor’s in Biology (yes, I was one of those pre-med kids), I took my MCAT and applied for medical school and then … didn’t get in anywhere. I realized I needed to buy some more time so I could try again later. At the time, academia still seemed like my only option. This led to me deciding to get my Master’s in Infectious Disease from Drexel University’s College of Medicine. I thought to myself, I’ll be around doctors and stuff. They’ll probably rub off on me and I’ll get more insight and then know what to do next. What can I say, I was young and confused.
As it turns out, I was way more interested in infectious disease and research than I was in working with patients (no offense). I was then just one semester in and was convinced I was going to continue on to get my PhD in Microbiology / Immunology. My second semester comes around and I’m now working in a malaria research lab. I’m truly amazed and intimidated by all of the knowledge of everyone I’m working under. How does everyone know so much? Where did they learn that? Did they honestly just do that math in their head? Where did they get that equation from? What does 1:5000 mean? Please, just tell me how many microliters I need to add because I don’t know these conversions! I thought science was my life already, but only then did I realize that what I thought was my life was actually just something I occasionally dabbled in. At least, compared to the PhD students around me.
I decided to then join the group to help with large-scale suspension culture. After experiencing my fair share of contamination, I was then met with a healthy dose of existential dread. This didn’t feel like what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. After being so sure academia was the path for me, I now felt just as lost as I did when I first started school. I didn’t like the pressure of feeling like I needed to be a top performer at all times in such a competitive environment. While I was still very interested in and passionate about science, I began to doubt what the path forward in this field would look like for me.
Despite my confusion about my future, I did learn an extremely valuable lesson from that lab. I learned that perseverance is what it is all about: facing blatant failure and saying, okay. Let’s keep going. And you do it over and over again. Even if you don’t know what the outcome will be, you have to just keep experimenting to gain more knowledge so the outcome becomes more clear.
I began treating my cells like my little pets that needed to be fed every day. This made me happy to feed them and watch them grow. Over time, I began to realize science was no longer my job: it was my lifestyle. Wake up. Go feed my cells. Go home for a bit, then go back to the lab to check up on my cells. Then sleep and do it all over again the next day.
I then realized I really enjoy working in the lab and doing bench science. While there were aspects of academia I enjoyed, bench science allowed me to partake in more of the tasks that truly excite me: working with my hands, running experiments and collecting data, instead of planning and writing an entire experimental design with the pressure of needing to be published. As my Master’s graduation approached, I was unsure if I wanted to remain in academia or officially move into the industry. I was curious about what industry jobs entailed, so I thought, why not. I’ll give it a try. Let’s find out.
While applying for big pharma jobs in the tri-state area, I kept seeing job postings requiring <1 year PhD experience, 2+ years Master’s experience or 5+ years Bachelor’s experience. I thought to myself, wow, I didn’t know that just a Master’s is enough experience to work as a scientist at some of these big pharma companies. I thought I needed a PhD to even step into a place like that.
I finally landed an industry job and the income difference was almost laughable from what I experienced in academia. On top of that, still being in the cell culture space, I was able to leave once my work was done for the day. Some days I only had 2 hours of work to do and then I would be free to go, giving me a great work/life balance. I began to spend my extra time reading journal papers because I still had access to all of the papers through my corporate institution. I realized I now had the freedom to do explorative learning at my leisure, rather than needing to research in order to deliver for my job. While in academia you’re in the forefront of novel discoveries, in my industry job you are following a protocol that has already been tested. I suddenly felt a relief from the pressures of academia and needing to discover the unknown. I was shocked: my work was easier, I was getting paid better and I still had career growth potential. Life was good.
Since I don’t have my PhD, I am not designing any major experiments. Instead, I am following someone else's plan - and I don’t mind that. If I want to read up on the latest research and propose a new experiment, I can do so. Or, I can just let someone else do it. The responsibility of innovating does not fall on my shoulders anymore, and I decided I really value that. I can do as much or as little innovating as I want to, but I can still work closely with the smartest people I’ve ever met in my life. It’s an inspiring place to be and I was truly just happy to be there. I realized I had the best of both worlds.
If you are unsure if you want to jump into a Master’s degree or get a PhD, I say there is no wrong way to live your life: you just have to live it and decide what you’ll enjoy doing the most. I am happy with my Master’s and while I have a great respect for the innovators who pursue a PhD, I have no intention of working towards one myself. And that’s okay.
After all, science isn’t a job anyway. It's a lifestyle.
Bullet Points From the Desk of Illeun