Study What You Love … Outside of the Lab!
Click the link to be taken to my blog post on the University of Nottingham’s Study What You Love blog.
Study What You Love is a great campaign by the university to encourage students to take degrees which really interest you, rather than taking something you don’t like in the hope of better career prospects. As the website says, it’s about seeing your course as a series of opportunities, not assignments, and gaining transferable skills which will be useful to you when you graduate.
Chemistry and related subjects are regarded as very strong and employable degrees, but with the high workload and difficult to understand concepts, it really helps to find it enjoyable and inspiring. I’ve loved chemistry since I was 16, and it meant I could engage with my lecture and lab material so much more fully than some of my peers, and in doing so I achieved good exam results and a 1st class degree. However, I often saw those who took chemistry because they didn’t know what else to take, or because it was regarded as the ‘better degree’ of the subjects they studied at A-level. They didn’t enjoy their work, and often got lower grades as a result.
My blog post highlights what I love about my PhD outside of the lab, to give people interested in studying a PhD an idea of what else they could take part in outside of their research. A PhD doesn’t have to just be hours slaving in the lab, and other opportunities can make your experience more enjoyable, and boost your CV.
If you want to learn more about the Study What You Love campaign, you can find the website here.
The Element of Nature 