From LISA TREVETHICK
As an unemployed graduate of 1992, Bernard McAuley (Letters, 17 April)
should not give up hope yet. I graduated in 1991 and am still unemployed. I
have given up counting the job applications and have had just three
interviews. Some of my rejection letters tell me how many applicants there
were: 400-600 are quite usual and one company apologised for the length of
time it took them to sort through over 1000.
After a year of feeling very unwanted and useless, I decided to set up my
own research project, not because I wanted a PhD, but simply to give myself
something to do, expand my skills and demonstrate to a potential employer
that I am hard-working, determined and can use my initiative. My idea was
accepted by Exeter University and I am now registered as a part-time MPhil
student. I have a couple of small grants towards the costs of field work,
but have no foreseeable way to pay off the bank loan which I took out to pay
the registration and bench fees.
Is this the way that a scientist’s career is now meant to begin – loans to
top up the pitiful student grant, then further debt to improve skills and
qualification just to stand a chance of getting a one-year contract (with
possible extension to three years, of course)? I am surprised that the
abandonment of science by graduates was considered newsworthy enough to
warrant an entire article (Careers, 27 March).
I shall keep on at my research and fill in yet more application forms. In
the meantime, if anyone out there needs a freshwater and marine biologist .
. .
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Lisa Trevethick
Exeter
