Question: Why did you decide to change career and was it easy to transition from sport journalism to neuroscience? Were your degrees sufficient and if not did this put you at a disadvantage? Would you say that anyone could change their career to anything they want, no matter how different this might be to what one might be doing at the moment?

Ria Vaportzis answered on 7 Nov 2016:

I decided to change countries (I moved from Greece to Australia) and changed career as a consequence. It would be difficult to find work as a sports journalist in Australia as English isn’t my first language. The transition was time-consuming, as I had to start and complete a new degree. I didn’t mind it, but it’s something that a lot of people think about when it comes to changing careers. I can’t say it was easy, but I can’t say it was hard either. It was a smooth process, which I enjoyed along the way.

I can definitely say that any one person can do very different things in their lives, and changing careers nowadays is not as rare as it used to be. However, keep in mind that for certain careers one needs certain qualifications. If one wants to be a doctor for example, but they don’t have high marks to get into medicine, then they won’t be able to change their career into that of a doctor no matter how much they want it.