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Asked by Joe to Francesca, Laura, Matthew, Andrew, Rebecca on 10 Nov 2014.
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Matthew Camilleri answered on 10 Nov 2014:
I think a PhD in using light to promote reactions is very important. We have sunshine at least for a few hours per day, and it makes this source of energy as renewable and everlasting.
This means that if we can find a way to harness this energy it would be possible to have unlimited supply of energy. It was just a dream a few years ago, but with PhDs like mine, this can become a reality.
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Laura Schofield answered on 10 Nov 2014:
I think so. I think it’s really important that we, as scientists, look into “greener” ways to make different chemicals. At the moment, almost all of them come from crude oil (nasty black gloopy oil that is buried underground) and the oil is running out. This means that in about 70 years we won’t have any more oil left in the world and so we will either have to find some on another planet and find a way to bring it to Earth OR find some other starting material to make chemicals from. That’s where my research comes in! If we can make plastic from fruit peel, we don’t need to use oil for it and our oil reserves will last longer!
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Francesca Palombo answered on 10 Nov 2014:
It is very important to establish a specialty and a career in academia
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Andrew McKinley answered on 11 Nov 2014:
If you want a career in academia, a PhD is pretty much essential. I think there is an opinion that a PhD is something fancier than it actually is (sorry to the PhD students!) and to an extent it does sound quite cool. It is however on-the-job training; an essential for a researcher. It is, if you like, an academic apprenticeship, where you learn to become an academic. Doing a PhD is difficult, but then it should be – you are learning new stuff all the time.
Your car mechanic will have gone through a similar process – it will take them a few years to build up the skills to repair your car; the same is true of machinists and engineers. Doing a PhD is simply part of your training to become an academic, where you learn to become an independent researcher
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Rebecca Ingle answered on 11 Nov 2014:
As I’d like to be an academic one day, a PhD is really an essential part of that process. It would be difficult to get a job in this field without the knowledge and skills that a PhD gives you as there aren’t many very specialised science graduate training schemes for you to learn the skills ‘on the job.’
There are definitely a lot of science jobs that absolutely don’t require PhDs but it depends what kind of work you’re interested in doing. If you want to be designing the new drug molecules rather than running routine testing, having some additional research experience is really useful and one of the great things about the PhD is you get the time and space to pursue all the skills you want to obtain (for example, I do a lot of programming courses as well as all the sciency stuff.)
Comments
Joe commented on :
Why do we call it a Philosophy Doctorate? As not all science is philosophical, surely ChD. (Chemistry Doctorate) would be a better name?
Andrew commented on :
ChD… I like that 🙂
Largely it is because you are generating knowledge – that is, you are discovering things that have never been discovered before, and that, by its very nature, is “philosophy”.
There is a qualification known as a DSc – a Doctorate in Science. Typically this is awarded as a second doctorate (after your PhD) and is a collection of your published work – usually 15-20 years of your work actually!