• Question: how many years of uni did you have to go throung to become a scientist?

    Asked by anon-195220 to Reka, Laura, Kevin, Ed on 14 Jan 2019.
    • Photo: Reka Nagy

      Reka Nagy answered on 14 Jan 2019:


      I studied biology/genetics for my undergraduate degree, which in Scotland took 4 years – in England (and a lot of Europe) an undergraduate degree takes 3 years however.
      After that, I did a PhD for 4 years – again, the duration of this varies with location/university and can take anywhere from 3 to 6 years (in the US!).

    • Photo: Laura Nolan

      Laura Nolan answered on 15 Jan 2019:


      To become a scientist you will typically need to do at least a Bachelor’s degree in Science (for me this was 3 years in Australia). If you want to do further study to perhaps be able to gain more skills or autonomy in your research then you could do on to do a Masters (this took me 1 year in Australia) and then perhaps a PhD (it took me 3.5 years in Australia). So all up 7.5 years for me! But I would say it was worth it as now I am doing the research I want to do, have the skills I need (or the ability to learn new ones relatively quickly) and opportunity for advancement in my career.

    • Photo: Ed Morrison

      Ed Morrison answered on 15 Jan 2019:


      3 years undergrad + 1 year Masters + 3 years PhD = 7 years for me.

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