Science grads look to future

Pomp and circumstance, job market and real world. At the end of
this week, that will be the turning point faced by thousands of
students graduating with degrees in the life, physical and
mechanical sciences.

Post-cap-and-gown plans for south campus majors range from jobs
in the science or engineering industries to research positions and
graduate school.

For the 3,000 students enrolled in the Henry Samueli School of
Engineering and Applied Sciences, the job market looks relatively
friendly, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the U.S.
Department of Labor.

Half of 1.5 million jobs held by engineers in 2000 were found in
manufacturing industries, such as companies that make
transportation and electronic equipment or industrial
machinery.

A smaller percentage of engineers are also employed by the
government, primarily within the Departments of Defense or
Transportation.

Ann Karagozian, a professor in the Department of Mechanical and
Aerospace Engineering, recommends students graduating in SEAS go on
and earn higher degrees.

“Getting an engineering Ph.D. gives you a great deal of
technical depth and also enables you to broaden yourself,”
Karagozian said.

“It’s very tempting for a student to go out and work
with a bachelor’s degree but in order to move up in a company
and tackle some of the really challenging technical problems, they
need at least a masters degree,” she added.

Another option for engineering students who are considering
going on to graduate studies is a career in academia.

“It gives you a great deal of flexibility to be a faculty
member,” Karagozian said.

The ability to conduct research as a professor requires applying
for grants and other types of government funding.

In order to obtain that funding, university engineering
professors must constantly familiarize themselves with new
technologies, computational methods and the shifting interests of
the government.

Karagozian sees the academic environment as extremely
intellectually stimulating.

Jobs with large companies like Hewlett Packard or Lockheed
Martin, although higher paying, entail research oriented toward
more short-term goals.

I have quite a few friends who went into the industry, and often
the type of work they do doesn’t change as significantly from
every few years,” she said.

Crossing the spectrum of sciences from mechanical and electronic
to health and genetics, graduating students of UCLA’s life
science departments have many paths to choose from as well.

The option of medical school remains a popular choice,
especially since doctors and physicians remain among the highest
earners of any occupation, according to the American Medical
Association.

Salary aside, the medical profession holds other rewards that
pre-med undergraduates are already aiming for.

“When you go to med school or become a physician
you’re able to treat not only the illness but the
person,” said Ben Winarko, second-year pre-med English
student.

“You can influence them both physically, mentally and
emotionally.”

In the life sciences, a choice also exists between the academics
and the industrial or corporate job market of biotech and
pharmaceutical companies.

Asim Dasgupta, a professor in the department of Microbiology,
Immunology and Molecular Genetics at the David Geffen School of
Medicine, has seen both sides of the biotech coin.

While at UCLA, Dasgupta founded Virasim, a biotechnolgy company
which researched drugs to cure Hepatitis C and other diseases.

However, after trying his hand at the business and corporate
side of science, he decided to pass the management of the company
to someone else and return his focus to academia.

“Dealing with people who do business is very
cutthroat,” Dasgupta said. “There is competition with
people inside our field outside of the institution, but it’s
not that kind of competition.”

Although working in a corporation would result in higher pay,
Dasgupta and other professors choose academics because of a love
for research and a need for independence.

“I can do whatever I want with all my ideas in the
lab,” Dasgupta said. “Out there, I have to do what they
want because it’s tied up with money.”

These sentiments are shared by James Lake, a professor in the
departments of molecular, cell and developmental biology and human
genetics.

For Lake, a love for science has also kept him to research and
the teaching profession.

“With the sort of things we get to see, you feel like
you’re an explorer discovering a new world because you get to
understand something the first time anyone on earth has understood
it,” Lake said.

Academia is also not without its own brand of competition,
however. Each day, most professors spend eight hours performing
university duties and teaching, and another six hours per day
conducting research.

A single professorial position at UCLA and other top research
school generally has 250 applicants vying for it, Lake said.

Science students uncertain of which path to take can learn the
methods of research by working for a professor in a lab, Dasgupta
said.

“Out of the 20 or so students that volunteer in my lab, I
can see maybe four or five that really love it,” he said.

“They are now thinking of going into academia.”

For those that hope to bridge the laboratory and the hospital,
there is yet another career option that is possible with graduate
study.

Helena Minye, a former UCLA MCDB major, graduated in 2002 and
now holds a position as staff research associate for that
department.

Minye hopes to earn both the M.D. and Ph.D. degrees, combining
research and medicine and strengthening her background in both
arenas.

“When I have the M.D. degree, I’ll be able to have
the knowledge about patients and medicine and apply that to
research,” she said.