Hey Everybody

So i have just finished a masters and currently unemployed living back home. I'm a recent graduate with no work experience beyond what I have done in the lab during my course, with the prospects for employment in my area quite slim in the area i currently live in (Cumbria). I was wondering while I have free time what I could do to improve my skills and enhance my CV, beyond the obvious get work experience? For example I am looking into doing Cancer Research, should i consider volunteering for cancer research? any other pointers?

Thanks in advance!

Mainly Collecting Money, maybe working at the cancer research shop, that sort of thing :)

It'd be nice to think it would, but I'm pretty sure that if you're up against another equally qualified candidate, and they've got (non cancer) lab experience and you've got cancer related charity experience, the other candidate would have the edge. You can always give it a try (and it's a nice thing to do) but from a career point of view, any paid or unpaid laboratory, quantitative or other experience that demonstrates research skills would be preferable.

I'm making the assumption that you want to do lab work, but if you are interested in more analytic work (med stats/epi) then it would be probably be easier to get relevant experience in other sectors.

Did you do a dissertation for your Masters? Is that something that could be written up into a paper?

Hey, sorry about the late reply!

I did do a dissertation, unfortunately my results were not conclusive and did not produce any viable data, so it will not be possible to publish anything :(.

I'm ultimately looking to do cancer research, but im quite laidback and interested in several academic areas such as neuroscience and pharmacology. I quite frankly have no idea what to do with regards to proposing my own project, so I'm currently applying for funded PhD projects. Do you have any pointers in finding lab experience, as i will happily do unpaid lab work (if its in my local area). Would maybe be worth seeing if my old secondary school would take me on as a voluntary lab technician?

I'm assuming that you'd be willing to relocate to do a PhD? If so, why not think about applying for research lab assistant/technician jobs in other parts of the country. They would teach you far more than working in a school. In addition, they may make the passage to PhD easier in that lab.

It sounds like you're massively underselling yourself right now. Yes, it would be really good to have additional lab experience, but there's nothing stopping you applying for PhDs/research assistant posts based on your current credentials.

With the benefit of hindsight, I would suggest start out as a research assistant to clarify your ideas about what interests you on the research front (you're still quite broad in the scope of your current interests) and then move on to a PhD. Finally, don't worry about not knowing what to put in a research proposal - in lab scientists almost all projects are advertised by the lab. You wouldn't be expected to come up with your own ideas at this stage.