If you were to swap jobs with another scientist here who would you swap with? And why?

Question: If you were to swap jobs with another scientist here who would you swap with? And why?
- Keywords:
  alternative career,
  I'm a Scientist
Asked by sarah07 on 29 Apr 2020.
- James Sullivan answered on 29 Apr 2020:
  
  I think studying anthropology (human societies and cultures – and why they are as they are) would be really interesting.
  I only know one anthropologist. Jared Diamond (who started out as a biologist) writes very interesting accessible books.
- Laura Finnegan answered on 29 Apr 2020:
  
  I don’t want to pick out any names, but I think it would be really cool to work in an area of science that involves getting out of the lab – like a marine biologist or zoologist or maybe environmental scientist. To be able travel to new places to take samples or do surveys sounds very exciting. I think astronomy would also be cool (though I’m afraid I was never very good at math or physics). I spend all of my time researching the microscopic organisms inside our bodies and the DNA in our cells – it would be a interesting to start looking up at things that are so much bigger than all of us for a change 🙂
- Ollie Otter answered on 29 Apr 2020:
  
  Excellent question!
  I would swap with one of the scientists at ESO, the European Southern Observatory (which Ireland joined last year I think). They have a few very large telescopes in Chile.
  I’m a massive fan of astronomy and also would love to visit Chile, as I’ve never been there.
- Chloe Matthews answered on 29 Apr 2020:
  
  That’s a really hard question! Can I swap with every scientist for a few weeks at a time? I’d love to try out different areas and see what I like the most. I’ve always loved environmental science so maybe swap into that area and try to combine it what I know about microbes. I’d like to learn more about how they interact in the environment.
- Mark Kennedy answered on 29 Apr 2020:
  
  I’d be very interested in working in climate science. I find it amazing that we are able to understand as much as we do about the chaotic system that is our climate, and it’s an incredibly important field with lots of real world implications (unlike my current field, where I just study stars because I think they’re cool, rather than because they will affect our lives).
- Louise Mc Grath answered on 29 Apr 2020:
  
  Hi sarah07,
  I think I would swap with my friend who is a marine biologist! I love the sea, and am a qualified scuba diver, so it would be an amazing job for me!
- Aisling Ryan answered on 29 Apr 2020:
  
  This is a great question! I have a lot of experience working in labs, but I’ve always envied field scientists who get to work outside or travel to cool locations to study the ecosystem there! I’d love to swap jobs with some sort of zoologist. Zoology is a very diverse degree, but once you have completed your undergraduate degree in college you can specialise into working with a specific species, or animal family. Depending on what you study you could work in a museum looking at fossils, or scuba diving looking at aquatic life, or on a remote island studying birds as just a few examples. My boyfriend studied zoology and he gets to go scuba diving in Indonesia and the Philippines as his research projects whilst I’m stuck in a lab in rainy Dublin doing mine!
- Gustavo Velasco-Hernandez answered on 29 Apr 2020:
  
  I have always liked biology. Even for my Leaving Cert equivalent in Colombia, my highest score was on Biology but chose electronics engineering as my field of study, though. However, I find very interesting the field of virology and how weird these viruses are. So definitely I would go for virology, which includes a bit of genetics, molecular chemistry, and more!
- Aruna Chandrasekar answered on 29 Apr 2020:
  
  If I could I would like to try my hand on animal science (zoology). I have always loved animals.
- Sonia Lenehan answered on 30 Apr 2020:
  
  Oh great question! I really love what I do at the moment, but I think if I could swap jobs with another scientist for a few weeks I would like to work with research projects that are trying to discover why we get certain brain diseases as we grow older such as dementia and Parkinson’s Disease! I was always interested in this area in college!
- Lea Duran answered on 30 Apr 2020:
  
  Oh that would be very hard to choose! But I think I would go for something very different maybe more human related in sociology/ humanities, something that would require me to interview people and understand things about us!
- Florence McCarthy answered on 30 Apr 2020:
  
  I would consider swopping with a physicist as I’ve always been interested in that field
- Ehren Dixon answered on 30 Apr 2020:
  
  I would love to swap jobs with someone working in forensics! Solving crimes using chemistry and biology (science in general) would be amazing!
- Anna Zakrzewska answered on 30 Apr 2020:
  
  I would like to be a bioengineer, the nature is fascinating and often has solutions to other problems, we need to be patient to investigate those. This could cover plant-grows vaccines or bio-inspired robots.
- Michael Nolan answered on 1 May 2020:
  
  Given I was not smart enough to do astrophysics and astronomy, I would swap with the folks in those fields. Who couldnt be inspired every morning by the idea of studying the Universe and knowing we can make sense of it from our little planet in the back end of a standard galaxy
- Roisin Jones answered on 6 May 2020:
  
  I’d love to have a swap with someone doing astrophysics, I love space and it was something I seriously considered pursuing, so it would be fun to try it out for a few weeks!
- Lucy Blennerhassett answered on 6 May 2020:
  
  Hmm what a tricky one. I think I would stick to the outdoors/field work aspect (I could never give that up ahh) but I would love to work with animals/in conservation! How cool would it be to help protect and understand native species!?
- Katherine Benson answered on 12 May 2020:
  
  I feel like I’m quite specialized in what I do, and would really struggle to swap jobs with another scientist. When you study for as long as we do, and spend so much time learning about your area, it really highlights how much you have left to learn! If I had to pick, at the moment it would be really cool to be able to help study COVID-19.
- Jun Lin answered on 16 May 2020:
  
  I would swap the job with my boyfriend who is a scientist in quantum chemistry.

Comments

sarah07 commented on 30 Apr 2020:

Thank you everyone for answering my questions! Lovely to see so many of you answering my questions!

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Question: If you were to swap jobs with another scientist here who would you swap with? And why?