UCL Department of Science and Technology Studies

Support

There is a wide variety of support available to help you with determining your future career direction...

STS Careers Officer

Dr Emma Tobin and Dr Jack Stilgoe coordinate the Department's careers activities. Emma and Jack are available for informal discussions or advice on how you might proceed towards your desired career path. Emma can provide more specific advice to students in the HPS stream while Jack can provide more specific advise to students on the STS stream. Various events and activities will also run throughout the year to support you with your careers choices, for example an alumni session where previous graduates from within STS share their experiences and top tips. Keep an eye on your email account for announcements relating to these and other careers events that might be relevant to you.

UCL Careers Service

UCL also has a central Careers Service who are very experienced in advising students from all sorts of backgrounds about their options, to help them make decisions about careers and to locate employment for many purposes. Our department liaison is Robert Donovan, who has made a special effort to become familiar with the students within STS and their needs.

(link | location)
4th Floor ULU Building
Malet Street
0207 866 3600

Visit the UCL Careers Service for information on: 

• occupations  
• vacancies in full-time, temporary, or holiday employment  
• employers  
• working abroad  
• post-graduate study  

They also provide services related to applications and interviews, post-graduate study decisions, job hunting, and aptitude tests. You can discuss these and related subjects with careers advisers. Also visit the Careers Service to consult:

• Information about Libraries, Professional Institutes, Grants, Training Courses  
• Post-Graduate Directories  
• Vacancy Information: full-time, part-time, and vacation work  
• Daily Newspapers  
• Help sheets

UCL students are also entitled to use the University of London Careers Service Group.

Recent Graduates

As a special bonus, UCL graduates are eligible to join and use UCL's GradClub service up to two years after you complete your qualification at UCL. Seehttp://www.ucl.ac.uk/careers/gradclub for more information.

Podcasts

Dr Jack Stilgoe and Dr Emma Tobin will meet with more STS alumni over the next academic year. Watch this space for podcasts coming up over the next couple of months. 

Careers Advice

Last year, STS's careers officer Dr Karen Bultitude met with Robert Donovan from UCL Careers Service to record a series of podcasts discussing how students can plan for life after STS. You can listen to them by clicking on the links below.

Podcast 1 - Careers Introduction (mp3, 13.5 mins).

Podcast 2 - Final Year Overview (mp3, 11 mins).

Podcast 3 - 1st & 2nd Year Overview (mp3, 9 mins).

Alumni Interviews

What better way to find out about life after your STS degree than to hear it directly from the people who really know? In this series of interviews staff and current students chat with former students about their careers after graduation.

Interview 1 - Jake Soper (BSc History & Philosophy of Science) (mp3 - 13.5 mins)

Jake talks with Karen Bultitude about life in the Civil Service Fast Stream, what he's looking for when he recruits staff - and things he wishes he'd avoided.

Interview 2 - Charlotte Connelly (BSc History & Philosophy of Science) (mp3 10.5 mins).

3rd year student, Chantal Chevailler, interviews Charlotte about the path to her current role as a curator at The Science Museum. 

Interview 3 - Olympia Brown (BSc History & Philosophy of Science) (mp3 14mins)

Karen Bultitude and Olympia Brown talk about working for the Royal Institution and how Olympia got to her role there as the Science Learning Manager.

Interview 4, Marie-Claire Hawthorne (BSc History & Philosophy of Science) (mp3, 7 mins)

Chantal Chevailler chats with Marie-Clarie about internships and how the skills gained in an STS degree transfer to the workplace. 

Interview 5, Megan Whewell (MSci Natural Sciences: Astrophysics & History & Philosophy of Science) (mp3, 13 mis)
In this interview Karen Bultitude and Megan Whewell discuss Megan's work at the National Space Centre which includes taking primary school children on simulated space missions!

Interview 6, Sabina Leonelli (BSc History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science) (mp3, 13 mins)
In this interview Emma Tobin and Sabina Leonelli discuss Sabina's path through MSc & PhD to becoming a senior lecturer at the University of Exeter.

Portfolio

Keep a portfolio of your best work - an organised collection of samples for you to show at interviews.

Essentials

1. Formal cv
2. University record
3. Writing samples - especially different formats and published material
4. Dissertation
5. Screenshots of web projects, list of URLs
6. List of people for recommendations

Ideas

1. Something people will remember as special about you, for example creative projects, photographs of major travel or sports accomplishment
2. Something to represent your skills with other languages
3. Something to represent important employee qualities - it's better to show skills beyond the basics.  These could include:

• collegiality, teamwork, leadership
• time and project management
• ability to complete projects
• computer skills
• presentation skills

The following links provide helpful advice about putting together your portfolio:

• Developing an Academic Portfolio
• FAQs about Portfolios
• Your student portfolio

Volunteering and Internships

Paid internships are few and far between. Unpaid ones are easy to find in London. Each member of staff knows special opportunities that become available from time to time - ask them if they know of anything in your areas of interest.

Some general suggestions:

• Write to your home MP, MEP, or your favourite select committee - MP directory -MEP directory (remind them that you vote and ask if there are any opportunities)
• Natural History Museum
• Science Museum
• British Museum

Careers

The skills you develop during your STS degree will enable you to (among other things) think critically, effectively communicate your ideas, and provide a convincing argument. These skills are applicable to a wide range of potential careers, for example:

• Teaching (link to TDA: Training and Development Agency for Schools). See also the new Teach First Programme for Graduates.

• Civil Service:

  • Fast Stream
  • Recruitment gateway
  • Work experience
• Science policy civil service, particularly (for those with really good European language skills) with the European Commission
• Journalism
• Publishing
• Law conversion, especially patents
• Regulatory agencies, like the Advertising Standards Authority
• Grants administration for funding agencies, such as the Wellcome Trust, Leverhulme Trust, UK Research Councils
• Working for charities and international NGO's
• Think tanks, such as DEMOS
• English Heritage

Additionally, one of our recent postgraduates sees many opportunities for graduates with STS skills:

"I think a career path students fail to consider is sales. Of course I may be biased but this is a career path I know about and it is very different from what a lot of people have in mind. The kind of sales I have in mind is rather of the business to business kind and for hi-tech products. I think those of our students who have done some sociology of science/technology, and who may have studied a bit of sociology of organisations at some point, are especially well suited for this kind of careers. I had studied sociology of organisation during my engineering degree, and I have said many times it was one of the very few courses that were really relevant to my job (on top of being among the few I really enjoyed). To sell complex hi-tech solutions to complex organisations is a lot of 'applied sociology', it means trying to figure out the decision processes, the power games, etc, in the client's organisation. And to do that, you rely on your ears and your eyes when you meet with them, and also on  your talent to do some complementary research (analyse the websites, the press, the annual reports, their comm, etc). Plus if you sell some hi-tech stuff, you have to be able to grasp sci-tech concepts, analyse them, and translate them in useful applications for your clients. ... I would be perfectly ready to talk to students about it if you think it could be useful."

Study existing job adverts

Studying current job advertisements is a good way to survey expectations and opportunities. These websites are industry wide. They're good places to survey, and you can also talk to your STS tutors about other more specialist options:

• academic careers: jobs.ac.uk
• museum careers: www.museumjobs.com
• science writing: www.newscientistjobs.com
• science communication: http://scicommjobs.posterous.com/
• science policy: http://sciencecampaign.org.uk/?page_id=5833

Alumni

STS has been graduating students since 1996. We're currently collecting more detailed information on their career choices, and the paths they took to reach them - watch this space... In the meantime, here is a selected list of some recent graduates'  current roles:

• BBC television - international sales
• Journalist for BBC Today programme
• Oxford Business School
• MPhil/PhD History of Science at Cambridge
• Started own internet company
• Journalism at City University
• Legal studies at Bristol
• Law conversion UCL
• Mentoring programme in Law
• PGCE for teaching
• MA in Medical Ethics and Law at Kings
• MA modern history at UCL
• MSc history of science at UCL
• Primary school administration
• Grants officer, charitable foundation 
• Recruitment consultant
• Logistics manager for major drinks company

Further Study

Thinking about continuing your studies? If you see graduate school in your future, there are three essential steps:

• Talk with staff - they know many of the colleagues and institutions involved; they may also know the specific programme you're interested in, including its strengths and idiosyncrasies.
• Think about money - it's expensive; scholarships are highly competitive; make it worth the cost. Don't just continue your studies because you don't know what else to do; make sure it will be valuable.
• Consider taking a gap year - use your time smartly e.g. perhaps spend a year doing something else; students who create a strong gap year often find themselves re-energised and re-focused when returning to studies. Wider experience is invaluable for academics and practitioners in STS.

The following list provides an overview of different existing relevant options for graduate level studies relevant to STS.

Science Policy

• University of Sussex - Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU)
• University of Manchester - PREST
• London Centre for the History of Science, Medicine and Technology (STS is a partner)
• University of Warwick

History of Science

See these directories for wider information: British Society for the History of Science | History of Science Society. Specific examples include:

• London Centre for the History of Science, Medicine and Technology (STS is a partner)
• University of Cambridge HPS MPhil
• University of Leeds HPS
• University of Manchester - CHSTM
• Durham University - HPSM
• UCL Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine (history of medicine)
• Exeter University - History and Philosophy of Biology

Science Journalism / Communication

• Imperial College London
• University of the West of England - Science Communication Unit
• University of Bath - MSc in Science, Culture and Communication
• University of Edinburgh (in science policy, but with a specialisation in science communication)
• Dublin City University
• University of Leeds MA Science Communication
• University of Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona

See also these directories: UK | whole EU

Philosophy of Science

• LSE/KCL MSc in Philosophy and History of Science
• University of Cambridge HPS
• University of Durham PhD programme
• University of Exeter - genomics and society
• University of Bristol - Philosophy and History of Science
• University of Leeds - HPS plus MA Philosophy of Physics

Sociology of Science / Science Studies

• University of Edinburgh
• University of Cambridge
• University of Bath - MSc in Risk, Health and Science Communication 
• University of Lancaster - History Department

For taught-Masters degrees, on-line directories provide a wider range and often include some funding information. For instance:

• www.findamasters.com
• postgraduatestudentships.co.uk

When you find a programme you like, contact their Admissions Tutor to get further information, and especially to see if it is the right direction for you.