Hi there,
I did my PhD at Griffith Uni on the Gold Coast in QLD. Since I did not do my undergraduate courses at Griffith I didn’t really know much about the university. I was told that you should change university’s throughout your academic levels, which I did.
First off I did a BSc at JCU, which was THE best uni for Marine Science EVER. I would highly recommend JCU to anyone wanting to do Zoology or Marine Science. Now my daughter wants to go up to the Great Barrier Reef to do her BSc and wants to do research on Australian Salt water crocodiles!!! LOL She is 14 yr and I just say yes of course you can do that, you can do anything. I am just amazed that she still wants to do it. So I am quite proud that she has taken in all my passion for science and absorbed it.
This is why I think I would be good at talking to the young ones about which pathway they should be on, which university to choose as they all have their specialities eg JCU is famous for marine science, Sydney uni is great for law and commerce etc.
I have enjoyed my career in science and now I own a business and I am a personal care formulator/cosmetic. I work from home, have a lab where I formulate samples and send to clients.
I did study and work at various universities around Australia for about20 years. I can tell you that the most pristigious uni’s are not always the best.
So, when you have studied and worked at uni for so long you get very used to hanging out with 20 year olds. You get older but they seem to stay the same age LOL I went up the academic ladder fairly quickly, I was a Research Fellow at 36, pumping out papers ready for my induction to professorship, Then I realised I was pregnent, What timing hey???? So I decided to be a mum for a few years then go back. So what I did was open a business and I havnt looked back. Plus I cannot tell you how many jobs are available all the time all over the world.
Anyway, the reason I said choose your supervisor carefully as I did not and I had a terrible time. I ended up coming up with most of my PhD Research myself and it took 5 years, not 3. I also did not know how I was going? For all I know I could have been writing a load of garbage.
All was good in the end but I have a lot to tell the prospective students mistakes to avoid and how to reduce your stress..
I have a lot of experience with analysing universties programs around Australia and I also mentor young women starting a business. We still only have 30% of women on company boards globally, so this is my way of helping that number rise indirectly.
I would love to tell young students about my experiences, study hard but have loads of fun too.
Thank you for reading some of my look back on my university years.
Kind Regards Dr Catherine Pratt