What my day entailed… I stumbled out of bed at the crack of dawn (about 9am – one of the many perks of working for a university), organised myself for the day ahead and arrived at work on time at 10am. When I arrived I opened up my office, started up my computer and prepared myself a cup of coffee to assist in that much needed coffee fix. I then made myself comfortable in front of my computer and started scrolling through my emails - only 12 new messages- it must be a quiet day… After sifting through, reading, and replying to emails, I started to proof read a mid-session exam for our Commercial Biotechnology course that I had been preparing during the week- 20 True/False and 20 Multiple Choice questions… There were a couple of typo’s which were easily fixed and one repeated question for which I had to replace with another – no real dramas… Once the exam was ready to go, I cleared my desk of random admin tasks – I booked rooms for some upcoming seminars, I chased up some information that was required for student enrolments, I finished off a timetable for the Units’ marketing program and I compiled a list of students interested in one of our programs. These tasks ended up taking most of the morning.

At 1pm I attended a meeting with some of our students that are enrolled in our Young Achievement Australia (YAA) business skills program (unfortunately no lunch-break today). As a mentor for this program I am required to assist a team of students to run a small real-life company. Today was the second meeting, and was primarily in relation to brainstorming and deciding on the company’s name and product. The actions that came out of the meeting were a decision on the company name (‘UNSWayable’- quite clever as it includes the essential criteria of having the letters ‘ya’ in it, as well as incorporating UNSW!) and four ideas for the product were short-listed. Each of the members were given the task of preparing and conducting marketing surveys on the four short-listed products for which they have to report back at the next weekly meeting.

On the way back to my office I grabbed a sandwich and continued to eat it in front of my computer while setting up WebCT (a web-based teaching resource which includes discussion forums, lecture notes, etc.) for the YAA business skills program. Later in the afternoon I spent some time organizing some details necessary for some of our students to graduate in the upcoming graduation ceremonies. Finally, I spent some time preparing this document which took me to the end of my working day… It is a hard job trying to condense a full day into just a few paragraphs – It’s concise but I hope it’s legible!

How I ended up in this position… Basically, at high school I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life (sound familiar?). I decided to aim broad and enrol myself in a combined Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Arts degree (UNSW) as I was fairly good at chemistry, physics and history. I started out by choosing a major in Chemistry and History, but after the first semester of uni I had a change of mind and decided to major in Physics and Philosophy. By the beginning of second year at uni I was majoring in Physiology for my BSc and History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (HPST for short) for my BA, and by the end of it, I swapped the Physiology major for a Pharmacology one. In addition, somewhere during the forth year of uni I decided to undertake an Honours program in Biotechnology (or was talked into it- either one), which ended up having a large immunology component to it (funny, as I had never done any immunology before).

As you can tell, my University experience was definitely not a straight or predetermined path, and I ended up where my 'winds of interest' took me from session to session. While I was undertaking a BSc and BA, I was also completing a Diploma in Innovation Management at UNSW which taught me about the commercial side of science. It was from this course that I really found my passion for science - not the theories, hypotheses, research, bench work or data collection and analysis, but, rather the business aspects of science. In this course I learnt about such things as the processes involved in the commercialisation of scientific enterprises, business planning, intellectual property, basic accounting and current trends in the biotechnology industry.

During my time at university I also gathered invaluable skills by working as a Scientific Officer and Laboratory Technician for various clinical diagnostic service providers. Although these positions were primarily service focused rather than research focused, I did gain extensive experience in professional laboratory practices and learnt about the various protocols and regulations required for diagnostic service providers. Yet most importantly I realised from this experience (along side my Honours year) that lab work was not for me!!!