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Starting a Career in Science at Age 38?
A Science Nostalgic writes "I'm 38, have a successful career as a software developer but feel the all-too-similar enterprise apps are boring my brains out, and I'm intensely missing the world of science, which I didn't pursue in favor of programming when I got my engineering degree. Now, I'm contemplating a job in research, but fear the age and the lack of 'exercise' with math and physics would pose an understandable handicap. If I study math seriously, I can realistically shed the 'rust' in a year, maybe two, but I still fear I'll be considered too old for research. I graduated abroad so I don't have any old contacts at the local universities (there are a few in my city). I checked their job boards, and they have no positions for research, just the usual ones in software development that I could use as an entry point. Do you have any experience with such a career change? Is it feasible at all to get into science once you approach 40? I feel my brain is still alive and kicking, and years of debugging have taught me a few things about investigating causes and correlations, which are useful skills in research."
Do you have any experience with such a career change?
no - it's weird you would even ask.
Is it feasible at all to get into science once you approach 40?
like i said, i'm probably not the best to ask but my guess would be no - it's not. i've never found taking risks or pushing for change to be worthwhile.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Also, I know when I was taking my classes in physics as an undergrad, there were several people in your situation. People who wanted to get into a new field at 30 or 40 and picked physics. I would say try to find a field that your coding skills will shine in, but where you can use them in a way that doesn't bore you to tears. You're experience should serve you well.
Of course you may be taking a pay cut starting in a new field and all....
You might just end up with the, "Body is willing but the mind is not" thing though.
Old people tend to have the opposite kinda problem, but hey. Mid-life crisis and all that.
(Kidding, kidding)
On a serious note, I know several people who decided to take up alternative careers or go for a PhD much later in life. When I was in grad school, there was this guy who had graduated from MIT in the 80s and came back in his 40s to go to grad school.
He had his own company, so that was helping him support himself. And I've seen several people who decide later on in life that they want to specialize in something different because they felt that they weren't using their head enough at their current job.
I think at the end of the day, anyone can do it - you just have to like it enough. Goodluck!
Change is good. The human mind is a wonderful thing, it allows you to learn how to do new things no matter how old you are.
Bottom line, do it if you want a new challange and it interests you. I recently changed jobs (my last day at my current job is actually today), my new job hold alot of challange and requires skills that i both have and haven't developed ~yet~.
If humans were happy doing the same thing all the time, we would have never moved out of caves. It's human nature to want to be challanged and inspired by new things.
-Pizentios
Your age may be a benefit, actually, if you play your cards right. You may not have the knowledge that someone fresh out of graduate school would have, but you have maturity and (hopefully) stability.
Have you considered keeping your job but getting into teaching? Your company may like it and let you do both--it's good PR and a great opportunity to get quality employees. From their perspective you're basically giving your students a 4 month interview process. Teaching can be a great challenge and may be more fulfilling than trying to advance yourself enough to do research. Good teaching will also advance your own skillsets, too.
I hear there is good money in debunking these scurrilous theories about man's effect on climate.
Their they're doing there hair.
Wow, like my horoscope this morning totally said like the exact same thing. Are you a Taurus?
I'm a theoretician in a physical science and my learning capacity, memory, and math abilities have not diminished with age; to the contrary I feel like they've gotten stronger and ... wait, what were we talking about?
What field of science you want to enter determines what level of math prowess you must have. If you're going to be a physicist, then you need to be strong in math. Chemist or biochemist - that depends upon what type of chemistry you're going to do. Simple algebra could be enough if you're thinking about organic chemistry or molecular biology.
I'm an organic chemist who practices material science and fire safety engineering - and I haven't had to use calculus since I took it for grade in undergrad. Algebra is about as difficult as I encounter in my field, and to some extent (and I know this will cause howls of disbelief and screams of being a lame scientist), there are many programs that do the complex math for you. It is more important to understand the concepts and design good experiments in many of the physical sciences than to be actually good at the underlying math in the equation behind measurements in that experiment. The exception to this is if you're actually measuring the measurements or determining new ways of measuring physical phenomena...but now you're moving back into the realm of physics which does require good math skills.
I would look at what you want to do and then figure out if you've got the math chops to do it before worrying about this too much.
-When going for broke, go for Ithaca!
Don't do a wholesale switch where you abandon your skill set for whatever Science you prefer.
The way I did it was literally cold-calling people in the field I wanted to be in, eventually got some feedback on the skills I had versus the skills I needed to be desirable in that field and figured out ways to get those skills in a professional environment.
It won't happen overnight and it requires constantly thinking about where you want to be versus where you are but it will happen.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Most people working as scientists have gone through a process that includes MS, PhD and post-doctoral studies that take 7-10 years after completion of their BS level degrees. Some people manage to do it by starting at a lower level and gaining the equivalent in experience and study as they work. You are seriously missing this background. With an engineering BS you would be starting as a low level technician. To go and try to get this science background would take you years of additional study, if even you could find a program that would accept you at your age. By the time you completed this you would be near age 50.
I am not saying it is impossible, my father went for his PhD when he was about your age - but his circumstances were rather different - he had already been working in an R&D role for many years, and was able to get funding from a prestigious scholarship to pay both a salary and his college tuition because he had built up a strong reputation as a scientist without the PhD degree. People who can do this are pretty rare.
The biggest problem with mid-life career change is avoiding getting in at the bottom rung in your new career. As an established professional, you'll want to demand more money, and be willing to work fewer hours, than your typical early-career employee in your new field.
I would advise you (as I've been advised) to search for a company that has both roles, your current one and your desired one -- and explicitly state during the interview process that you're looking to change to the new career. If you find the right company, they may even pay for refresher courses.
Once you establish with your target company that you're extremely enthusiastic about them and the roles (as well as being a go-getter and a good worker) you'll be in good shape. At a bare minimum, make sure you've read the latest journals in the particular field, so you can dmeonstrate your interest.
One other note -- taking the initiative to better your situation is a Good Thing(tm), both for yourself, and to prospective employers. Many good employers will consider that a huge advantage over a candidate who is just beginning a career and can't be sure if that's where they really want to be.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
unless you like working for overpaid incompetents, slaving your ass off for pennies, meaningless work and zero job satisfaction.
Obviously he wouldn't go into science if he liked these things...he would just stay in software development.
The national labs generally support training on the job, so if you come in as a programer, you can get a second degree and move over to a science position. Look at the National Academies website http://www.national-academies.org/ to find mentor contacts in a field that interests you. Career Links is down and to the right.
--
Or, convert everyone to solar http://www.powur.com/mdsolar
In the case of the biological sciences, if you want to run a lab, you need to put five years into your graduate career and have a ~five year successful post-doc. If the applicant is 40, that means they won't be able to even apply for a faculty position until they're 50. If the applicant is looking at industry, then five years of experience is equivalent to a PhD (in order to get top industry job you still need that successful post-doc position) and graduate school won't help them. If the applicant "simply wants to learn", they they appear to have no focus. We have picked up older applicants, though they all had very good reasons for seeking an advanced degree (for example, in two cases they wanted to teach at the community college level). If you apply to graduate school, you must address these issues in your essay. Also, when you write your essay, focus on your work/research experience (this goes for all applicants) as we don't care about 'how you've dreamed of being a scientist since you were two'.
One other piece of advice, if you want a job in research, don't look at the job boards. Find a lab that interests you, and contact the PI directly. People come and go all the time and if I don't have a position open, I typically know of someone who does. I've never hired someone through HR, but only hire people who are interested in my research as I don't have enough time to focus on someone who 'simply wants a job'. Best of luck to you.
I guess I'm the guy designated to piss on your parade.
You're vague in your post, but to me "doing research in science" means either academia or working in an industrial research lab. What "science" means is harder to say, but I'll assume it's one of the traditional sciences, and not computer science, for which your prospects might be better depending on the flavor of CS you want to do.
All that said, the truth is that you're in for an uphill battle, and you will have to REALLY want it. I'm in the CSCI PhD program at a top 10 university and can tell you unreservedly not to bother with any of this unless you want your quest to be the principle thing in your life. One might debate whether this need be true for a person who's gone the traditional route, but PhDs are hard, and you need one to do what I've described above as "science research."
Let's assume you're a passionate guy, you work sixty hours a week anyway, and this is a well thought-out dream you're on the cusp of pursuing. Here's what I'd recommend:
0: Buy a bunch of Schaum's outlines in pre-calculus, calculus, differential equations, probability, and statistics. Beginning working through them. Somebody posted on here that he's a scientist and rarely uses anything above algebra. That's probably true, but irrelevent. You don't have that luxury; you have to be better than everyone else or nobody's gonna bother with you. Regaining the math chops will be easier than you imagine if you're diligent, by which I mean you work on it everyday for a couple of hours, as if you were taking a class. If you're not diligent you're fucked anyway.
1: Enroll in a decent public institution. Not necessarily in grad school; I took some classes post-BS w/ my status as "Adult special" which is for people who just want to learn stuff, not worry about a degree.
2: Take classes in your area of interest. You'll probably have to start w/ undergrad classes. Prepare to feel weird among all the 18 year old hotties.
3: MAKE CONNECTIONS. Be the guy who asks questions in class, and make them good questions. Get to know the teachers, and make them like you. This is a critical step. Make them know your name, and know you do excellent work and are a smart guy.
4: When you know some profs who are doing research things that you're interested in, ask them if you can help. Researchers love this; that's how our group gets new people. You get involved, you do whatever they tell you to, you PRODUCE. After a history of successes you can make inquiries about whether this person would support your attempt at admission.
5: Apply for admission. You will need to have taken the GRE by this point, and probably a topic test, which your studies should have prepared you for. You'll need letters of admission, which your schmoozing, ass-kicking performance in class, and volunteering should make easy.
Like I said before, all of this stuff will consume your life. If you're the sort of guy whose life is consumed already, then this might be OK. If you expect to dick around for a little bit, and then somehow get everything you want, well, it's not going to work.
If you REALLY want it it can be done, but if you don't REALLY want it then you should find some way to get the satisfaction you're looking for from less drastic changes. I went back to school at 32, so I want to support the underdog. Good luck.
I don't think it's ever too late to do something new. One of my professors related a story about a student of his that just died at age 94. The man worked a full career, retired at age 60, and decided to go to law school. He got a job as an attorney for a nearby city and worked literally until the day he died, because he enjoyed it and didn't like being idle. The man worked *a whole second 30 year career* after putting in 38 years in his first career.
As an engineer currently in law school, I'm something of the reverse (although I feel I'm 'adding law' rather than 'leaving science'). They're just different mindsets.
A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.
If you're OK with just working with physics as opposed to doing research yourself, there are other places where software is a research tool and the people who write it get to learn about the physics.
The national supercomputer centers sometimes have ultimately cool projects like simulating galaxies colliding and rendering images of the result. That gets you the fun of programming big iron, some really challenging numerical problems, shock wave physics, and the chance to watch science being made from the inside. Once there, you can at least try to impress the right people and move into doing your own research. For sure you'll get a clearer idea whether that's what you want to do.
I'm a Corvette. Vroom!
hi,
after abandoning careers in market/advertising/PR and computing consulting, i returned to college and, starting from the bottom, obtained a physics BS at age 35, a master's at 37 and a Ph.D. in experimental high-energy physics at 44 -- i'm currently a post-doc and will start searching for a real job either in academia or national labs (not necessarily in the US) starting this summer -- moreover, it seems reasonably realistic to believe that i can obtain such a permanent position
however, that said, there is an age bias built into the system and you additionally must be willing to accept drastically reduced earnings expectations over the (hopefully long!) time span of the rest of your life
however, my life is infinitely richer now than it might have ever been had i stayed in the business of business
good luck!
Actually, that is not regarded as true anymore. As put forward in the book "Old Masters and Young Geniuses: The Two Life Cycles of Artistic Creativity" by David W. Galenson, he notes that there are two classes of "genius." There are those who create at a very young age and don't do anything but revise those creations as they get older, and those who spend a lifetime building up experiences until finally in their later years they produce "masterworks." In terms of applicability to the original post, scientific research has room for both. His experience he cites would indeed be useful, and he could use it as a foundation for entering research.
I am. I am in the midst of going back to grad school after about 15 years of IT/Software work. Most of the people I spoke with said older students are really not at a disadvantage as thier experience and work ethic usually pull them through.
There are also fileds like geology where the stereotype is that older people in the field make the most important discoveries.
You should maybe take a few classes in math, chemistry or whatever you may need to brush up. Statistics is never wasted.
Also, being in software and if you know a little math, you can probably get a job as a modeler to pay for school (assistantship).
So I say, 'go for it'
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
ggKimmieGal,
I think that the old canard about scientists doing their best work under the age of 30 is mainly something that research assistants throw around in the hope that they'll get tenure. I've been around scientists all my life and I can tell you it's baloney, invented by scientists under 30.
Someone very close to me is in the process of getting her second PhD at the age of 50, in an area of mathematics that's about as "out there" as it gets. A reviewer at one of the prestigious journals wrote, about some of her papers, without knowing her age, that she's a "rising young star".
Why would musicians, artists, inventors, novelists, philosophers, linguists and economists all get better as they get older, but not scientists? Unless you're a hooker or a professional athlete, age should not be a barrier.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I entered grad studies (MSc) in computer science at age 39. As a mechanical & electrical engineer, my lack of background in math and computer science made it a huge challenge. But what got me an opportunity to take the program was bull-headed hard work in my work years before that. With that work ethic, plus the maturity fitting my age, I made top student beating out younger, and often brighter, students fresh out of their undergrad programmes. My point, and the lesson I took away, is that it's not really about your brain. It's mostly about how hard you're willing to work.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.