When I sat down at the age of 17 to fill out the CAO form, I went for a general science degree in Maynooth University. I knew that there was more to science than physics, chemistry, biology and maths, and I wanted this wider perspective in a degree course that covered those basic sciences alongside engineering, data science, theoretical physics, experimental physics and more.
I did maths and biology in the first years, but ultimately finished with a chemistry degree.
I’m now a postgrad, in my final year of a four-year PhD on glycoscience, which looks at the sugar compositions of proteins and their function in our immune system. In particular, I focus on the antibody IgG, engineering it to have different sugar structures that we can apply as therapies to rheumatoid arthritis and even certain cancers.
I teach labs and workshops to undergraduates and, even if not directly using an equation or idea, my degree has helped to build up my wider knowledge.
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I decided on this postgraduate after doing summer work in a biology lab and loving it. We were used to the labs in the University of Galway, but university labs for undergraduate students are generally set up to learn specific things in a specific context, whereas in an actual lab you are learning new techniques and always problem-solving.
What will come after the PhD? At the moment, it is wide open. I have not thought too much about it, though I would like to try out working in industry as it is so different from academia. I would have to be in a department like research and development, where I am problem solving; I’m not a repetitive person, so doing the same tasks over and over would bore me, and I need an interactive job. Or I could go down the route of a postdoctoral position and continue doing work.
If I had any advice or tips, it is not to get too bogged down in the specific aspects of a job or a PhD. Science is science, so as long as you love it, you will find joy in it.
I understand the need to know where you are going and what the next step will be, but as long as it is science and research, I know that I can learn and develop in a good environment.
I am really glad that I did the PhD, as I am a very different person now than when I started. I have gained so much resilience. Failure is not an option, as trial and error - and often just error - have made me see that there are thousands of ways you can fix a problem.
- In conversation with Peter McGuire
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