April 25, 2003
A: FROM MENTOR ELEANORA ROBBINS IN CA
In talking to many teenagers, I have discovered that most smart girls have at least 5 different fields they are interested in. (Boys typically focus on one field and they stick with it through the rest of their lives.) An important issue to understand is that having an expected 90 year life span, you actually can do most of it, just not all at the same time. You start with one field, get your college degree(s), work in that field, start taking courses in the next field, eventually work in that, and start picking up courses in the next field, etc.

I’ll share my experiences in trying to find my way in science along with all the many other things I was interested in. My dad always said to ask three people how they solved a particular problem (don’t just ask your girlfriends for advice); after you hear three different solutions, you begin to get some sense of what is possible for you. In 1978 at the government agency I worked for, we had a director who told us that the future is at the intersection of two fields—like geophysics, biochemistry, and scientific writing. He said that any field which has been around for a long time and had more than 500 practitioners and more than 4 journals (scientific magazines) about the subject, had nothing new and useful coming out of it. He used paleontology as his example. I was fully funded and realized that I was working at an interface, biogeology, which is the intersection between biology and geology. In 1995, 30% of the scientists were fired from my agency because of reduction in government funding. I realized that those of us who survived the firings had three fields; I was a biogeologist working in economic microbiology. Being trained in three fields, us successful scientists were able to switch from one field to the next to follow the funding. In 2001, I retired and am beginning to work on my next two fields—I love the environment and I worry about kids who have no advantages like I had, being the daughter of a scientist. So I am beginning to gather data to start a new environmental field (Environmental Sedimentology, the study of the transport and fate of trash in rivers) and I am teaching outdoors science to kids on Indian reservations in my county.

As far as I know, neuroecology isn’t a field yet, and graphic artists haven’t taken courses in the emerging field of environmental geophysics yet. Therefore, there is plenty of room for you and your cool ideas in the future.

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A: FROM MENTOR SHEILA ENGLAND IN PA
Alexis,
It sounds like you have the curious mind of a research scientist.
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April 22, 2003
A: FROM MENTOR ANNE LUCIETTO IN IL
Alexis,
You can do whatever you set your heart out to do! I've always been what my family terms eclectic in my choice of what I like to do! I'm a Mechanical Engineer by degree and position... but I'm fortunate to work at a large facility with a very supportive structure. The people that I work with and for understand that I love biology... so I'm involved with our sitewide group in environmental things and have been named to the group that is responsible for making sure that all of our future buildings are built with LEED's in mind. I majored in music for a time and also sing in the "for fun" choir that meets on our site! One of my projects is to investigate the cause of very quick pipe deterioration and to spec out pipe that should be put in it's place to maximize it's life... this is going to be the subject of my Master's Thesis and it seems as though my Masters is going to be in Civil/Materials Engineering. One last item... I teach math at our local community college and have taught business (I have an MBA).

I hope that helps... yes, you can go from one to the next and even integrate them!

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A: FROM MENTOR JOAN LUSK IN RI
It's perfectly OK to want to do a million different things. (What
the world needs is an invention to increase the number of hours in
the day so we _can_ do the other 999,990 or so!) If you take
advantage of the opportunities that arise to study different things
or try out different things as a volunteer or in short-term jobs,
you'll find that some really appeal to you and others do not, or
appeal much less as a major commitment. Finding a focus tends to
happen naturally - even though that focus may shift over time.

Most people (even scientists) have interests outside of their jobs,
and most people change careers several times during their lifetimes.
Even someone who can describe her entire career as "engineering" or
"medicine" or "computer science" will have worked on many quite
different projects, or for several different companies - your first
job doesn't define your whole career. And the nature of science is
progress. It's impossible for the same field to remain the same in
detail.

The real trick to a fulfilling life is to be interested in enough
things and activities to fill your days, whether that is one
all-consuming passion or a variety. Someone with work and avocations
that satisfy her needn't mourn the fact that a lifetime is finite and
there may have been other things that would also have satisfied her.
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A: FROM MENTOR NANCY WHITE IN WA
Today, quite a few of us have many careers over our lifetime. As new fields
and specialties emerge, people are called on to use a diverse range of
skills that may not seem, on first blush, related at all. I have used my
botany/science training to hone my critical thinking skills and have had
three distinct careers. Yes, there are threads that continue through all of
them, but it would have been hard to predict the diversity or paths of my
career. The key is lifelong learning. Never stop and your possibilities are
MANY! SET careers can be built up over time!
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A: FROM MENTEE ALICIA T. IN CA

There are several fields where you can incorporate one into the other, such as biotechnology where you have medicine and technology. Generally people focus on one SET career because they are all so hard to achieve, but there are people who just love doing two different things, such as some people having an engineering degree and a medical degree. They chose to have a career that requires the knowledge of both fields of study and have applied it their career choice. There are many possibilities when it comes to different SET careers overlapping.