Leonard Said:

PhD program questions-help please?

We Answered:

Well I'm not in neuroscience but basic science research is all sort of the same.

There are basically three things you can do with a PhD in neuroscience and each has several different types of jobs.

1. You could teach. At a small or medium University or college that spends a lot of time educating undergrads but doesn't do much research. These types of jobs aren't terribly competitive, you can live pretty much where ever you want but they don't pay all that well.

2. You could go into Academia. You could run a research lab or work in a research lab doing basic science, pretty much the same thing you'll do all day (and night sometimes) while you're a grad student getting that PhD. These types of jobs pay okay depending on what you do, who you do it for and how long you've been doing it.

3. You could go into industry. There are all kinds of jobs you could get with industry from sale of equipment to research and development to technical support. These jobs pay very well and usually have great benefits but the drawback is you don't usually get to work on what you want and have absolutely no job security. In a crappy economy like this one it's hard to find jobs and even harder to keep them.

Do you have any lab experience? Not only would that help you get into grad school but you can see what life is like as a bench scientist. There are all kinds of summer internship type programs where you can do research or be part of a research project in a big lab at a big school. I'd look into something like that.

Good luck.