Jill
SYSTEMIC REVIEW
WORDS BY MAXIM BUCKLEY I was originally going to “interview” myself since I have to submit my thesis in the next few months and am pretty flat chat. So I chose Jill. Jill and I have been working in the same lab together for just under a year and we’ve been sitting with our backs to each other for about 6 months, not that I don’t like looking at Jill, it’s just how the lab is laid out. Jill completed her Bachelor of Science in Biomedical science where she majored in biochemistry, microbiology, and immunology. Surprisingly though, science wasn’t Jill’s first attempt at uni. “So, I started a double degree in Economics and International Studies, did two years and thought stuff it, I’m going travelling for a year”. It’s funny that Jill started in that degree because it’s the same degree I started when I first came to Adelaide Uni and somehow, we’ve both wound up in the same lab. After Jill’s year abroad she came back and started science and 20
seemingly has never looked back. Jill is completing her PhD this year but, in what is turning into a consistent theme throughout this article, Jill didn’t start the process in a PhD. “So, you can either do honours, like you’re doing, get a good enough grade and then apply for a PhD scholarship. That will take you four years and the honours year will likely cut some time off your life due to stress. Otherwise, you can start the process of in a master’s degree by research. These are two years in length, and you have the opportunity of going into them straight from undergrad, if you have the grades of course. You also have the opportunity to upgrade to a PhD after 18 months and be paid the stipend for the entire time”. When I was in undergrad I had never heard about this process, I wasn’t even really aware of the honours to PhD route. It seems that whenever I talk to a Faculty of Science student, they are all going for
