Danielle Da La Mare
Hello, and welcome to Ask a Scientist, the podcast for kids and adults to ask scientists questions about anything they want to know. There are so many scientists out there doing a lot of cool scientific research. In the news, we’re constantly hearing about scientists and their new ideas and where those ideas are going to take us in the future. But just who are these scientists? In this podcast, we will learn a little more about who they are and what inspires them as scientists.
I’m your host, Victoria Crystal. Every other week, I’ll sit down and ask a different scientist questions written by you, the listeners, and by students from classrooms throughout the country.
Victoria:
Hello listeners. We have an extra special episode of Ask a Scientist today. Today, we’re going to be talking all about careers in science. What a career in science might be like? How to start a career in science? And so much more.
Our guest this week, who’s joining us to talk all about careers is Danielle Da La Mare. She is the host of the podcast, The Self-Compassionate Professor, which is all about helping people find wellness, meaning, purpose, and freedom in their careers. And she’s here to talk about science careers with us.
Danielle, thank you so much for joining us.
Dr. Da La Mare:
Yay, Victoria. Yes, I’m so happy to be here. Thank you so much for having me.
Victoria:
We are so excited to have you and have all of your great insight about finding a meaningful career.
These questions were all submitted by listeners through emails, social media, and through a Google form on our website.
The first question that we have today from the listeners is what past jobs and experiences have you had that led you to be the person and the scientist that you are today?
Dr. Da La Mare:
Yes. Okay. So let me start here. I am not a scientist in the straight up way one might think of a scientist in. But I know Victoria that you define science a little bit loosely on the podcast and anyone who considers themselves a scientist is sort of a scientist. And I would say that because I earned a PhD, and I was immersed in my own research and, you know, I did research projects and, you know, gathered data and experimented with data and assessed what I learned and wrote up reports, that I am a scientist in that way.
The research I did was in communication and education. And I did ethnographic research 3:45. And what ethnographic research is, is the kind of research where you kind of immerse yourself into an environment, a social environment, that maybe you’re not necessarily, you could be part of this environment just naturally at your, like your identity, you could fit into this environment. But many ethnographers don’t.
And so for example, you might have an ethnographer who goes in and studies homelessness, and they play the role of a homeless person, right. They, I guess not just play the role, but really assume the identity, and they don’t sleep in a home, and they go where other homeless people do to find resources, whatever it is. I know I had an old sociology professor who also did cults. He would join a cult and stick with that cult, that religious cult for, you know, a number of months, and research what it was like to be part of that cult.
And so me, I did sort of less extreme version of this. I didn’t join a cult or anything like that, but I did sort of join a social studies department in a high school. And, while I wasn’t a teacher in the department, I hung out with these teachers all the time. I was in faculty meetings with them. I chatted with them all the time. I co-taught with one of them a couple of times, you know, we did, we planned a lesson together. And what I was doing is I was researching how these, it was an all-white social studies department, it was 10 teachers in the social studies department. I was looking at how they integrated American Indian studies into their curriculum. Some people call it native American studies in the state of Montana, which is where my research was. It was American Indian studies because they have a law called Indian education for all, where everybody has to teach the kids in Montana about the Indian cultures in the area. You know? So like the structure of present day tribal government, geography, language arts, all the stuff. And so that’s what I did. I just spent time with them and my research was hanging out with them in their classrooms and in faculty meetings and chatting with them at lunch. And then at the end of the day, going home and just taking vigorous notes, writing, writing, writing, writing, writing, everything I could remember about the day, what was said, how it was said, non-verbals like expressions on students’ faces during classes, shrugs and what all of those things might’ve meant to me. And then when all of that research was over, I compiled all of those ethnographic notes that I had and created a research report. And this became my dissertation.
So I wanted to start there and say, that’s the research I did. And that’s sort of how I consider myself a scientist. I’m a social scientist, but a scientist.
And then when I became a professor, I started doing autoethnography, which means I started researching my own classroom, and how I communicated with my students, and how my students communicated with me and with each other, and how we sort of collectively talked about diversity, and how we sort of started to collectively think about diversity, and how we shaped each other’s ideas and thoughts.
So I did ethnography, I moved into autoethnography as a professor. I was a professor. I did all the professory things. I, you know, did, I taught classes and I did the research, and I did the service to the university.
And at some point, I just lost, I guess I lost love for my work, this work that I was so committed to and cared so much about. I didn’t care about it as much. I felt bored by it in some ways. And in other ways I felt overly busy and overwhelmed. And, I was really scared. I was really scared because after, you know, all of these years, you put in a PhD, you put in the work for a PhD. It’s like, you know, I did four years in college and two years in a master’s program. And then another four years in a PhD program or five years in a PhD program. And then I was working toward tenure, which was another seven years. And I just thought, I don’t want to, I don’t want to leave because I’ve invested too much time in this. I can’t leave. But there was something nagging within me that wanted out. I didn’t want to do it anymore. And I had to eventually get honest with myself about that.
And, I finally, and it was a to make a very long story short. I finally found my way out, and I created Self-Compassionate Professor, my career wellness coaching business, where I help other professors, scientists, social scientists, people in the humanities who might be, you know, in history or, you know, English literature or something like that. I help professors though, think through whether or not they want to leave their academic careers. And, I trained to do this and I’ve done a lot of healing work so that I could figure out how to do it for myself. And now I teach other people how to do it. And I do it in workshops as well. And I have a podcast that goes along with my business, which is where I just interview people, and Victoria is going to be on the podcast soon. Thank you for doing that, Victoria. We started did a little switcheroo here. I’m on her podcast and she’s on mine. yay. And it’s for, it’s about people who have been academics and have chosen to take their career in a self-compassionate and creative direction, a direction that’s not necessarily well paved, but something that they just feel pulled to do.
And for me, like I would have never guessed in a million years that I would be helping professors to think more deeply about their careers and where they want to take their lives and what would make them happiest and all of that. And so, yeah, that’s what the podcast is about.
That is a super long answer to your question. So thank you for listening.
Victoria:
(Where do scientists work?)
No, that is wonderful.
All right. So with that, we can get into the career and scientist’s job questions that the listeners submitted. The first question, and I think a good one to kind of start off with and thinking about science and scientific careers. Where do scientists work?
Dr. Da La Mare:
Mm. So many places. I, one of the things I was thinking about was I love this company that does, that makes non-toxic skincare products and cleaning products. And I buy from them. I love like their lotion and their skincare stuff. And, you know, they employ a group of chemists who create the products. And so, that’s like one example.
Another example is like you know, a medical writer, a freelance medical writer or, you know, some type of entrepreneur. And I don’t know, do you want to talk a little bit about this Victoria? Because we do have a mutual connection, Melanie, who does science communication and that, that might be a career we could talk a little bit about for listeners to help them.
Victoria:
Yeah, for sure. I think just generally scientists, like you said, everywhere, so many different types of jobs. You know, we hear a lot about, you know, professors, science professors who do research and they teach at universities, which is one option. But like you said, they’re scientists all over, anywhere where there is something that involves some kind of natural process is somewhere where you would find a scientist.
And Melanie’s work is awesome. So, she was on the podcast in January and she talked a lot about her book, Biology Everywhere, which is just fascinating, all about the ways that biology is in our everyday lives. And so, scientists can be authors. They, like you said, they can be science communicators. So Melanie is going to do a Ted talk coming up pretty soon.
So there’s, you know, tons of ways and places that scientists work.
Dr. Da La Mare:
And the other thing I would say is I have these cards that were created by high school career counselor, actually. And they’re called challenge cards. And I can’t remember his name but I can find it for you if you want to put it in show notes.
Victoria:
Okay.
Dr. Da La Mare:
But, he has these cards, where he asks his students to decide what kind of problems they want to investigate and try to solve as a career. And then that leads you to various types of careers, including a number of different science sort of paths.
And so, for example, he’ll have, what he has his students do is with each card you put in a yes, no, or a maybe pile. So you’ve got three piles. And so for example, one problem is protect biodiversity and landscape. And so you put it in, yes, that’s a problem I want to solve; no, that’s not a problem I want to solve; or maybe that’s a problem I want to solve. Another one is increased sustainable energy, or manage the planet’s waste, or create new food and food systems, redesign the healthcare system. Right. And it’s, so there are all these different problems that need to be dealt with in our society. And if you really think through what you want to deal with, what problem you would like to confront and really manage in your career, that will lead you to a place of knowing sort of what scientific career you want to pursue, or it doesn’t have to be a science career, but some type of career you want to pursue.
Victoria:
Oh, wow. That’s a great system. I like that.
Dr. Da La Mare:
Isn’t that cool? I know, I love it too. Because most of us can kind of go into ourselves and say, you know, the thing I really care about is the environment. And the thing I like to ask people is what’s the thing that bothers you so much, that you have to sort of turn your heart and mind off because it bothers you so much. And so, for example like those animal cruelty commercials on television, I can’t handle them, I cannot handle them at all, and I want to turn them off. Right. I cannot deal.
But what that indicates is there something there. That problem is something that I really care about. And if I’m really going to investigate what it is I care about and how I might be able to help, I would feel so much better about those commercials, because I wouldn’t just look at them and feel sad. I would look at them and be like, I’m glad I’m making a difference, and I’m glad I’m working toward dealing with that problem.
And so, I guess I would just ask listeners to turn into yourself and really think about that problem that really bothers you in the world. And then really start thinking about what a career dealing with that problem would look like. And what are the people you could talk to? Who are the people you could talk to who are in that career? And if you don’t have people that you know, in your immediate environment, ask the people that you know in your immediate environment, Hey, do you know of anybody works with this particular problem? Or if you know of an organization who deals with that particular problem? Look at that organization, go online, take a look at who works there and maybe call the people that work there and start having conversations with them. But the whole idea is just to really do some self-assessment. And if we really think about the idea of the scientific model of research, right, where you start a research project, and you gather data, and then you do experimenting and then you assess the experiment, and decide what you’ve learned and figure out what you’ve learned. That is the same model that holds true with figuring out your career.
Victoria:
Yeah, I like that. I like that a lot. I think the one thing I’d like to add to that too, is that, some of these questions can be medical research as well. So a lot of people who are doing medical research to maybe find a cure for cancer, or people who developed COVID vaccines, they consider themselves to be scientists as well. And the problems that they want to tackle are keeping people safe and healthy. And so that’s an option that’s out there too.
Dr. Da La Mare:
And those problems can sometimes be so personal. So, don’t forget about those personal things that you’ve dealt with in your life. You know, maybe, you know, your mom had COVID or something, and that really bothered you. And that was really scary for a while. And so maybe that is the problem you want to tackle and the problem you want to deal with and manage.
So yeah, I just want to add to that because I think when we think about careers, we forget about the personal whys of why we go for the careers we do.
Victoria:
(How do you get a job as a scientist?)
Yeah. That’s a good point to make too.
And I think that leads in well to the next question, sort of on the more personal side of science careers. How do you get a job as a scientist?
Dr. Da La Mare:
Well, okay. So I think you need to, as we discussed, think about what you care about. And think about who you know, and think about what organizations do what you want to do. And then you do the research to understand where you want to go and how you want to contribute in your own scientific way.
I mean, if we’re talking about a very traditional scientist, the kind that works at a university who runs a lab, right, like they’re the supervisor of postdocs and graduate students, and those people help them to carry out their research. You know, you have a pretty clear track. You go all the way through school, you get your PhD, you move into a postdoc, and after your postdoc, you move into some sort of tenure track position. Those positions are becoming less and less available. And so one of the things I always talk to people about is that if you’re very psychologically rigid, and I have to be a scientist in this very traditional way, and then you find at the end of the road, that’s not actually working for you anymore, or it’s just not a job that’s available to you. Then what do you do? Right. You’ve got to figure out a new way, a way that’s going to work for you.
So yeah, I mean, I guess that just leads me to say that there are so many ways to get a job as a scientist, and you can go the very traditional route, but don’t stay locked in the traditional route if that at some point ends up not serving you.
Victoria:
Yeah. And I think your answer to the previous question as well, you know, really figuring out what those problems that you want to tackle are, and then going after the people in the organizations that do that and getting involved with them. I think that’s, you know, that’s how you get the job.
Dr. Da La Mare:
100%. And I think that so often we don’t do a good job with career education. A lot of students, I know for me, I never really got any good education about what to do with my career and how to do it. And I think the one thing I want to drive home in this interview is that you want to stay open, you want to really think about what you really care about, and you really want to think about who you could talk to, and you should know that opportunities will come to you if you make yourself available. And too many of us don’t make ourselves available for opportunities. And so career opportunities are out there if you’re looking for them, and you’re willing to look for them. So I’ll just say that, I think that’s an important piece.
Victoria:
(What types of jobs do scientists have?)
Yeah, I think it is too.
And with that, we can move on to our next question. What types of jobs do scientists have?
Dr. Da La Mare:
Okay. Types of jobs that scientists have. This question is a little bit harder for me, speaking from a sort of non-scientific perspective. But you know, when I look at some of these cards I was telling you about, I could say, you know, there’s microbiologist, I could say there’s, you know, hydrologists, there’s a sustainability consultant, there’s, I don’t know what could you add to this? Paleontologist, geographers. I don’t know. What else would you say?
Victoria:
(What are the different types of sciences?)
Yeah. So I would say, and this ties into the next question, which maybe we can address this question now as well. And that question is what are the different types of science?
So I think the different types of science need to different types of jobs as scientists. There’s kind of like the big three that everyone think of first, biology, chemistry, and physics. And so there’s those main categories of science, but then within each of those, there’s also sub types of science. So like you mentioned microbiology, so that’s a subtype of biology.
And then I would argue that geology, I’m a geologist, is a combination of all of those. So as a geologist, I study, you know, first and foremost, I studied rocks, but the way that I do that use this chemistry. I look at the chemical components of the rocks. It uses physics. I can look at the physical components of the rocks or how physically erosion happens or, you know, rocks have a lot of different layers, like if you go to the Grand Canyon, you can look and see all the different layers on the Canyon wall. And physics has a role in how those layers are deposited and how they stack up on top of each other. And then also biology is a big part of geology. I also consider myself a paleontologist. And so I study the fossils that are in the rocks. And so I studied the biology, the life side of things. But then, you know, also in order to do that, incorporate chemistry and physics, like I said, some of my work in the past has actually looked at the chemistry of dinosaur teeth. And so I actually take a teeny tiny sample of dinosaur tooth enamel, and I analyze what the chemicals are, and I look specifically at the carbon and the oxygen. And so, I can learn about where the dinosaur was getting its water. So any of the oxygen that is in our teeth comes from the water that we drink, and this goes for all living things that have tooth enamel, the carbon comes from the food that we eat. And so I looked at the carbon and oxygen and learned more about where these dinosaurs were getting their food and their water. And so geology really blends all of these, you know, what we think of as kind of the three big types of science.
But then there’s also astronomy, that’s a science. There’s also medicine, anything to do with medicine and medical doctors, most of them would consider themselves scientists. There’s social science, like we talked about earlier. So lots of different types of science and then subtypes of all of those too, right? Like can have chemists that study organic compounds. So, you know, things that have organic carbon in them; you can have chemists who study inorganic
materials, the things that don’t have organic carbon; you can have chemists who study food or beer, things that we eat and drink, that can be a type of science as well.
And so I think anything that, you know, answer some kind of question about the world around us is a type of science.
Dr. Da La Mare:
Oh my gosh. I love that. Thank you. Thank you for that education. And the other, can I ask you a question? Do you mind my asking about the dinosaur tooth enamel thing?
Victoria:
Yeah, for sure. I could talk about it all day.
Dr. Da La Mare:
Oh my gosh. I love it. So I want to know, because I’m thinking, when you say, you know, you can look into the enamel and sort of identify where the dinosaur is getting its water, and you’re like, you know, this is true of all living things with enamel. And so, I’m thinking, what are the thoughts that run through your own mind when you are taking in water? Are you thinking about your wellness in particular ways based on what you know about tooth enamel?
Victoria:
Yeah, so I. Yeah, I think about a lot of ways that what I’m eating and drinking will change, not necessarily my tooth enamel, cause once you’ve got your kind of fully formed adult teeth, it doesn’t change, at least for us as humans. But what does, actually before I go into that, dinosaurs are kind of like sharks, and that they’re constantly growing teeth and constantly losing teeth throughout their whole lives. So it’s like, if everyone thinks back to losing baby teeth. It would be as if we had that for our whole lives, is what dinosaurs and sharks experience. And so it comes into play a lot more throughout the adult lifetime of dinosaurs and sharks than it does for us, cause we’ve got our teeth and once we’ve got our adult teeth in our mouth, the enamel, the chemistry of the enamels not constantly changing, but what is constantly changing is the chemistry similar to the tooth enamel, carbon and oxygen of our hair and our nails.
And so what we eat and drink is really, really important in making the carbon and oxygen in our hair and our nails. One of the really cool things that we can do is we can take a strand of hair. And we can sample all the way from the root, so hair that grew really recently, all the way down to the very end of the hair that maybe is a couple of years old from when it first, you know, grew out of our scalp, and we can see how changing our diet and changing our water has happened throughout the lifetime of that strand of hair.
So one of the things that happens with water is it’s the chemistry changes regionally. And so if you’re, if you, you know, take me for an example, I lived in Colorado Springs for five years, and then I moved up to Boulder for five years, and then I moved to Omaha, Nebraska. And so if we were to look at the oxygen in my hair, we’d be able to see those changes. And so at the very ends of my hair, you know, that might’ve sprouted from my head five years or almost 10 years ago now, when I first moved to Colorado Springs, we would see oxygen signatures that are kind of consistent with the oxygen content. And specifically, to get into a little bit more of the science than just saying oxygen and carbon, I’m looking at the isotopes. And so isotopes atoms of the same element that have the same chemical properties, and so they’re all oxygen, but some of them have a couple more neutrons in the nucleus. And so we’ve got certain atoms of oxygen that end up being a little bit heavier. And so depending on where you are regionally, the water will have more or less of those heavy oxygens. And so what we measure is the amount of heavy oxygen, and then we can see the heavy oxygen signature that’s consistent with water in one place versus another. And so by looking at the oxygen from someone’s hair, you can see where they’ve lived regionally and how that’s changed. And like I said, you can track where someone’s moved throughout their lives, by looking at their oxygen signatures from end to end of a piece of hair.
Dr. Da La Mare:
That is so cool. I love that. Okay. Thank you for answering my question. That’s awesome.
Victoria:
(Why do scientists need a PhD? Do you have to have a PhD to be a scientist?)
Yeah, of course. I could talk about isotopes all day. I know we’re getting a little off topic with me just talking about isotopes, but one of the things that this is used for, not just studying fossils, but we actually use it in modern day is detectives will use it when they investigate you know, crimes, you can look at, you know, for example, if you find a hair in a crime scene, you can look at the oxygen and you can figure out where that person was from. So like if someone committed a crime in California, but they’re actually from New York, you can tell that by looking at the oxygen. And so it’s really cool real world applications of this, not just looking at the past and looking at fossils, but also looking at the present.
And the question that we were talking about is what types of jobs do scientists have? And so scientists could also be forensic investigators, crime scene investigators using these techniques. So that’s always an option as well.
And we can move on to, we’ve got a whole set of questions coming up all about PhDs. Why do scientists need a PhD, and do you have to have a PhD to be a scientist?
Dr. Da La Mare:
So I want to be really, really, really, really clear that we’re all doing science all the time. If you really think about science is just being curious and interested in the world around you and being willing to observe and experiment, and then learn from what you’ve observed and experimented, and then sort of apply that to your life or apply that to the work you’re doing. You know, we’re all scientists.
And I think that, like I said, even just the work of finding a career is very much a scientific pursuit. If you think about it, just in terms of, you know, observing and finding an answer, and then applying your learnings to living your life or doing the work you do. So everybody’s a scientist.
I guess I want to say that. And we have these categories where some people are scientists and some people are not scientists. But in my mind, I really believe that we are inherently as human beings, scientists. Like you said, Victoria, everybody wants to know. And I think you said this off the recording, but like kids always want to know the why. I think we all want to know the why. But often in sort of the education system we get that gets sort of drummed out of us. And we don’t care about the why anymore, because learning started to become a drag at some point. But I think we’re all very much wired to always want to be learning, always want to be discovering. And all of that is connected to the scientific model. Right. Just observing and figuring new things out. And we’re, we’re curious by nature.
Victoria:
Yes, definitely. And like you mentioned earlier, but I just want to reiterate. For this podcast, Ask a Scientist, anyone who considers themselves a scientist is a scientist. So you don’t need a PhD. You don’t need to, you know, have the word scientist in your job title. If you are investigating that why about some particular question, and you know, doing the scientific method, asking your question, making a hypothesis, collecting data, analyzing your data, drawing conclusions, or maybe reassessing the way that you do your experiment, to then draw different conclusions or have your experiment work a different way. That’s science.
Dr. Da La Mare:
A hundred percent.
Victoria:
Yeah. Anyway, anyone can be a scientist, like you said.
Dr. Da La Mare:
I love it. Yes.
Victoria:
(How do you get a PhD?)
All right. And then we can do our last PhD themed question, which is how do you get a PhD?
Dr. Da La Mare:
Well for me, the answer is going to, you know, doing the bachelor’s degree, and then the master’s degree, and then the PhD, and, you know, when you’re in college, you’re applying to a master’s program, and then you spend a couple of years in a master’s program, and while you’re in your master’s program, you’re applying for a PhD program, and then you spend several years in your PhD program. And while you’re in your PhD program, you are creating a major research project. And you have a direct mentor, and you have several other professors that are sitting on your dissertation committee that are evaluating your work. And when it’s all said and done, and you’ve sort of passed your dissertation defense is what they they call it, that means you sit in a room and you really defend your research in front of these five professors who have been, you know, reading your work and evaluating your research all along. And when that’s said and done, it’s a big moment. You can even have like members of the public are invited to dissertation defenses. My mom was there at my dissertation defense. And when it’s all said and done, they can, you know, shake your hand and say, you know, congratulations Dr. De La Mare, you now have your PhD. And that doesn’t always mean that you’re totally done when you walk out of that room. Like for me, I had another, probably eight hours of work that I had to do that they wanted me to clean up in my research. And then once I did do that, I was done, and I had the PhD in hand, and I could move on to a professor role, which I did. And That is not necessarily the case in the sciences. I know that you generally go into a post-doc right after your PhD, and then you move into more of a professor role. Tell me where I’m wrong, Victoria.
Victoria:
Yeah, no, that’s exactly right. Yeah. And so postdoc positions or you know, post doc, so it’s post-doctoral. So after you’ve been a PhD student, after you’ve been a doctoral student, and received your doctorate, you do your post-doc. And it’s really just an opportunity for you to do another research project, usually at a different university than where you did your PhD, and just get some more research time under your belt before you join faculty as a professor.
All right. So, with that, do you have anything else to add about PhDs or should we move on to our next general set of questions?
Dr. Da La Mare:
Well, I guess, because I’m somebody who’s thought a lot about PhDs and a lot about the investment of time and money and everything that goes into it. And, I guess I just want to say that when you are contemplating whether or not to get a PhD, be really, really clear about why it is you want a PhD. Really know that the career you want to have, or the work you want to do in the world really must have a PhD for you to do it. Or it’s something that you really just want to have because you really care about your research and you really care about the work that that’s going to come with you earning the PhD.
I think a lot of people do a PhD for the wrong reasons. I think a lot of people will do it because they feel like it’s the thing they have to do or the thing they should do. And I think it’s really important that people are a little more personally invested to the project. It’s not just about what other people want from you, or what you think you should do, but like you really, truly want to do it in your heart’s in it. That’s when you do a PhD. It’s not for everyone. It’s really not for everyone. But it is very much for some people.
So I just again, a little career education, want to throw that in there.
Victoria:
Yeah, I think that’s an excellent point. And, you know, listen to yourself, listen to what you want. I think a lot of people get caught up in this misconception, as you know, the previous question sort of alludes to, do you have to have a PhD to be a scientist. Absolutely not. And you know, like you said, it’s not for everyone. And I think people get caught up in this, like, Oh, I want to do science and so I have to do a PhD. That’s not the case at all. If your heart of hearts is telling you that the PhD is what you want to do, go for it. But you know, if part of you doesn’t want to do the PhD, that’s okay. And you can still be an awesome scientist and do a lot of really cool science without having the PhD.
Dr. Da La Mare:
Yeah.
Victoria:
(How do you gain research experience as an undergrad in biology, how would you pursue a career somewhere like Noaa?)
(How do people get jobs at places like NASA?)
All right. And with that, we can kind of segue into the next set of questions, which we will tackle all at once here are all about different places that you could have some scientific careers and all about kind of some interesting scientific careers. So we’ll tackle these altogether.
The first question comes from, all these questions come from our listeners. This was a question that I believe was submitted through our website via our Google form. And the question is how do you gain research experience as an undergrad in biology, and how would you pursue a career somewhere like Noaa?
And then the other questions that we’ll tackle right now, how do people get jobs at places like NASA?
Dr. Da La Mare:
I mean, I think that I generally answered this question in terms of, or the set of questions, I guess I should say, in terms of just making sure you’re open to different career paths, making sure you’re connecting to people in different careers, in different organizations, trying to get yourself out there and talking to people who are in careers that you can see yourself being in. I think that’s really the most important thing.
It’s not about how do you get a career in this organization or that organization, or this type of job, it’s really about doing, I guess, you know, going back to the scientific model, doing the sciency sort of research about the careers that are out there for you, doing the self-assessment, thinking about what you care about and what you’re interested in, and then figuring out where you want to go from there.
But I don’t think there’s a one size fits all, like this is how you get a job in this area. It’s not that uniform, careers do not work like that. It’s really about creating your own opportunities.
Victoria:
Yeah. I would agree with that, 100%, you just got to send the emails, make the phone calls, put yourself out there, get in touch with the people that you want to work with and the places that you wanna work, and just, you know, make it happen any way that, any way that you can.
Dr. Da La Mare:
And the sooner, the better. You know, if you are, you know, eight years old, that’s okay. You can still start having these conversations about career, and reaching out to people who have careers that you think might be interesting. Doing like shadowing your parents when they go to work. I guess it’s COVID now, so when they’re on Zoom. Whatever it is, but like shadowing people who you really think are good, or who are doing work that you want to do. And getting a sense of what they do on a day-to-day basis. You cannot start that process too soon. It’s going to pay off, no matter what, if you’re really thinking about this openly, and with a sort of a fun heart to end, you know, in a playful way, like, I might try this, I might try that. Well, you can do that. You can do that. You know, you don’t have to have a career right now. You know, try on all these different pieces. I mean, this is again the scientific model, right? It’s about experimenting, trying it out. And then, and then going back and assessing, based on the data you’ve gathered, whether or not that’s gonna work for you.
Victoria:
Yes. And a cool way to do that is to volunteer. A lot of museums and scientific organizations take volunteers. So if you’re interested in something with a scientific, or with any of these organizations you know, and maybe you are eight years old, you know, you don’t necessarily want a job, you’ve got to go to school, you can’t have a full-time job. You can volunteer after school and on the weekends. And so many people love having volunteers and having help and you get to be part of the project. And it gives you a chance to try it out, and see what you think, make some connections, have some fun.
Dr. Da La Mare:
Such a good idea. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Victoria:
Yes.
Dr. Da La Mare:
This was a fun conversation. I learned a lot. Thank you, Victoria.
Victoria:
I learned a lot from you. Thank you so much for joining us and doing this extra special career episode. I think it’s so important for, you know, anyone who is interested in science to hear this side of things that we don’t always talk about. So thank you so much for providing your expertise.
Dr. Da La Mare:
No, absolutely. My pleasure.
Victoria:
And if any of the listeners want to get in touch with you, are there social media handles that you can shout out?
Dr. Da La Mare:
Yes. So I have @danielleSCProf, that stands for self-compassionate professor, and you can find the on Instagram there, you can also find me on Twitter there.
Victoria:
Awesome. Thank you so much. And thank you so much for being here today.
Dr. Da La Mare:
My pleasure. Thank you so much, Victoria. It was fun.
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