Glasses with like little pop-down ones Oh, I've asked that one
Hi my name is Susan, I teach biochemistry in the faculty of science at UQ
and this is Jasper. Jasper's one of our students in the Bachelor of Advanced
Science and we're here to answer some questions
for you oh oh I've got the first question right
Jasper, what do you think employers in your
industry are looking for and how do you think UQ has equipped you
with these skills? Well I think employers
well obviously they're looking for good results they want someone that's
trying and obviously it's going to work hard, I think more than that
these days they're probably looking for experience, so in terms of
science what I'm in, that deep research experience
which for me I've been offered in several courses along with
research projects across my degree. All right so, if you could give me one piece
of advice that would set me apart as a job
candidate what would it be? To set you apart as a job candidate one
of the things that we really look for when we're interviewing people is that
they have thought about who they are and thought
about what they can bring if you ask people any question in a job
interview you're asking them about what they can bring to do the job so
to equip our students with those skills we have
a number of really exciting programs one of the
ones that I'm most passionate about is something that you're part of which is
the science leaders academy and faculty of science
so our science leaders are students who want to be part of the community in
science and they do leadership training and then
they enter the academy through doing an
interview and then they get involved in things like this
that Jasper's doing, so things like mentoring other students
helping other students study setting up orientation days
and representing the university and opportunities like this
one of the most important things that students do
both through the UQ employability program and also through the science
leaders academy is they learn about their own strengths
and they realize that those strengths are actually very special
and very unique not everybody's the same and everyone has different gifts that
they can bring and one of the things we really like to do
at UQ is help people develop those and understand what they are and we also
give them an opportunity to test themselves in the
workplace and in professional environments. If you
were employing the next science graduate what would you be looking for?
So I'd be looking for somebody who wanted to take risks
it's there's no point in just living your whole life being safe
there's no point in living your whole life
doing exactly what somebody tells you to do all the time
what we're looking for is people who are inventive who are curious
who love what they're doing and every day when they come to work they're
coming because it's fun and it's interesting not because they
have to be there so i'm always looking for people who are
happy to show up in both emotionally
physically and and intellectually as well. What has
been the most unexpected thing you've been happy to discover at UQ? I
mean the field of study I'm in is actually I
think probably the biggest one because I didn't come to UQ intending to
study biomedical science and biosciences as
well I was intending on doing physics and and since then I've found biology and
biosciences and decided that's where I want to do with my life for now at
least that's something I actually really love about science programs
is that generally they're pretty open in terms of the pathway you can take
yeah and and we see that a lot with our students
who come in with one idea about what they think they love and
often it's because something they've been really good at at school or maybe
they've had a wonderful teacher at school and they've realized that
that that's something that they really enjoy and then
then you come here and you discover that that thing's still
good but there's a whole bunch of other things as well that you
you hadn't thought about or hadn't been able to experience before
and we get you sidetracked
in a good way two and a half years sidetracked
again you're taking a risk right yeah yeah. What is it about
UQ's approach that makes us the most employable graduates in the state?
What we're trying to do here at UQ is, is produce students and graduates who think
for themselves who solve problems who can stand up and
say yep I'm here and I'm going to give that
a go and I'm not scared and that's that's something really
really powerful and it's something that employers really
look for that sense that somebody who comes to work with you from
UQ doesn't isn't going to have to have
their hand held it's not going to be like do this and
then this and then this and then this they're going to be like hey here's a
problem and the UQ graduate will go okay I'm up
for it. How does the way you learn at UQ teach
you the skills you need to face an unknown future? For
me it's been lots of practical experience it's been great for
just you there's things that you will learn
in a lecture but there's also other things that you just can't
that you'll only ever learn from actually doing stuff actually doing
research actually presenting doing that sort of
thing which i think is very some of the most useful skills i've
learnt. So you've done some research yep can you tell us about that?
So this is undergraduate research um so my project was in
neuroscience in clinical neuroscience looking at
MRI scans on white matter pathways in elderly patients with strokes and seeing
how that affects their abilities on cognitive tests the best
skills I've learned from this I think practically have just been statistic
skills because they're useful in every field every field that you can
think of in science and other fields as well outside of there
What are some of the coolest jobs your former students are doing?
So my students they come out of their projects with these
pretty advanced skills in dealing with people with interviewing and with
dealing with the data that people give you when
they're talking to each other and so my students have gone into some
really interesting jobs one of my students is now an academic at
another university where she's helping academics develop courses and programs
another one of my students actually looks after
all of the data for a really large sports company
and then another student works in Singapore and
what he does is what's called a business lead developer
and then I have two other of my students who finished
programs with me and then went on to do medicine, so I think that's something
that's really powerful about science you know you're not just going to you're
not just going to go and work in a lab and even though you
may well go and work in a lab it doesn't mean that you will be at a
bench alone for your whole life right yeah
well I haven't with my research I haven't been in a
bench at all yeah the thing i like about science is you're never trapped
you're not it's not like i'm just going to do the same thing every day for the
rest of my life it's not like that which is really wonderful. So, what does a
day in a life of a UQ science student look like?
Um so I wake up, I have breakfast, I go to uni, usually have a
lecture straight up and we'll usually have like
usually two or three lectures a day which days of the week
and then I'll usually have a practical as well
and go home and that's about it there's not too much
work to do at home as a science student because we do most of our
work either in our lectures or in our labs
and the only real stuff you have to do at home is assignments and
occasionally revision there's a test coming up but
yeah it's mainly mainly everything is at university
aside from that sometimes I have work I work for the university doing
study assistance helping first-year students with their
studying and making sure that they were writing their courses
I don't have too much work to do at home because with the science degree you have
a lot of contact hours and I also do a bit of
work for the university volunteering for the
science leaders academy. What opportunities do your students have to
get hands-on experience in our industry? That's a great question
it's it's really really important for students to get
hands-on experience and there are a number of different ways
that UQ does that in a number of different ways also that the faculty of
science does that where to start so many options let's
start with our undergraduate research program so i know that you've done
undergraduate research UQ actually has the biggest undergraduate research
program in australia we have hundreds of students each year
do undergraduate research so essentially what that means is that they do
a semester or a summer or a winter where they spend time
in a professional research lab the next thing that we do
is our UQ Ventures program i think is a really
exciting program for students in particular we have an international
startup adventure and that's something where students can
get course credit for going to work with a startup company
in places like Tel Aviv, Shanghai, San Francisco
Singapore, very exciting for the students and then I think another one of the
programs that we offer is this working for the university
so the student staff partnership program is a program where either students or
staff can propose a project and the students can get a scholarship
to do the project for a certain number of hours and then
that project is fed into the life of the university and
all of these activities help students develop their professionalism
but also know who they are which is what we
really want for you yeah all right next question oh that's
the last question i've done all my questions to you i'm
all out as well
you