Re: Careers in science communication (RE: Publishing v

4.1 What Happens to the Circus Veterans?

We keep in touch with graduates by means of the in-house newsletter Scinapse. Scinapse was started by the students themselves a decade ago, and although it is now edited by the present author, Circus veterans are the major contributors. It contains news of past students, of the Graduate Program and the National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, provides information about jobs and publishes comment about science communication as well as the occasional serious, short article. As a consequence, information about the careers of the graduates is as up-to-date as that for any other student cohort-and probably better than most.
Table 2 shows the first employment taken up by students on completion of the Diploma. Even though we claim to have good information, it is still difficult to keep track of such a volatile cohort of students so the following table gives the percentages of graduates employed in various categories of work. Inevitably we lose track of some, and these appear as 'unknown'. The number of 'unknowns' is also swelled by the previous year's graduates, many of whom take a break before seeking employment.

Table 2. First employment of Science Circus Students on completion of Diploma. Figures are percentages of total enrolments 1988 - 2000
_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

Only the category 'Science Communication Industry' really needs explanation. This includes journalists, TV and radio presenters, workers in science centres and museums, communication officers for scientific, environmental and industrial establishments, professional associations and exhibition designers. As this is by far the largest category of employment, we can claim satisfaction from the thought that at least we do not appear to have done the students any harm! Follow-up suggests that most continue in the field and some from the other categories move into it.
Of the other categories, it is clear that relatively few students resume research careers on completion of the course. This is hardly surprising as, first, it was not meant to be a preparation for research but to add value to the existing qualifications of the students and second, many of the graduates join the Circus because they are disenchanted with research and its prospects. A significant proportion (12%), however, do resume an orthodox graduate career in science, enriched, we hope, by the experiences of a very unusual year.