I (25F) have been on a swinging pendulum about wanting kids from age 18 forward. I was always convinced I wanted an academic career, and thought I would be open to kids but would ultimately find meaning in my work and research above all else. I never really saw myself as a “corporate woman” if that makes sense but now I am considering a career in science industry instead of academia. This is making me reconsider kids in a way because that original source of meaning feels gone. I also had no idea how short the female fertility window was. My mom had kids well into her late 30s so I always thought about pregnancy as something that could realistically and even easily happen up until age 40. My boyfriend (34M) and I have been dating for a year and haven’t really done the “future” talk. On his dating profile I remember he said he was open to kids and we talked about it early on. As time went on in our relationship though he was more adamantly against having kids. It was kind of jarring for me to see though because his friends have kids and he seems to love seeing them. Thoughts popped into my head like “does he not want kids with me?” Or “will he decide he wants kids eventually after I can no longer easily have them?”. The thing is I am not too certain I want kids. I relate to another post on here where OP said they both want and don’t want kids. That’s exactly how I feel. I would hate the limitations of kids especially early on, but worry about not having a family. I guess I’m feeling aimless about life in general and reconsidering my career choice is also impacting my thought process. Has anyone made this decision at around my age? Some days it feels like I have forever and other days like I have no time at all
u/ApprehensiveHyrax
I (25F) have been on a swinging pendulum about wanting kids from age 18 forward. I was always convinced I wanted an academic career, and thought I would be open to kids but would ultimately find meaning in my work and research above all else. I never really saw myself as a “corporate woman” if that makes sense but now I am considering a career in science industry instead of academia. This is making me reconsider kids in a way because that original source of meaning feels gone. I also had no idea how short the female fertility window was. My mom had kids well into her late 30s so I always thought about pregnancy as something that could realistically and even easily happen up until age 40. My boyfriend (34M) and I have been dating for a year and haven’t really done the “future” talk. On his dating profile I remember he said he was open to kids and we talked about it early on. As time went on in our relationship though he was more adamantly against having kids. It was kind of jarring for me to see though because his friends have kids and he seems to love seeing them. Thoughts popped into my head like “does he not want kids with me?” Or “will he decide he wants kids eventually after I can no longer easily have them?”. The thing is I am not too certain I want kids. I relate to another post on here where OP said they both want and don’t want kids. That’s exactly how I feel. I would hate the limitations of kids especially early on, but worry about not having a family. I guess I’m feeling aimless about life in general and reconsidering my career choice is also impacting my thought process. Has anyone made this decision at around my age? Some days it feels like I have forever and other days like I have no time at all
Not really sure if this qualifies as early career advice but I’ll shoot. I (25) earned a BS in (agricultural degree) in 2023. I came out of the degree with 3 years of experience in an animal research lab, but honestly I wouldn’t describe my experience as “extensive”. I mostly ran qPCRs and analyzed them in the context of my research. My main project spanning all 3 years was never published, but I did help write a paper in a reputable mid tier journal that evaluated a novel diagnostic technique for a pathogen in my study species.
After undergrad I took an infectious disease internship (in animals) at another university. I learned a lot (especially in the sequencing realm) and published two papers in virus discovery. After that I almost started a masters degree but decided not to- I did however gain 5 months of bioinformatics pipeline experience in animal microbiome research. After this I went to work for a federal research lab for 1.5 years. I was laid off in the middle of that and then rehired. Was doing a lot of vaccine research and production but for animals.
I eventually left because of the ongoing uncertainty and now work in a state public health lab (for humans this time). I love the stability of my current job but the pay is abysmal. Is it even worth applying to entry level biotech jobs in the current economy? Am I even remotely qualified? Am I even early career at this point? Biotech is very interesting to me, but I’m worried the current sum of my career is just “running PCR”
Edit to say I have considered going back for the Masters degree but I’ve been told my research background at this point is essentially equivalent to having a masters. Should I consider going back?