Research Assistant

As a Research Assistant, you’ll learn to go way beyond Google and Wikipedia to find information. You’ll be working for a department of a university or other organization that delves deeper into one subject than you ever thought possible. Your research team could be trying to determine why a certain species of salmon has been reproducing at slower rates, or how war refugees react to political speeches given in their country of asylum. In fact, all areas of academic study need Research Assistants, so you can work in anything from nuclear physics to cooking to art.

If you’re out in the field, your job as a Research Assistant might involve taking water samples from streams, monitoring plant growth, or reading coordinates using GPS equipment. In the social sciences, the responsibilities of a Research Assistant might include distributing surveys, observing focus groups, or transcribing interviews.

You’ll probably be calling the Reference Librarian your new best friend, as you conduct database searches, track down journal articles, and carry huge stacks of books around. You’ll discover areas of the library that you never knew existed, like the rooms where microfilm archives are stored, and the rare book area where you’re not even allowed to bring in your own pen.

Then there’s always the slightly tedious, but important, work that you’ll have to do: entering data into spreadsheets, making photocopies, formatting bibliographies, and the like. But ultimately, your efforts will help uncover totally new information; that’s much cooler than reading some incomplete, unreliable summary on the interwebs, isn’t it? Plus, the job can help you get into graduate school, meet people in the field, and learn procedures that you’ll probably need later in your career.