I sympathise with students such as Matthew Lay (write of
reply, 1 March) who suffer from a severe lack of information about career paths
in science. This results in science graduates finding it difficult to gain
rewarding employment and ultimately in Australian science becoming a less and
less attractive proposition.

Professional degrees such as medicine, dentistry and pharmacy offer clearly
defined career paths. Science degrees, on the other hand, offer a huge variety of
career paths both in and out science. But there is no resource available to
inform Australia’s next generation of scientists about career paths that exist
and how to go about following them.

To help young scientists such as Matthew Lay, Greg Metha and I have recently
established the Next Generation of Australian 51¶¯Âþs Society (NGASS). We
disseminate information via our Web site called Australia’s Next Wave. The
address is http://www.chemusyd.edu.au/public/australias-next-wave/ We
aim to help the next generation of scientists by providing information and
advice about careers in science and how to achieve them.