← Back to Academia Sector

Paul Rose

Senior Lecturer
What employment sector do you work in?

Academia Sector

How long have you had a green job for nature?

18 years

Salary Range

> £50,000

Please describe the work that you do.

I am a Senior Lecturer at the University of Exeter (albeit part-time around other work at WWT and University Centre Sparsholt). I convene (manage) modules for undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. I organise timetabled sessions (lectures, practical, trips), set and assess coursework, mentor tutees, provide academic support for colleagues, direct studies of PhD students, conduct research, complete ethical reviews and liaise with other members of staff to ensure the smooth delivery of education.

What do you most like about your job? Any dislikes?

I love being in the classroom and delivering information on the subject that is close to my heart (animal behaviour, animal welfare, animal management, conservation) to students across different levels of study. I really enjoy mentoring my students in the research process – there is nothing more fulfilling than seeing a student get to the end of their course successfully and then put in the extra effort to publish their thesis or dissertation. I enjoy the interactions with colleagues and learning about the other research that is being conducted in the department and beyond.

Academia has great flexibility. You are treated like an adult to manage your affairs and there is an expectation that, as a professional, you know to complete all of the work asked of you. I love not being micromanaged. This mature approach is unique, I think. Something that I doubt you would get in the corporate world.

Academia can be time pressured and also quite cut-throat (when’s your next Nature paper or million pound grant from this funding council…?). Fortunately, I have always worked with supportive and interested colleagues so I have always had positive experiences in my roles. My role is in Education and Scholarship (so mainly teaching focussed) so this alleviates some of the pressures of “publish or perish” and needing to constantly find research money. Needless to say, I am expected to undertake independent research and I ensure that I have a presence in the academic literature to remain current and have an impact in the field that I am teaching in. Time management skills are essential. Learning to prioritise tasks and get things done to a deadline to stop jobs piling up is key. Sometimes it takes patience and resilience when you have to work with colleagues that are not so time organised, shall we say, so it’s important to know when deadlines are due or when things are likely to need completion to avoid stress.

Education can have peaks and troughs in activity. For example, the autumn and spring term are flat out with teaching, then when students go on academic holidays you have research projects to manage, conferences to attend, papers to write and correct. It is important to have some distance between the office and home to avoid burnout and a sense of resentment over your job. Some say that academia is a vocation, rather than a job and whilst I partly agree with this (being a scientist is a big part of who I am), I still need time away from work to ensure I remain fresh and interested.

What inspired you into this career? 

I have always been interested in teaching and I have always loved animals, nature and the natural world. My parents always had pets and fostered my interest in nature by taking me to the zoo whenever possible. There was a park nearby to me where I grew up in Birmingham that had a small collection of exotic birds, including a single (probably lonely) flamingo. And I was obsessed with this animal. I think it sparked an interest in these birds that carried through into my adult career.

When I was a child I was going to be a primary school teacher but having read a prospectus when at Sixth Form (University of Cambridge so aiming high!) I discovered a course labelled “zoology”. I had no idea this was a thing and my career direction changed. I also did work experience in a local primary school and loved the teaching and being in the classroom but less of the other parts of the job… (we’ll leave that one there!) So I went to university to study Animal Science at BSc level and then I did an MSc in Wild Animal Biology.

I have worked in zoos abroad and in zoos in the UK so I have a strong grounding in animal husbandry. I feel it super important to not just be “book learned”. When you are working with and for animals you must know about them practically. A book education will only tell you so much, but watching the animal or looking after the animal will fill in any gaps. Alongside of that, watching nature programmes (classic Sir David) and reading lots meant I was hungry to know more about animal behaviour, ecology and evolution. My favourite animal is the giraffe and I was always disappointed that there never a focus on them when I was growing up (nature documentaries always seemed to be about lions and tigers and bear, oh my…). Studying flamingos and giraffes has been my way of correcting this bias.

Have you faced any challenges in progressing your career so far? 

Most of my work focusses on zoo animal behaviour and welfare. There is a certain degree of academic snobbery around about zoo biology. Small samples, lack of representation, poor statistical power, they are not like the wild (one of my pet hates is ornithologists calling aviary or zoo birds “plastic”). I think this shows a certain amount of ignorance of the role of the zoo in conservation, education and research. I feel that, with one book published and another in the making, several chapters, multiple conference presentations and over 50 peer reviewed papers and counting since 2012 that I have made a difference to show zoo science is relevant, credible and impactful.

Academics on the more education-focussed route can also have less chances of internal progression than those that are research focussed. Whilst I don’t mind this so much (I am happy at being a senior lecturer and have no desires to run a whole department) it is worth keeping in mind that how you can progress and to what level might be dependent on your specific job family if you enter an academic career.

What education/training did you have?

I have a PhD in Animal Behaviour that I completed between 2012 and 2018. I did my PhD part-time around teaching at Exeter and at University Centre Sparsholt. I really recommend a part-time PhD if you have the time. It’s more flexible, you get to step away from it when you do your “other work” and I think you are more grounded and see the real world outside of academia more clearly.

Prior to that I did an MSc in Wild Animal Biology at the Royal Veterinary College in 2005 and I completed a BSc in Animal Science at Imperial College London in 2003.

I also have training specific for education, so I completed a Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education at Southampton Solent University in 2008. My current full time employer (Sparsholt College) paid for this at the time. So it’s worth knowing what career development opportunities and courses that will be funded are available.

I am a senior fellow of the Higher Education Academy, so that means I have specific skills and experiences as a university lecturer that have been recognised by others.

I am also a member of several learned societies. ASAB (the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour), I am a fellow of ZSL (Zoological Society of London) and a professional member of the Association of British & Irish Wild Animal Keepers (ABWAK) to name but a few.

Training wise, alongside of my formal qualification, I read a lot (you have to for this type of work), I have learned how to use various statistical packages (learn R if you want to be an academic is my best advice!) and I also review a lot of journal articles for publications. This is great training in how to write / how not to write, how to have a good narrative, how to communicate effectively and how to generate ideas for future studies. If you don’t read, or if you get chatGPT or similar to summarise papers for you, you will not develop key skills that an academic needs to survive and grow.

What advice would you give to someone coming into the profession? 

Work hard at skills around your qualifications. Having a PhD is no guarantee of getting a lecturer job at a university. You’ll need published papers, experience of managing research, evidence of collaboration with others, a sound (and strong) knowledge of your subject and where it is going, evidence of research impact and funding, an ability to teach and manage students, and something that makes you stand out from the crowd. Why are you, with your PhD, better than the next person with theirs?

—

Tags: England, Academia, Researcher, Lecturer

Related Job Profiles

Browse All Job Profiles