Career opportunities are looking good for Thea Marie Låstad after her Master's degree in Genome Science.
Thea Marie Låstad
Education: Master in Genome Science
Job: Laboratory engineer at KinN Therapeutics / visiting researcher at the University of Bergen
Thea works as a laboratory engineer and is involved in preclinical studies for various and new cancer treatments.
"I work with everything from testing drugs in vivo and in vitro, handling and processing samples and analysing results. I actually do quite a few different things, but I'm still in training".
As far as her career is concerned, Thea believes that the only limit is her own creativity, because with the work experience she is now gaining, she reckons she is quite popular in the job market.
"I think the favorite thing about my job is that I largely is control of my working days, and that I work both alone and with others. Being the newest employee with the least amount of training, I also get some repetitive tasks. But I'm taking on more and more responsibility and that makes the job more exiting," says Thea.
From design and crafts to genome science
The path from high school to the job Thea has today has not been the usual route. She started high school in design and crafts and moved on to interior design. Then she went to music college and then studied biology, ending up with a master's degree in genome science and a job in cancer research.
"It's been an interesting development. From the first time I saw the NMBU campus during the Visit Day for upper secondary school students, I wanted to study there. In the beginning, it was probably the beautiful surroundings and the geographical location that attracted me".
According to Thea, it is her bachelor's and master's thesis that she has benefited the most from, as she learnt laboratory work in practice over a longer period of time, in a more realistic setting.
Somewhat quiet student environment during corona
Thea started her master's programme in August 2020, and the corona restrictions lasted until she completed her studies. This meant that she didn't get to experience much of the student environment at NMBU, but she did get an impression of a good student life with lots of fun. And she managed to have some of it.
"I worked as a sound engineer at the NMBU Student Society and was also an active member of the Rock Club, which was sociable and a great way to meet students".
She also learnt a lot of new things there that she probably never thought she would encounter, such as live sound engineering.
"I also developed a very good relationship with my lecturers, especially my master's supervisors. Classmates were a bit difficult to get to know because we didn't see each other more than a couple of times during the two years".
If you don't really know what you want to become and are wondering which study programme to apply for, Thea is an example of how searching is a good idea.
The advice from Thea is to gain experience from different things, follow your desire to what interests you the most and don't worry too much. Things will fall into place for those who are looking, but be prepared for it to take some time.