Cara - "if there are no opportunities, make them"

Cara Patel's career path to her current role doing a PhD on climate and global health. Cara talks about taking a break from academia, her dad's good advice, and why her goal is a portfolio career.

Current Job

Tell us about your current role     line drawing of a location pin

I am a PhD researcher looking at the impact of climate change on environmental AMR (antimicrobial resistance).

Career Beginnings

When you were 15, what job did you want and who did you ask for advice?

I really didn't know at this age what it was I wanted to do. I had several books listing potential careers but I struggled to find something I could see myself doing, so they were quite unhelpful for me. I asked for advice from the school careers councillor, my teachers (specifically form tutor and the teachers of subjects that I enjoy), and most influentially, my Dad, who never failed to give me unbiased advice. In the end I decided a science subject that I enjoyed would be the best fit. I enjoyed biology, and a science degree would set me up for multiple careers even if I decided to change later.

Did you have an interest in the environment at this time?

Yes, I have always had a strong interest in the environment for as long as I can remember.

Cara is smiling at the camera wearing a red top and brown dungarees, with a pride flag lanyard around her neck.

What were your first steps in starting your career?     line drawing of a footprint

Once I decided that I wanted to take biology further (knowing there wasn't a specific job called "biologist" - I knew I would have to make more decisions later), I then took steps to make my university application as appealing as possible: 

  1. I asked my biology teachers for book recomendations, read them, and discussed them in my personal statement.
  2. I made a list of all the volunteering I had done so far (mostly through school programs, and I used LinkedIn for this and still do)
  3. I continued with volunteering in and outside of my chosen subject, keeping in mind transferable skills I could link them back to Biology
  4. I contacted family friends to do work shadowing of Biology related roles
  5. I signed up for an Extended Project Qualification (EPQ) in a biology related subject

Career path and skills

What does your career path look like?     line drawing of a walker with a backpack at a sign. a dotted arrow from the sign points back the way they came from

I do think that my career path so far has been fairly linear, however I am at a point where I see it branching off in several directions.

I went through the standard school system and I went to university to complete my undergraduate in Biology. I continued at the same university to do a closely related masters degree (MRes in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation), took two years out of education to work in environmental research, and then started my PhD in climate change and AMR, which I am still doing.

Interspersed with this I have also taken many volunteering roles both in and outside of my subject to make sure that my CV remained appealing to potential employers.

Post my PhD I see myself moving towards a more portfolio career path, where I am considering branching into several part time roles that change over time - e.g. lecturing, drag performing, costume design, and research.

I come from several groups currently underrepresented in the environmental sector: I am a queer, half-Indian, gender-nonconforming, neurodivergent woman. What I have done, which I found helpful was to:

  • Keep good records of everything you do, and skills you gained through doing it (LinkedIn has been a great tool for this)
  • Take every oportuinity and make the most of it, and if there are no opportunities, make them - don't be afraid to reach out
  • Make sure they know your name (this was the best advice my Dad ever gave me) - i.e. when you are taking part in an opportunity, make sure you do a good job so you can build good reputation
  • Keep up other interests, but not to the point where it negatively impacts your main goals (it's a balancing act).

What skills were important for you to develop in your career?     line drawing of a spanner

Leadership, independent study, teamwork, information synthesis

If you could create any job in the environment sector, what would you pick?

This might exist already, but I would love to work with underrepresented groups and create collections of art and poetry to capture their relationship to the environment through their voices.

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