A good way to find out if a life in research is for you is to try it! Spending a year working in a research lab during your degree course can help you decide. Although you will spend an extra year getting your degree, you should be paid by your temporary employer during your sandwich year.

Feedback from university tutors suggests that students come back to finish their degree course with new study skills and a broader perspective on their subject. And if they have decided that life in the lab is not for them, they can explore some of the many other career options open to them during their final year.

If you are already at university, it may be too late to think about a sandwich course – though in some universities the sandwich year is an optional additional year and it may still be a possibility, if you talk to your tutors.

There are courses with “thick” (one year) or “thin” (one or more six month) periods of work experience which may be in university labs or in industry or in the NHS.