H. Jared Doster graduated from Florida State University in 2011 with dual bachelors degrees in Physics and Applied & Computational Mathematics. While at FSU, he worked under Dr. Ingo Wiedenhoever at the John D. Fox Superconducting Linear Accelerator Laboratory. After graduation, he attended Michigan State University at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) and obtained a masters degree in physics. After teaching for one year as an adjunct professor at Gulf Coast State College in Panama City, FL, he decided to pursue a career in intellectual property law.
Currently, Jared is attending Vanderbilt University Law School and received the Robert L. Sullivan Intellectual Property Scholarship for law students that show promise in the field of intellectual property. After law school, Jared will work in the intellectual property group at Baker Botts L.L.P., a global law firm headquartered in Houston, TX.
Here's what Jared has to say:
I am a registered patent agent before the US Patent and Trademark Office and a law student at Vanderbilt University Law School. Recently, I accepted an offer to be an attorney in the intellectual property group of Baker Botts L.L.P., a global law firm headquarted in Houston, TX. Based on this information, one would think that I had planned for some time to be an attorney, but this is not the case. I did not decide to pursue a legal career until after I had already received a masters degree in physics.
Education
At Florida State University, I was a double major in Physics and Applied & Computational Mathematics. At that time, the thought of being a lawyer had never crossed my mind. I was entirely focused on my education in physics and I had some vague notions about a career in experimental physics. During this time, I worked with Dr. Ingo Wiedenhoever at the John D. Fox Superconducting Linear Accelerator Laboratory. This experience persuaded me to pursue a graduate degree in nuclear physics. After graduating, I attended Michigan State University with the plan of obtaining a Ph.D. in nuclear physics. However, my experience in graduate school showed me that, for various reasons, a career in experimental physics was not for me. So, I left after obtaining a masters degree.
Career
Like most physics majors, I dedicated almost no time to making career goals. This mentality is not entirely inappropriate for the academic physics pipeline because your advisor, or whichever professor that has taken you under his or her wing, will typically open up doors for you in the world of research physics.
However, once I left the world of academic physics, I realized that I was essentially on my own in finding an “alternative career.” This was unnerving and exciting at the same time. The task at hand was to find a career that (i) I would be proficient at and (ii) would make my six-year investment in physics worthwhile. After looking into various opportunities, I discovered the career option of being a patent attorney and I have been pursuing it ever since.
Advice for physics majors
(1) Understand that you are in school to start a career.
The university should be an experience that helps you expand your mind and grow as a human. In fact, I would argue that becoming a self-aware and well-rounded person can lead to a better career, but this is a separate topic. Having said this, it does not matter how expanded your mind is if you cannot get a job. This does not mean that you need to discover your career immediately. This does not even mean you need to discover your career by the time you graduate. It simply means that you should be continuously mindful of your end goal: starting a career.
(2) Understand what a career is.
From a personal perspective, a career is the mechanism by which you trade your time for money. Your life has a finite amount of time. Unless you are independently wealthy, you will have to trade much of that time for money.
From the perspective of others, a career is the way by which a person pays you to perform a task. That person is paying you to do a task for two reasons: (i) that person has no ability or interest in doing the task and (ii) you are proficient at performing the task. People pay for proficiency.
(3) Understand that your love for an academic subject does not mean that you will be proficient at practicing that subject.
To me, this was not an intuitive realization. Every physics major that I have met, including myself, became a physics major because of their love for the subject and not because of some idea regarding career opportunities. As children, most of us watched Star Trek, or Discovery Channel, or Bill Nye the Science Guy, or Neil deGrasse Tyson, or some other pop-culture science show. Also, many of us came from families with at least one engineer or scientist. This early exposure to science fostered in us a love of mathematics, science, and what we perceive to be rational thought.
As nice as the love for science is, that love will not make you a competent or successful scientist. In fact, having a love for anything (sports, art, law, etc.) will not make you proficient in practicing that subject. To be successful in the practice of your career, you need at least two things: (1) the discipline and mindfulness to pay attention to details and (2) a tolerance for tedium. If you do not believe me, ask your physics professors if their day-to-day job requires attention to detail and a tolerance for tedium.
The paradox of my academic life is that I enjoyed learning physics more than I enjoyed learning the law, but I am more proficient at practicing law than I was at practicing physics. I stopped pursuing a Ph.D. essentially because I was not as proficient at practicing physics as my graduate school colleagues (although experienced showed multiple times that I understood the structure and application of physics better than my more successful colleagues, the irony of which has not escaped me).
(4) Be proactive in looking for career opportunities
No one cares about your career more than you. So, if you do not do something to build your career, then your career likely will never form. Fortunately, your physics education is an excellent foundation for your career. Spending every day in the rarefied environment of the physics department will cause you to forget that you have an impressive skillset that people will pay you to use. Your education in physics teaches you how to solve problems in a quantitative and analytical manner. It also gains you respect and admiration from others. These are valuable assets that most people do not have. These assets are your competitive advantage (and probably not your only advantage).