Question: What made you want to become a senior Lecturer, Exercise Physiology

Mark Burnley answered on 13 Jun 2011:

I wanted to become a lecturer in exercise physiology because it is one of only a few ways to do science as a job. The others are to work in industry (for a sports club like a football team) or to set up your own business. I didn’t want to study things that would only be of interest to other people, so the sports team option was out, and I’m no good at business plans and accounting, so I didn’t want to set my own business up. I’m also quite good at explaining things (apart from this answer :-P), and so I decided to aply to be a lecturer. For that you need at least a Masters degree and usually a PhD. I have a PhD in exercise physiology, so that’s why I lecture in that. The “senior” bit of “senior lecturer” is something I have only recently achieved. It is a promotion and is the first step towards becoming a “Professor”. Professors are a bit like lecturers, except that they spend less time in the laboratory and the classroom and more time telling other people what to do!