<p>I am a senior in high school. My long term career goal is to be able to have a company after doing research on something that is profitable. What I am interested in doing research in neural engineering. What I want to know is if I have to become a professor to do independent research?</p>
<p>I guess I should enlighten more on more career goals: After(hopefully) getting a BS in biomedical engineering, I would really like to go go grad. school and get a phd. I want to do independent research and(I know it might not happen), discover something in my research that I can profit off of. I would want to start my own company from there.</p>
<p>You probably would have to become a professor to do that, though there is surely some few opportunities not in academia. However, just because you want a company and want to come up with something new and innovative, it doesn’t mean it will happen. Great ideas are a result of luck in most circumstances. You just need to make sure you aren’t narrow minded in your problem solving, and it will allow you to have more “Ah hah” moments so you can do some meaningful innovation.</p>
<p>Your best bet, if you want to start a company straight off with your PhD, is to join a lab that’s producing patentable products and hope something worthwhile happens while you’re there, and they need to start the company up when you’re there. There’s generally a few year window when they’ll hire most PhDs straight out of their own lab, so you’d need to get lucky with that timing.</p>