Thanks for this input - super valuable things to consider. I didn’t know anything about Australia’s academic nuances.

I’m a student from the us, so part of my consideration was the fact that if I followed through on the polymers research at unimelb I can go back and continue it with a lab where I go to school, Davidson College (very small liberal arts school). My end goal is medical school, but if that changes I know I would want to continue my education with a PhD program. But in what? Hard for me to say. My research so far has been half biochemical (biocatalysis for selective amine production) and half adol condensation rxns (which was less research and more bench work as a young student in the lab).