But life leads us in many different directions and, following 11 years of study and government jobs in both New Zealand and the UK, that is exactly where he found himself five years ago.
"I never, ever, thought I'd be a university lecturer, mostly because I was petrified of standing up in front of a lot of people.
"I sort of stumbled into it," he said.
The University of Otago political studies lecturer takes three different papers, including an introduction to New Zealand politics in which exam nerves resulted in a poor mark for him in 1991.
He has well and truly overcome his public speaking anxieties.
"I love it. You get an adrenaline hit from standing in front of 200 people."
Dr Edwards spends about 40% of his time on teaching activities, such as lecturing and marking essays and exams, 40% on research and publishing work, and 20% on administration tasks.
Putting himself in the "mindset" of students was an important aspect of his teaching style.
"They have a different mindset and different political knowledge," he said.
As the majority of his students were younger than 20, many needed an explanation of who Robert Muldoon was and what he stood for, but they were very up with the play on John Key.
"You are thinking of trying to find interesting things about John Key they won't know, or different waysof looking at him."
Learning from what he enjoyed - and did not - from his time as a student was also key.
"I really put a lot of thought into what I valued when I was a student," he said.
Variety and audiovisual components were frequent in his lectures, as he never wanted to lose a student's attention and knew it was important to appeal to different learning styles.
Expectations of lecturers had also changed since his time on the other side of the lectern.
Technological advancements meant students expected lecturers to operate in real time, by answering emails as they came in and promptly loading lecture notes online.
They also expected all lectures to be up to date - a challenge in the ever changing platform of New Zealand politics - and relevant.
Dr Edwards remembered thinking his lecturer was delivering the same spiel to him as he had been delivering for the past 10 years, a position in which he never wanted to find himself.
By mixing anecdotes from his time as a policy analyst in government departments into his lectures he enjoyed seeing students' "eyes light up".
"It's more engaging," he said.
Dr Edwards was looking forward to a new bunch of "genuinely bewildered" but "inquisitive" first-year students taking his introduction to New Zealand politics paper this year.
While late appearances were frequent as they learned how to run their own lives, more first-years came up to him at the end of a class to clarify points or follow up on an argument than in any other years, which was great, he said.
The advice he had for those starting out was to read previous years' exam scripts, work out what the actual assessment aspects of the paper were and focus on completing assignments to the best of their ability.
"There are no points for turning up for lectures. It's more important to get your essays in on time."
Hearing excuses for not handing work in had worn thin with Dr Edwards.
Determining when assessments were due, for each paper, would "put you in so much better stead than anything else you can do".
Political Studies lecturer
Name: Dr Bryce Edwards
Age: 38
Occupation: University of Otago political studies lecturer
Years in role: Five
Study: University of Otago Bachelor of Arts, 1991-92, transferred to Canterbury University, 1993-95, honours in history; political sociology masters 1997-2002.
