What to do with bachelor degree in cell biology and genetics?
I’m not planning to go to med school, but is there a possibility for me to land on a good paying job? probably masters degree in cell biology? I envy my friends who are taking computer science/engineering majors. They make good money just with their bachelor degree, while I make about half of their annual salary with my major. help please?
two routes.
One is technical – learn lab techniques and work in biotech labs. Decent number of jobs, and industry does appreciate smart competent people. If you go this route a Masters degree with LOTS of lab/technical experience is good. The lab experience is a MUST, but the Masters isn’t. A Bachelor’s (even an AA) with good lab experience will get you in. However a higher degree, ie a PhD will kill your career if you want "bench work." . Biotech doesn’t hire PhD to do lab work, they hire PhDs to manage.
Route two. academic/managerial. Here you will need the PhD. Academic positions are few and far between – ugly truth is somewhere between 20 and 50 PhD are produced each year for each academic opening. Grad schools do NOT want you to know that. If you want a management level career in biotech – plan your PhD carefully. Make sure the field you choose to study – and it will be vanishingly narrow, like the role of a specific protein in a very specific biological process – gives you the tools industry is interested in. And try to think medium long term – like what you think will be an important area of innovation in biotech in 5 or 10 years, not what is cool and hot right now.
Route 1.5. Biotech sales rep. If you are a good people person, love keeping up with what is going on in biotech, but don’t necessarily need to do the research yourself, and don’t mind travel, being a sales rep to industry/academia might not be bad. These are the guys who sell reagents, chemicals, enzymes, 500,000 dollar microscopes, etc, to academic and industry labs. If you are in a biotech rich area – say Southern Cali, San Fran, Boston, NY/NJ, DC, maybe a few other areas – there’s enough need around you can make a decent living. maybe a low 6 figure salaries or better – but then again these are all regions where six figures is but middle class!
You could, I don’t know…be a geneticist? You’d probably get paid good money and put your degree to good use.
try a pharmaceutical company. they usually pay well.
Okay, I have two perspectives….I am a professor and have a Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics. My husband with Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry works for a major pharmaceutical company as a chemist. He makes three times what I make. The difference is that I LOVE my job. He is frustrated by his. The main point is simply this….do what makes you happy. I want to go to work every day. He doesn’t. I get excited by my job. He doesn’t. The pay scale is this: Biology<Chemistry<Physics/Engineering. To make decent money in Biology you need a Ph.D., but (and I can’t make this point any stronger) IT IS MORE IMPORTANT TO LOVE YOUR JOB THAN TO MAKE TONS OF MONEY. Very simply, when you make your decision, base it on the field that you love, not the money that you think can be made.