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I knew a good amount of premed students who majored in biology. None of them got into med school and now they are stuck with a useless degree. Only major in biology if you have a passion for it. The vast majority of bio graduates regret their decision. You will most likely be working in a lab for $12/hour. That's great if that's what you want, but most people want more.
I knew a good amount of premed students who majored in biology. None of them got into med school and now they are stuck with a useless degree. Only major in biology if you have a passion for it. The vast majority of bio graduates regret their decision. You will most likely be working in a lab for $12/hour. That's great if that's what you want, but most people want more.
I hope you don't mind my asking, but is this based on experience with fairly recent graduates?
I hope you don't mind my asking, but is this based on experience with fairly recent graduates?
I majored in biology and saw the same thing. Wasnt premed but wanted to do field biology. Got a BSc and in the process volunteered and did research and an internship. First job out of college paid $11 an hour with no benefits. I didn't care at all and quit, after I realized my cohorts without high school educations made more in kitchens. I would have done grad school too and got a good GRE score but found after applying for a lab technician job for 30k that the job had hundreds of applicants and went to a PhD.
Most PHDs get stuck as low wage post docs until they become high school teachers. I've worked with plenty making under 40k in their 30s and beyond.
Now I work in an ancillary health field. I make over $40/hr in the Bay Area and made around $20/hr in a cheaper southeast city beforehand. May try to parlay into health informatics, medicine or management later.
The worst part--research wasn't fun at all. It was 100% about generating enough worthless data to get published and using your history of x publications as leverage to beg for more government and private grants. Most science isn't earth shattering or even worthy of government money. If you want to develop interesting technologies try to work in the applied science fields like engineering, computer science or medicine (MDs do clinical research too, have good access to patient data and actually make money doing it).
Major in computer science/engineering/finance kiddos and if you're extremely ambitious take the prerequisites for medicine as well and apply. But at least you'll have a backup option as only 44% of Medical applicants actually get in.
I read on the MIT website a few years ago the average salary of a biology grad at MIT working in the field was around 36k. Engineering at a state school it's 60k and the engineer has a more interesting job. Choose wisely.
I do not have a biology degree but I do work in a testing lab and consequently I work with many who have bachelors in bio, chemistry.
From my observations if you are coming out with just the bachelors, at best you are looking at some sort of technician, lab tech, whatever you want to call it making anywhere from12-18$ per hour. You will be running the same set of tests day after day, just on different products. So you are going to test the formaldehyde in this piece of clothing, the lead in this handle bar etc...- to me that is mind numbingly boring but to each hi own.
Now the actual "biologist", "chemist role"- none of the technician part , seems to be filled by those with a masters, going after a masters or those who have spent many years in the tech role. The pay is a bit better but again the job duties are largely the same except you are running different tests from the technicans, but again day after you run the same test, just on different products.
I know not every grad with the bio degree automatically wants to go to med school, pharmacy school, just as not every English, History grad automatically wants to become a teacher, but the future with just the bachelor's degree does not seem that great (at least in my opinion).
I do not have a biology degree but I do work in a testing lab and consequently I work with many who have bachelors in bio, chemistry.
From my observations if you are coming out with just the bachelors, at best you are looking at some sort of technician, lab tech, whatever you want to call it making anywhere from12-18$ per hour. You will be running the same set of tests day after day, just on different products. So you are going to test the formaldehyde in this piece of clothing, the lead in this handle bar etc...- to me that is mind numbingly boring but to each hi own.
Now the actual "biologist", "chemist role"- none of the technician part , seems to be filled by those with a masters, going after a masters or those who have spent many years in the tech role. The pay is a bit better but again the job duties are largely the same except you are running different tests from the technicans, but again day after you run the same test, just on different products.
I know not every grad with the bio degree automatically wants to go to med school, pharmacy school, just as not every English, History grad automatically wants to become a teacher, but the future with just the bachelor's degree does not seem that great (at least in my opinion).
Good Point. Most that just have a bachelors in chemistry or Biology end up as lab techs or analytical/QC Chemists (which is really a glorified lab technician with a few extra dollars in the pay check every two weeks) I am an associate chemist thermosetting phenol formaldehyde resins and running the same Samples on DSC analyzing the same degree of curing curve. It is very boring but it pays the bills. The analytical chemists in the analytical services department run the samples of every other research group using GC-MS, GPC, HPLC, FT-IR, and NMR and their jobs are repetitive. In order to be an actual research chemist or biologist and not testing what seems like the same sample over and over again you need minimum of a masters and at my company the guys with the PHDs are the only ones who do actual research and all the fun stuff you think chemists do. I decided against med school because I didn't want to get in the student loan debt and my MCAT scores weren't that good either.
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