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I'd say both the BLS and forums are good. The problem with the BLS is it calculates wages based on people currently employed in a field. It does a poor job calculating if people getting the degree for that field will go into other related fields or be underemployed. Some fields it may claim as being "competitive" but that's not really enough.
Also, the BLS tends to over-focus on job growth rather than the overall employment picture. For example, chemical engineering may have a lower growth rate than financial advising but because so many fewer people graduate with chemical engineering skills it won't matter. Chem Eng could have almost no growth but due to attrition and retirements there would be less competition for qualified applicants in jobs than for financial advising. However, this level of detail is non-existent in the BLS reports.
Forums are antecdotal and often overly negative but do allow people more unfiltered, deep, and less biased information. More detail can be obtained about specific job sectors, where to work for the best pay, unemployment and working conditions by region etc. Hearing people's personal journey to get to the jobs you may want also might be helpful.
Back to biology I'd be careful about relocating to expensive regions with the hope of finding a biotech lab job. Even in SF, many won't pay that well (often under 50k) and the cost of living in many of these job centers is far too high to make relocating for even a 60k a year job worthwhile. In the Bay Area, you wouldn't even qualify for a total POS apartment with less than a 75-80k salary and Boston is similar. I'd recommend getting a skill set thats more open like IT. Then if you want to move to an expensive area after getting some experience the company will have to pay you big money to be able to afford the real estate.
Everything you are saying is true. Indeed you do have to be careful about relocating to high cost of living areas like SF and Boston. 50k a year in SF is peanuts because it's impossible to get even the most crappiest apartment for less than $2,000 a month out in the Bay Area. Like you mentioned before most bio majors have to transition into health care to make use of their degree. You got a certification as a medical technologist which required additional training and schooling but was well worth to get away from those $15 an hour temp lab tech jobs. They only hot bed area for biology/biotech jobs that has a reasonable cost of living is the Raliegh/research triangle area in North Carolina. So if someone wants to get a biology degree that is the first place to apply to jobs. Chemistry is a different beast. Analytical chemists are in the most demand right now so getting a temp job working with HPLC/UPLC, GC, IR, and UV-Vis were you validate analytical methods via USP methods would give you some very useful skills to land a permanent analytical chemist position if you like that kind of work. I still think the OP should go the IT route because there are more jobs in it and there is a lot more flexibility of what career routes you can take. In order to make a career in biology you either have to work in biotech or health sciences as a medical technologist. In order to make a career as a chemist you have to either go the analytical route and obtain those skills or get a PHD in chemistry so you can do your own research as a scientist but most PHD candidates end up in post docs for a couple years before they land a real job. Otherwise if you don't take those routes in the bio/Chem field, you are most likely go to end up in a dead end lab tech job with low pay.
I'd say both the BLS and forums are good. The problem with the BLS is it calculates wages based on people currently employed in a field. It does a poor job calculating if people getting the degree for that field will go into other related fields or be underemployed. Some fields it may claim as being "competitive" but that's not really enough.
Also, the BLS tends to over-focus on job growth rather than the overall employment picture. For example, chemical engineering may have a lower growth rate than financial advising but because so many fewer people graduate with chemical engineering skills it won't matter. Chem Eng could have almost no growth but due to attrition and retirements there would be less competition for qualified applicants in jobs than for financial advising. However, this level of detail is non-existent in the BLS reports.
Forums are antecdotal and often overly negative but do allow people more unfiltered, deep, and less biased information. More detail can be obtained about specific job sectors, where to work for the best pay, unemployment and working conditions by region etc. Hearing people's personal journey to get to the jobs you may want also might be helpful.
Back to biology I'd be careful about relocating to expensive regions with the hope of finding a biotech lab job. Even in SF, many won't pay that well (often under 50k) and the cost of living in many of these job centers is far too high to make relocating for even a 60k a year job worthwhile. In the Bay Area, you wouldn't even qualify for a total POS apartment with less than a 75-80k salary and Boston is similar. I'd recommend getting a skill set thats more open like IT. Then if you want to move to an expensive area after getting some experience the company will have to pay you big money to be able to afford the real estate.
The BLS does give negative job outlooks beyond "competitive"
Quote:
With a growing number of students graduating with architectural degrees, strong competition for internships and jobs in the field is expected. Competition for jobs will be especially strong at the most prestigious architectural firms. Those with up-to-date technical skills and training in sustainable design could have an advantage.
Employment of architects is strongly tied to the activity of the construction industry. Therefore, these workers may experience periods of unemployment when there is a slowdown in requests for new projects or when the overall level of construction falls.
Ok so they basically said for architecture that you might experience unemployment during a construction slowdown. Big deal, any high schooler could do that.
It'd be better if they went into details about the number of graduating degrees versus jobs, the number of people over 50 no longer working in the field 1 year later by choice etc after a layoff. Also other information like other common industries those with an architectural education go into and salaries by years of experience may be helpful. A forum may or may not answer those real questions for you but theres a chance you'll get that information from other sources. The BLS provides notoriously superficial information.
Ok so they basically said for architecture that you might experience unemployment during a construction slowdown. Big deal, any high schooler could do that.
It'd be better if they went into details about the number of graduating degrees versus jobs, the number of people over 50 no longer working in the field 1 year later by choice etc after a layoff. Also other information like other common industries those with an architectural education go into and salaries by years of experience may be helpful. A forum may or may not answer those real questions for you but theres a chance you'll get that information from other sources. The BLS provides notoriously superficial information.
BLS is for labor; it's not an education department. There are other federal agencies that do more research on the utility of various degrees. Georgetown and Payscale also research this area.
BLS is for labor; it's not an education department. There are other federal agencies that do more research on the utility of various degrees. Georgetown and Payscale also research this area.
They're tied together dont you think? Even still salaries by experience, layoff stats by age, and degrees needed to get into the listed job are all relevant information.
They're tied together dont you think? Even still salaries by experience, layoff stats by age, and degrees needed to get into the listed job are all relevant information.
They do list the type of degree and training that is typically required, but it is not a department made for assessing the value of a college degree because most jobs don't even require a degree. I believe the U.S. Department of Education collects data on ROI for various majors at individual colleges and universities.
No idea about biology. Albeit it seems like one of those more narrow degrees.
As for IT - "IT" is a broad term. It defines an entire industry/sector. Now, network engineering is very specific. Unfortunately, a degree will not mean a whole lot in terms of preparing you for a career as a network engineer. I'm not saying it won't be useful at some point (e.g. management) - but most network engineering jobs don't have a degree as a hard requirement. Now, specific companies may only hire college grads, but it wouldn't matter if it was in Biology or I.T.. The key requirements for network engineering is proven experience.
Also - those letters you put behind your name do not count as experience. They support it, but I'm not hiring a network engineer just because he/she has a certification. There are certain exceptions (e.g. CCIE), but those certs are essentially unattainable without experience.
Finally, network engineering isn't an entry level position. So that proven experience would normally be obtained in other roles such as work as a analyst in a NOC/SOC, or even doing desktop support for smaller companies. The best opportunity would be to hook up with a smaller shop. You may have an IT administrator that is wearing all hats, and has a team of folks that support them. In this case, you will be worked pretty thin as these shops tend to run real lean. But the experience is well worth it.
I don't know a lot about an IT degree, except that many recent grads I know in computer science are making crazy money right out of school, but the key was interning every semester and every summer during undergrad. And again, you must have a passion for the work as the hours are long.
Biology, my field. Started off getting my BS at a state school that also offered the prerequisites for medical technologist licensure as part of the program. So I finished 3 years of academic work at the university and then my fourth year doing my 12-month internship at a hospital close to home (cheap housing!). The fourth year shows on my transcripts as upper division chemistry, immunology, microbiology, pathology, etc credits. During that year you intern and rotate through all of the departments in the hospital lab. And our first rotation was phlebotomy so that they could use us to fill in gaps for stat draws, ER coverage, morning rounds. We could be paged overhead or called in during the wee hours if needed, and it happened regularly. Because my training was a trauma center there were lots of reasons to need all hand on deck around the clock.
Once I completed my internship, then I took a month off to study for the exam (ASCP), passed, but they are not easy. Jobs were scarce and I only found part time work. Shortly after, we made a cross-country move and again, no work for MTs. I ended up working various different jobs outside the field. After about 5 more years, for whatever reason, I sent out some resumes for MT positions and they were tripping over me making offers. It was still night shift to start but it was pretty good money (especially considering shift differential and call pay) but not much work/life balance with a young family. However, there were guys who had been in the lab for a while, promoted to day shift, had less call responsibility, and were supporting families. I worked various shifts for the next 5 years (just about the time I would get very proficient in my department, they would decide to outsource those tests and I would be moved to another department, another shift) and had enough of that. I received an offer from a pharma company as a sales rep and went that direction. Those were actually my highest earning years. If you are good at what you do, (and I had a leg up because I already knew the local docs from my work at the lab), don't think it's all about playing golf, and don't mind the travel you can make some good money. But again, it was cyclical, long hours, lots of travel away from home, and I saw the downside coming as they started to outsource to contract labor. Since we enjoy living in a somewhat rural area, going back East or to CA was not anoption for us. This turned out to be a good time to step back and raise the family while my husband was rising in his career. Still plenty of jobs available locally, just not at live-able wages. I ended up working all kinds of jobs in doctors' offices, school district health jobs, and local hospital clerical jobs (think 8-5 hours). Now that we are empty nesting I am looking forward to a little more career stuff and so I am looking at the local VA hospital for the benefits and pension. But, that has to do more with the current concerns of my own insurance and benefits needs. Doctors' offices really don't offer much in the way of affordable insurance and lack other benefits like 401k, disability, vacation pay (and we just go to work sick because there is no sick pay...ironically!). So I hope to finish up my career in federal employment, earn a pension, have pretty good insurance benefits, while the country figures out ACA, and make things more comfortable for my retirement.
Our daughter chose to go down the path of a biology undergrad degree, went directly to grad school in marine bio. She has no interest in teaching or staying in academia. Her field (msotly zoos and aquariums) run on skeleton crews of paid employees and mostly unpaid interns so, even with a masters degree she is expected to pay her dues. I have to say though, that the masters (which was totally funded by a meager but do-able stipend as a research assistant) has paid off in the intern process as both time she got an immediate call and landed her first choices both times. With the second internship she is hoping to find paid employment in their research program. Her education has not cost much as her undergrad was covered mostly by scholarships and she lived at home. Her grad program provided a stipend (although the research she worked on was far from her field of interest) and she had some savings to fall back on for things like car repairs, apartment/utility deposits, etc. Of course, internships have been totally funded by her savings when most of the other interns are taking on food service and retail jobs in their off hours and weekends to be able to have a roof over their heads. She has quickly learned that non-profits do not pay well in her field and their research is very slow, not much to publish...if that is a measure of their outcomes. So she is now looking to be more research oriented, but not with a non-profit. She is not ready to do environmental mitigation work (though those jobs are out there with engineering firms paying middle class wages or better), write policy and issue permits (federal jobs), or in general drive a desk...just yet.
If I were thinking about doing a masters degree in the hard sciences I would think about a non-thesis track as money for research in most fields has dried up. If you are passionate about research, then go for the thesis track, but understand that it is a much more difficult road. Although you may get a research or teaching stipend you will still qualify for food stamps, and your research will not be on anything that interests you let alone novel, and you need to be a really good investigator and writer to spend long nights finding grant opportunities and applying for all of them. Your thesis will get published in most cases but in some very obscure journal. In the meanwhile, the university will push you in your research and thesis as if you just discovered the cure for cancer and your work is globally important...NOT! If you just want to have a quiet career, not interested in being published, no desire to stay in academia...stay with the non-thesis track.
All that being said, you can make a living with a bio degree, but you probably won't be driving the nicest car on the block. As for math, take as much as you can, definitely calculus and stats in high school. We often joke that our daughter has a minor in statistics as it is expected that you be able to program in R, SAS, METLAB...marine bio also needs GIS classes so think about some geography electives. And don't forget a SCUBA ceritification. Every niche in biology has its prereqisites for employment and it is important to figure those out.
She looked at biotech initially but it seemed that all of the pre-meds who did not get into med school opted to go to biotech or neurosciences so those areas were very competitive, and she is not a competitive person. Biotech is very heavy into the statistics classes, be able to program and analyze data, still keep up great skills in the laboratory areas, and be great at writing. Then think about an MBA instead of an MS. Hopefully you can find an employer with tuition reimbursement for the MBA.
I think, no matter what your field, USAJOB.gov is a good place to look for what are the requirements for different job levels. And in the sciences you can see what areas have jobs available. Biology is such a broad field. There is everything from park ranger, wildlife biologist, biotech research, medical careers, specialized fields like genetics and behavior, forest management...
Thanks for the informative post. While I was majoring in biology, some of my classmates were medical technology majors. I wondered at the time about the job prospects. While working as a chemist, I had an interview for a medical technologist job at a hospital, but was not hired.
Years later, I realized that the job I eventually got, a laboratory technologist at a sewage plant, had a much better retirement pension (OPERS). The local hospital is government owned and also has OPERS, but that is a rarity.
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