(Biology #8) "The 10 Worst Majors for Finding a Good Job"

[Jonathan Cline]

The 10 Worst Majors for Finding a Good Job

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-10-worst-majors-for-finding-a-good-job-211340394.html?page=all

"""

8. Biology. A lot of bio majors think they might go to medical school someday but end up deterred by the cost, difficulty and length of study. Then they discover that a lot of others made the same decision and are competing for a limited number of lower-level research or technician jobs. A better choice of major might be biochemistry, which is more quantitative and better-aligned with jobs in the biotech or pharmaceutical industries.

"""



## Jonathan Cline
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[Alexey Zaytsev]

On Tue, Jun 18, 2013 at 7:35 PM, Jonathan Cline <jnc...@gmail.com> wrote:

> 8. Biology. A lot of bio majors think they might go to medical school someday

Stopped reading.

[Michael Folsom]

Actually the section on Biology is OK.  While I don't think the bit that every Biology student wants to be a Doctor is correct Biochemistry would be a better/more employable choice for most Biology students. 

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[Eugen Leitl]

On Tue, Jun 18, 2013 at 05:23:40PM -0600, Michael Folsom wrote:
> Actually the section on Biology is OK. While I don't think the bit that
> every Biology student wants to be a Doctor is correct Biochemistry would be
> a better/more employable choice for most Biology students.

The air is terribly thin for PhD molecular biologists at the bench.
There's biochemistry grunt jobs (tending bioreactors), but that's
a vocational track, and has lower wages.

[Jeswin]

On Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 5:14 AM, Eugen Leitl <eu...@leitl.org> wrote:
>
> The air is terribly thin for PhD molecular biologists at the bench.
> There's biochemistry grunt jobs (tending bioreactors), but that's
> a vocational track, and has lower wages.
>

You're right about that. The traditional job paths don't exist
anymore. Those who do get the good jobs were lucky, thought outside
the box, or "knew somebody" in the business. This is my first and last
job in the sector. One day, most bench style jobs would just be
outsourced like everything else. There's just a glut of these majors.
Few companies want to hire and train anymore.

[Bryan Bishop]

On Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 8:01 AM, Jeswin <phill...@gmail.com> wrote:

job in the sector. One day, most bench style jobs would just be
outsourced like everything else. There's just a glut of these majors.

Aren't you looking at this the wrong way? What this means is that there's a source of really talented, incredibly cheap labor. Dime a dozen for Nobel prize-winning Soviet scientists! etc.

- Bryan
http://heybryan.org/
1 512 203 0507

[David Murphy]

That's not a good thing for you when you're the cheap labour.

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[Antony Evans]

The potential applications of molecular biology are incredible. If you are in this boat make your own job: do a startup, or raise money on kickstarter to work on something you are passionate about.

Antony

[Josiah Zayner]

Of course there are alot of potential applications of molecular biology but not alot of real world and/or money making applications. If there were, the people who are way smarter than us and with more money then us would be doing them. And some of them are both in and outside of academia, George Church, Karl Deisseroth, David Baker, J. Craig and David Shaw.

Anyone can take someone else's patented idea and run a Kickstarter on it with grandiose claims and stolen pictures and make money but being truly innovative and finding people to invest or even pay attention is very difficult for someone with a Ph.D. in Biochemistry much less a Bachelors in Biology.

If someone is truly interested in Science I always recommend graduate school because in the end when you graduate you have a Ph.D. which lasts longer than even a couple hundred thousand dollars.

[Antony Evans]

I disagree. Every year there are iGem teams working on ideas which they could commercialize. Last year they even started up a 'business track' to explore the questions around this. 

The costs to prototype are falling (DNA cost, access to equipment etc) are falling dramatically there are viable paths to doing this emerging.  Someone will start a Y-Combinator for Syn Bio soon, there have already been experiments with that.

The 'big' guys want to push the boundaries of the science, there are tons of 'lesser' ideas for people to develop.

Antony

[kingjacob]

Please tell me you aren't serious about saying there aren't alot of real world and/or money making applications for molecular biology? The top 10 biotech companies (even if you exclude traditional pharma) are all worth billions, and have margins better than most IT companies. 

Also, as a "nonPhd" who has raised funding for their biotech company, I can assure you that any investor worth their salt wont care about your degree.  All they care about is if your idea is sound,if it has real potential as a technology (ie not just incrementally better) and if they think you are capable of making it happen. 

If you have something truly innovative that can't get funding send me an email off list and I'll help put you on the right track. Same goes to anyone else on this list. Funding bio endeavors is not easy but nowhere near impossible. 

On Thu, Jun 20, 2013 at 2:08 PM, Antony Evans <anton...@gmail.com> wrote:

I disagree. Every year there are iGem teams working on ideas which they could commercialize. Last year they even started up a 'business track' to explore the questions around this. 

The costs to prototype are falling (DNA cost, access to equipment etc) are falling dramatically there are viable paths to doing this emerging.  Someone will start a Y-Combinator for Syn Bio soon, there have already been experiments with that.

I'd be willing to bet a really shiny nickel that someone is going to announce an accelerator for Synthetic Biology by the first week in July ;)

 

The 'big' guys want to push the boundaries of the science, there are tons of 'lesser' ideas for people to develop.

Antony

On Thursday, June 20, 2013 2:40:59 PM UTC-4, Josiah Zayner wrote:

Of course there are alot of potential applications of molecular biology but not alot of real world and/or money making applications. If there were, the people who are way smarter than us and with more money then us would be doing them. And some of them are both in and outside of academia, George Church, Karl Deisseroth, David Baker, J. Craig and David Shaw.

Anyone can take someone else's patented idea and run a Kickstarter on it with grandiose claims and stolen pictures and make money but being truly innovative and finding people to invest or even pay attention is very difficult for someone with a Ph.D. in Biochemistry much less a Bachelors in Biology.

If someone is truly interested in Science I always recommend graduate school because in the end when you graduate you have a Ph.D. which lasts longer than even a couple hundred thousand dollars.


On Thursday, June 20, 2013 11:42:54 AM UTC-5, Antony Evans wrote:

The potential applications of molecular biology are incredible. If you are in this boat make your own job: do a startup, or raise money on kickstarter to work on something you are passionate about.

Antony

On Tuesday, June 18, 2013 12:35:41 PM UTC-4, Jonathan Cline wrote:

The 10 Worst Majors for Finding a Good Job

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-10-worst-majors-for-finding-a-good-job-211340394.html?page=all

"""

8. Biology. A lot of bio majors think they might go to medical school someday but end up deterred by the cost, difficulty and length of study. Then they discover that a lot of others made the same decision and are competing for a limited number of lower-level research or technician jobs. A better choice of major might be biochemistry, which is more quantitative and better-aligned with jobs in the biotech or pharmaceutical industries.

"""



## Jonathan Cline
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[Josiah Zayner]

Obviously, there are huge Biotech companies that do crazy research but I am betting >90% of huge biotech companies started from somewhere within academia, someone with a Ph.D. or using a technology that required huge start-up funds. In fact most biotech companies that make any kind of money will only hire Ph.D.s to run research groups. 

That is silly to say that an investor would not care about a degree. Obviously, a great idea, business plan and revenue model will be more convincing but I would venture that if two people with the same/similar idea, one with a Ph.D. and one without, an investor would choose to invest in the one with the Ph.D.

How many investments would you venture to say were given to kids almost solely just because they came from say MIT? These things exist. They suck sometimes if you are on the other side but they do exist. 

You all keep posting about how there are so many untapped ideas in "molecular biology" but no one is giving any examples. 

Sure, on a rare occasion someone without a Ph.D. will find funding for some BioTech research and then after they do that find a sustainable revenue model, sell their product and actually succeed. But BioTech is not that same as Tech and I think it will still be a long while before we have BioTech giants started by people who dropped out of University ala Gates & Zuckerberg.

But as I type this everyone has the opportunity to prove me wrong. It would be great to see kids with the same level of skill and knowledge with a wet lab that they do with programming and computers. However, 99% of people don't have access to that kind of equipment and skilled teachers until University.

Maybe both "king" jacob and Anthony have had and will have success but for each success there are so many more failures.

"Take your Bachelors in Biology degree and try and go start a company." I don't think this is the best advice for new grads but again that could be just me.

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[Dakota Hamill]

Well one of the biggest challenges I see individuals facing and even small companies first hand in trying to commercialize their idea is access to affordable lab space and shared equipment.  I love looking through iGEM team websites because it is really inspiring work and seems do-able in terms of protocol difficulty, meaning many times it is pretty standard stuff.  Then I realize...these kids have access to some of the best labs in the world not to mention most are generally sponsored by private companies as well, with donations of services and or equipment.  

If someone has a book filled with ideas, but can't get some bench time to validate what ones are worth pursuing, those ideas are (for the most part) worthless.

I work for a company at a biotech incubator outside Boston and it's really inspiring to see a lot of different people from different areas trying to make it.  90% of the companies in the incubator are 1-2 people, and how they get funding, I have no idea, but it seems many are funded out of their own wallets since most look like they are in their 40's-50's and have been in industry jobs for quite a while and were able to save up some money.  Lab space is still expensive I believe, but affordable (if you have 10-20k per year).

The point being I think the world needs a lot more science incubators, and I'm looking forward to seeing how Jacob's place in TX works out.  Community labs are great because sharing scientific knowledge is fantastic, but there needs to be another class of lab-spaces more geared to people who already know what they are doing and are looking to actually make something out of their research.  

It is so torturous to just need "one more piece of equipment" to be able to run the experiments you want to, but that one piece of equipment costs $2,000 and that's a months wages for what I'm making.  

I had written and re-written a few paragraphs trying to express some frustration in regards to observing the pattern of selectivity in terms of who is allowed into the incubators but Josiah worded what I was trying to say much better and in a lot fewer words.

How many investments would you venture to say were given to kids almost solely just because they came from say MIT? These things exist. They suck sometimes if you are on the other side but they do exist. 

 I am betting >90% of huge biotech companies started from somewhere within academia, someone with a Ph.D. or using a technology that required huge start-up funds

However, 99% of people don't have access to that kind of equipment and skilled teachers until University.  (or even at university for that matter sometimes)

I'm having a hard time thinking of a conclusion to the ramblings I just wrote but I'll give it a shot.

I think many people on this list are on this list because they haven't taken the normal career path to get to where they are, and most are still young enough that they aren't where they are trying to get just yet anyway.  I think, as Josiah mentioned, some people on this list hope to be the Gates, Jobs, Zuckerberg of the bio-tech world.  It might happen, it might not.  One of the reasons I don't think we've heard of a "young" millionaire biotech entrepreneur is because, unlike many software company success stories we've come to hear about that just require a computer and someone to code, a science lab requires tens of thousands to millions of dollars to be properly outfitted. 

The only consumables Zuckerberg went through at Harvard when coding facebook were probably doritos, mountain dew, and electricity.  He was able to build a working prototype of his product with a computer and a lot of hard work.  It just simply isn't the same in the sciences.

Nevertheless, with the odds stacked against us, I still hope the people on this list that strive to do great things will do them.  I firmly believe the desire to succeed and the will to win is greater than any material disadvantage, except on the days I realize I don't have that piece of lab equipment I need, and then it isn't.

[John Griessen]

On 06/20/2013 02:08 PM, Antony Evans wrote:
> want to push the boundaries of the science, there are tons
> of 'lesser' ideas for people to develop.

Yes, there are... All it takes is a little savings and some vision and effort.

On 06/20/2013 06:17 PM, Josiah Zayner wrote:> "Take your Bachelors in Biology degree and try and go start a company." I

> don't think this is the best advice for new grads but again that could be
> just me.

Could be a little bias. As far as I remember every post of yours touts having a PhD.

The very best advice these days in the US for new grads is even broader than above:
"Take your Bachelors in _____ degree and go start a company."

Leaving out the try part is important.

[Cathal Garvey (Android)]

Quite the opposite, I'm told.. many investors specifically avoid PhDs, and favour those who have dropped out of a Postgrad program. Don't ask me why!

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[Eugen Leitl]

On Thu, Jun 20, 2013 at 09:42:54AM -0700, Antony Evans wrote:
> The potential applications of molecular biology are incredible. If you are

They are that. But absence of money is one hell of a handicap.

> in this boat make your own job: do a startup, or raise money on kickstarter

The amounts of total jobs in total fundable startups is limited.
Creating a startup requires different skills than your
average lab bench bear has. How's your bizplan-fu?

> to work on something you are passionate about.

Kickstarter? Sounds USian. How many total manyears
of molecular biology have been paid by Kickstarter
programs, you think?

[Enrico]

actually the main problem is not about money, or lab spaces, or a phd. I think its a more conceptual fact, i mean molecular biology today is not something anyone can handle just because is not in our ordinary lives as computer actually are. And that's all about the evolution of tools and accessibility in the economical order. Revolution will start in the same moment scientists and kids will use the same tools not necessarily for the same purpose, just like PCs today.

Enrico

[Ashley Heath]

I still think the trick is to combine biology/molecular biology with the entertainment industry....Kickstart to create a dinosaur, Jurassic Park Revisited!??

[Mega]

Yeah, but will it be accepted by society? This is perhaps the biggest "no".

Many people would try the chickenosaurus, if it were "ethically ok"... I believe....

[Enrico]

ethic is another problem about this business. Maybe the only way to avoid that is focusing on the tools and their accessibility, just like openPCR.