<p>Scripps and the Salk are literally next door to UCSD where a vast amount of UCSD and to a smaller extent, SDSU students work there. </p>
<p>Yes, you don't need 50 large firms but the area has many firms from 1-5 person start ups to the headquarters of multinational pharmaceuticals/biotechs. There are MORE oppertunities for students when there are more companies to choose from. The fact that over 100 companies share that building suggest they are only small start ups in the research phase.</p>
<p>Second, because of the lack of diversity of companies that are in different stages (start up vs. established) you may only get experience with just research and development. Small start ups are burning through seed money to look for a new treatment of a disease or develop a product to get into clinical trials. Therefore, the experience one gets is often very limited towards that aspect. There is more to the industry than just R&D, there are jobs for people who can take these products from the small scale and scale them up for production as well as those who can "validate" those manufacturing processes. There are jobs in Quality Control, Medical/Clinical affairs, Quality assurance, regulatory affairs, business development, manufacturing, marketing, etc that are jobs where you can utilize a science degree. </p>
<p>For jobs in many of those departments, there is no biotech curriculum that gives someone that knowledge which is primarily gain from working in the field. </p>
<p>So when its comes to what school is best to prepare you, like I said, it honestly doesn't matter as much as you think. It depends on what you want to do. A good start would be a reputable science university and one where you can get the industry experience card punched. </p>
<p>UW-M is a great school, but for industry jobs, it really doesn't matter which is the honest truth.</p>