I am a college sophomore majoring in biochemistry. I’m in a bit of a weird position. I love biochemistry and I love math. I’m really far in biochemistry (only 32 credits until graduation), but I find that when I’m studying biochem, my attention drifts. Maybe its because the material has gotten to be very high level and it takes a lot of mental effort to memorize all of the material. Regardless, the school work is fairly boring. To add to this, I’m not very good at the bench. My hands shake and my attention wanders. These are the bad things about biochem… however, I really am passionate about the medical research and I even have a publication coming out… its just that, when I’m not learning something that really grabs me, the subject doesn’t hold my attention. In contrast, I am very rarely bored while working on math. I love the challenge of it and I love that finding the answer is squarely on me; it is infinitely repeatable.
I think that for anyone interested in biological/biomedical sciences, biochemistry provides an EXCELLENT background for graduate studies (if this is something you’re interested in) and working as a lab/research tech/assistant if you’re not interested in higher education. That being said, have you ever heard of bioimformatics/biostatistics? If you are interested in biomedical research, bioinformatics is a great way to combine your love of math and biomedical sciences. Bioinformaticians need to have a solid background in biomedical research (which your biochem major would help with) and math/statistics/computer science. Bioinformaticians are highly sought after and don’t typically do benchwork but make great contributions to the biomedical research field. (As you have a publication coming out, perhaps you are already aware of this.) I am not sure if bioinformatics is something that can be pursued at the undergrad level, but it is worth looking into as an option for graduate school. If this is something that might interest you, consider taking extra math, stats, and computer science classes into addition to your biochem classes.