<p>Is a B.S. in Biochemistry a good degree?</p>
<p>Depends on your definition of “good”. It is an excellent preparation for Medical School, for example. For getting a job with a B.S. it depends on the job marked for biological sciences which is tight right now.</p>
<p>So an advanced degree (masters or PHD) in biological sciences with a concentration in molecular biology and biochemistry is the best option, in your opinion?</p>
<p>It is a good degree to be unemployed or working a dead end lab job for $12-17 an hour no beneifts via a temp agency. The degree is darn near worthless. It is best used as a stepping stone to one of the healthcare professional schools.</p>
<p>You will need to go to a higher education if you want a job with biochem.</p>
<p>@yankman I’m going to tell you what I wish someone told me 6 years ago.</p>
<p>There are two tracks for science jobs. </p>
<p>Track 1
You get multiple academic and industrial job others without really applying. They say there’s 1000 applicants for a tenure track job and similar for industry. They don’t have time to check actually read them, so they check to see if the superstar everyone wants to hire applied and invite them for an interview. To get on this track you need to do extremely well as an undergraduate. So well that you will be competitive for national awards like the Goldwater and competitive for national graduate fellowships like the NSF/Hertz. Then you need to keep the same level of performance at a top graduate school and hope your advisor fulfills his end. You will likely have a good career in science ONLY if you are on this track.</p>
<p>Track 2
You go to a top 50, but not very top tier graduate program. You spend most of your time teaching undergraduates. Your advisor is doing small variations on the same research he did in graduate school that ran its course a decade ago. If you’re extremely productive and lucky, you can do a few incredible postdocs and make it onto track 1, but you will likely not be able to find anything and be a house husband/wife, work a low paying/low responsibility science job, or change professions. People on track 2 are still likely to be very intelligent and would have benefitted enormously from choosing a health profession instead.</p>
<p>Yes, they do pay you to go to graduate school. It’s a low paying job with long hours that most likely won’t benefit your career. The degree in biochemistry is better for getting into a health professional school than anything else. I would highly recommend that you look into a wide variety of majors with a direct correspondence with a career.</p>