<p>Attended: University of Maryland
Major: Cellular Biology and Molecular Genetics
Undergrad GPA: 2.655 (partly raised by out-of-major, partly decreased by history as engineering major)
GRE Scores: 166 V (96 percentile), 165 Q (92), 4.5 AW (73)
Desired focus: Biogerontology, tissue engineering, oncology, genetic engineering
Target school: Anywhere that will take me that is passable and/or upwardly mobile</p>
<p>I'm not going to split hairs. My undergraduate GPA was absolutely horrid. I have a computer addiction that has severely impacted many areas of my life, but at least I was still able to graduate. </p>
<p>Now, I've been out of college for a year searching for a job or internship of any kind in my field and finding none to be had, all of them going to candidates with more experience and better qualifications. In the meantime, I've been taking a tissue engineering course I'm not doing spectacularly in (probably grade of B) and doing unrelated, crap-pay part-time work and tutoring.</p>
<p>I know I desperately need to get into my field somehow, but the problem is I can't even seem to get my hands into a lab to do bench work, much less research. I really have no idea what to do. This really feels like my last-ditch effort to try and find a way out of being mediocre for the rest of my life. Graduate school seems like an impossible dream and a poor fit, but if I've got any chance anywhere worth mentioning, I want to give it a try.</p>
<p>Can you help me? If I want to get into the biomedical R&D field, how should I go about doing it? Is graduate school a necessary or even possible choice for me, and if so, what do I have to do to get into one that is passable?</p>
<p>Note that I'm in the Baltimore and DC-Metro area- if you know of any options that would help a person in my position, please be sure to let me know.</p>
<p>I can’t speak specifically to your field, but I wonder, since you’re in the DC metro area with plenty of colleges to choose from, if you might re-enroll and take some upper-level (even grad level if they allow it at the particular institution) courses, really buckle down and ace them, and then apply to grad school? It’s not a guarantee by any means, but it would show a renewed committment to academics, which I think you would need to get into a grad school. Might also help you see if you can really focus enough at this point in your life to get through grad school at all. </p>
<p>Also, I wonder if there are graduate certificate programs for lab research or something related - they are often easier to get into than a full-on grad program, and at the least they’d help with your career search. At best, if you do really well in one, you would probably be able to transfer into the school’s degree program after completing the certificate. Only down side is that a lot of cert programs don’t qualify for federal loans - though you can get private ones.</p>
<p>If you just want to get into normal R&D tech work, you should start networking asap. A good company will help you get a masters while you’re there doing entry-level work if you show promise. The problem is that every Joe Schmo is applying for these jobs. You have to know somebody, which sounds more daunting than it actually is. If you start asking friends about any possible work connections, you might happen upon a lead faster than you think. It takes a bit of humility and awkwardness, but that’s how things are working for the time being. I personally got two friends into jobs at my old lab, and I had another coworker who was able to get three people in.</p>
<p>Here are a few things you can do that I know of.</p>
<p>Work anothr year or so in a lab, see if you can get published or something of the sort (volunteer in a lab if you have to) try and find a lab in your field. A PI can speak on your behalf and at LEAST get you into that school based on his or her desire to keep you, that might circumvent the 2.6</p>
<p>Some schools have something called an ‘Upper Boost’, which is where they dont mind if you take a max of 5 300-400 level upper level classes AFTER you graduate and get really good grades in them. This allows you to show you can do good work. you need to check cuz some schools wont even consider classes after undergrad.</p>