<p>hi all!
I am new to this but liked what I read so far! everyone seems to be very knowledgeable! </p>
<p>So my situation is that I got a BS in aquatic biology and a minor in stats. I am currently working as a toxicologist at a company. i am considering improving my resume/myself so that i can get higher paying positions/jobs. I would like to be making more than 70k when I am set into a job.</p>
<p>My interest fall in the realms of the aquatic sciences and stats but grew up around a lot of engineers. Which makes me feel I am falling short on cash due to their ( a lot) higher pay. </p>
<p>so my options (i feel) as follows: </p>
<p>A) I know the biotechnology company have a lot of opportunities and great pay but, its not something that gets me super excited (but due-able for sure). So i was considering getting certified at a community college or state school for that. It will cost SOME money and time but not too bad.</p>
<p>B) The job options I would go get a masters for are; hydrologist, environmental scientist/manager, fisheries science, biostatistician, toxicology (?) or open for other ideas. It will cost a fair amount of money and 2-3 years but I would walk out with a masters ( which I am not sure it is useful or not ). </p>
<p>C) Keep gaining job experiences and bounce around until I fall into a job with great pay/benefits. </p>
<p>D) go back to school to get a BA in stats or a degree in engineering.</p>
<p>I would love to hear feedback due to I feel lost :/
Thank you</p>
<p>Even if you decide for engineering as a direction, you might not need to get a second B.S. There might be some undergraduate courses to make up however.</p>
<p>I am have more fun in the hydrology/environmental sciences field since it has field work and is very sciency, but find statistics to be interesting and a better paying market with more opportunities ( i believe). i just know once I ( 26 years of age) go to grad school I specialize myself to a certain market. My worry is it will be a job market that has few opportunities or pay.Cause where I am at now, the job market is tough…really tough and most jobs dont pay alot. This really shows to me when I see my more successful friends talk about their jobs. </p>
<p>At a certain point you have to make a decision, and you have to choose based upon whatever factors are most important to you.</p>
<p>Two things:</p>
<p>One, yes, graduate school is about specialization. But that doesn’t mean that you can never change careers after that, and indeed, many people do. Physicians go into management; professors leave academia and become consultants; art historians move into finance. While I do think that you need to narrow yourself down to a subset of careers that you want before you go to grad school, that doesn’t mean that you have to decide what you absolutely 100% want to do for the rest of your life. It’s just what you may want to do for the next 5-10 years. You can use the skills you learn in an MS in statistics program to move laterally into hydrology in the future, for example. What you want is a graduate degree that does help you enter a specific field but also makes you broadly qualified for a variety of things in different industries.</p>
<p>Two is that you can’t have everything, and you will have to decide. Sometimes, job security is mutually exclusive with what’s interesting to you to a certain extent, so you have to choose whether you want to do something that is simply interesting but for which there are lots of job prospects OR something for which the job market is maybe less certain, but which you really love. There’s nothing wrong with making the second choice! I see a lot of people on CC choosing to major in fields traditionally thought of as lucrative simply because they are lucrative, but just because the market may be tighter in hydrology (or because you know less about it) doesn’t mean that you won’t have a very successful career if you choose that. For example…the academic job market is in the tank right now, but that doesn’t mean that nobody is getting hired, and some people have very successful careers as professors.</p>
<p>You also might have to redefine what you see as success. It doesn’t always mean making a lot of money! It very often means a job that you wake up looking forward to every day.</p>
<p>I always believe that if yoiu have work experience in the field where you trained, continue in that field and go for your masters or engineering degree in your mid 20s. You will have earned money and “life experience” and that always counts. Engineering is the way to go in my book. Not sure you can do that as a masters without having it as an undergrad. </p>
<p>Engineering is nice if you actually want to be an engineer - good pay, lots of job opportunities. However, I think too many undergraduates (and others) select engineering primarily because of the good pay and the job opportunities without considering whether they 1) actually want to be an engineer, and 2) whether they want to and are capable of getting through the grueling educational requirements of becoming an engineer. There are lots of other fields that also offer good to great pay, lots of job opportunities, and job security.</p>
I only considered engineering due to (like mentioned) the great pay and the fact I have friends that do it and my dad. I do like environment engineering though but have no idea how I would get into that without a bs in engineering.
My passion goes with aquatic life and environments, as well as statistics though. However I love workig outside.
Please keep the thoughts coming ! I do appreciate the help greatly. !
