I commented on the details of that in post #23. The survey does not seem to mention anything about academic majors, and presupposes a number of positive outcomes. If anything this is about the value of liberal education requirements for all majors, not about the pros/cons of any individual major.</p>
<p>@NamelesStatistic: Be careful with data on the predicted % change in employment in any field. BME is a very small occupation so a large % change doesn’t imply a large number of job openings.</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus
Thank you for that Georgetown source, as it confirms what I have been saying about how microbiology and biochemistry are the best areas of biology (as opposed to something like evolutionary biology. Pity they did not have significant data for pharmacology, I expect that would be near the top of the payscale.
As a whole biology was roughly comparable to chemistry and general science in terms of payscale although they were all exceed by physics. Again not evidence of biology’s unique lack of employability.
That source also undermines your claim that there are too many biology degree holders for the amount of biology jobs, since it actually shows that biology and life sciences degree holders actually have a very low unemployment rate:
“Of all Biology and Life Science majors who are in the labor force and employed, 81 percent work full-time. About 5 percent are unemployed…” P.63</p>
<p>That was a good source, however it does not support your claim.</p>
<p>“Of course, you will probably dismiss it as irrelevant.”
When your sources say nothing about the issue at hand (as the two I cited in your previous post) then yes, they are irrelevant to this discussion.</p>
<p>I did not make any claims about phds… so I don’t know why you brought that up, infact i generally agree that there is an overabundance of graduate degrees. A good article about this is “disposable academics” in the Economist
[Doctoral</a> degrees: The disposable academic | The Economist](<a href=“The disposable academic”>The disposable academic)</p>
<p>@noimagination: </p>
<p>I am only mentioned that Berkley article because ucbalumnus posted it to support his/her point when in fact if anything it works against what he/she is trying to say. Obviously it is not a really good source of industry data for several reasons, chiefly because in many cases the sample they survey is under 20 people and thus is very susceptible to sampling error. It is ucbalumnus that is claiming that the biological fields are universally difficult to find employment for compared to other sciences, I am simply asking him/her to provide sufficient evidence to support his/her claim.
Check the Forbes article I posted.</p>
<p>However, does it mean that they are in biology jobs, or in other jobs? Remember that a lot of college graduates are doing jobs not directly related to their majors (indeed, this is commonly recognized for humanities and social studies majors).</p>
<p>In any case, the comparisons on page 36 indicate that biology majors’ 81% in full time work is lower than for physical science, CS / math, engineering, social science, and communications / journalism, and only barely higher than for humanities. The relatively low pay levels found by biology majors (versus physical science, CS / math, and engineering) indicate the relative level of demand for their skills.</p>
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<p>You were the one citing the small majors like microbial biology and bioengineering which are more prone to sampling error, rather than the big majors like molecular and cell biology and integrative biology.</p>
That’s what I was talking about. The Forbes methodology is unsound. It relies on self-reported Payscale data and % change in employment projections from the BLS. The latter should be used with care in small occupations.</p>
<p>“However, does it mean that they are in biology jobs, or in other jobs? Remember that a lot of college graduates are doing jobs not directly related to their majors (indeed, this is commonly recognized for humanities and social studies majors).”</p>
<p>-You could make this claim for any degree. Do you have any evidence the Biology related degree holders are any greater proportion working in jobs outside their major than any other science?</p>
<p>“The relatively low pay levels found by biology majors (versus physical science, CS / math, and engineering) indicate the relative level of demand for their skills”</p>
<p>-As stated above Biology related degrees are roughly the same in terms of payscale as chemistry, General science and Nuclear technology, none of which are on par with engineering or computer science and engineering. This does not suggest that the prospects for people holding biology degrees are especially low, as you have claimed.
Also the top earner: microbiology (60k) is not a small major.</p>
<p>-BTW virtually ALL the sciences are way behind CS and engineering in terms of payscale so what is your point? The debate is not between what is more profitable science vs computers and engineering. </p>
<p>Also as an interesting point this article seems to suggest going to graduate school does increase your payscale significantly “About 48 percent of people with these majors
obtain a graduate degree and, as a result, get an average earnings boost of 70 percent.” p158</p>
<p>The difference in part time vs full time employment in Biological science and physical science is also fairly small (81/19 vs 86/14)
And they both lag behind engineering (93/7)</p>
<p>In your next post could you please show me some data that puts at least the majority of biology related fields at a whole at the very bottom of employability in the sciences? Otherwise there really is no point continuing this. </p>
<p>@noimagination</p>
<p>-Fair enough, however many of their top 10 (e.g Biochemistry) are not small professions.</p>
<p>Why are students studying biology or philosphy? For jobs (case 1), professional (pre-med or pre-law) purpose (2) or academic purpose (3). Anyway majoring biology or philosphyat undergrad should be desirable except case 3.
And one more thing: don’t forget the fact that about 80 percent of top private college students and more than 40 percent of public uni students earn an additional major and/or minor degree in addition to requirement courses across arts and sciences. This implies that students studying biology or philosophy and finding jobs after college are expected to majoring additional job-related discipline such as econ, business etc. Anyway majoring biology or phil should be OK in case 3.</p>
<p>Why are students studying biology or philosphy? For jobs (case 1), professional (pre-med or pre-law) purpose (2) or academic purpose (3). Anyway majoring biology or philosphyat undergrad should be desirable except case 3. </p>
<p>And one more thing: don’t forget the fact that about 80 percent of top private college students and more than 40 percent of public uni students earn an additional major and/or minor degree in addition to requirement courses across arts and sciences. This implies that students studying biology or philosophy and finding jobs after college are expected to majoring additional job-related discipline such as econ, business etc. Anyway majoring biology or phil should be OK in case 3. Rather, this might be helpful for the long-term career path of individuals seeking jobs directly unrelated with biology or philosophy, providing outside-of-the-box thougts.
My point is that simple comparison of majors based on job prospects is misleading and that liberal arts education has merits even in the case of 3.</p>
<p>Your own data simply does not support your theory. In fact as discussed in the posts above it often is directly counter to your theory. Therefore if you have no more relevant data I suggest you abandon your argument and modify your beliefs accordingly.</p>
<p>I am fine with that. I think there are students with true talent and passion in those majors. I am willing to support those dreams with my tax dollars although I also agree that reality might hit for many of those students some day, bills need to be paid no matter what.</p>