For example if you don’t go to medical school or use it to be a doctor is it useless?
Not sure what you mean by “useless”, but major-specific job opportunities with a BA/BS in biology are relatively scarce and not very well paying compared to the (very large) number of graduates. Of course, there are also major-agnostic jobs that ask for a BA/BS that can be applied to, though there will be competition for graduates in all of the other majors with few major-specific job opportunities.
Many job openings just ask for a four year college degree with a minimum GPA. If you want to major in biology but do not want to pursue medical school, then try to get the highest GPA that you can & consider double majoring.
1 Like
Do you know what kind of work you want to do? With a degree in bio, you can do anything except careers that require a specific credential (like engineering, medicine, nursing, physical therapy, accounting, etc.). Here’s a broad list of careers you can do with a degree in biology without going to grad school:
Advertising
Public relations
Journalism
Investment Banking
Facilities and Procurement
Pharmaceutical sales
Science writing
Health Nonprofit
Or you can go to grad school for:
Law
MBA
Journalism
Public Health
Social Work
1 Like
Pharmaceutical Sales and/or marketing makes sense. As does science writing & Health Nonprofit.
Agree that grad school is an option, but MBA schools typically like 3 to 5 years of post undergraduate work experience.
One year masters degrees in business & management are popular now. Duke offers two 10 month programs for persons with less than one year of work experience–but they are expensive at $82,000 & $95,000 for the 10 month masters.
Pharmaceutical Sales was the ONLY job that was “recruiting” Bio majors in my day. And the Bio degree was NOT even a requirement. Probably, a college degree wasn’t a requirement. I think deb111 should shoot a little higher than that and study a subject that is going to improve her career options.
Those other jobs you mentioned were reserved for the Business majors and maybe a few English majors for the writing jobs.
Nobody cares what your major is. Just get internships while you are in college. Your major does not teach you how to do a job (unless you are engineering, nursing, or other vocational majors). If you think you might be interested in science writing, start a science column for the campus newspaper. Or report on the research and discoveries that the university is working on. There you go! You have clips to show to get internships. Or get an internship in pharma advertising or PR. Those jobs have huge turnover. Investment banking loves science majors. People who think that college majors and careers have to be matchy-matchy are very limited in their thinking and don’t really understand how careers are made and unfold. Indeed, most tech companies love philosophy majors.
You can’t sit around waiting for college recruiters. That’s extremely limiting.
The data I found on a Web site shows that somewhere in the neighborhood of 70% or more of the investment bankers having only a bachelor’s degree have majors in either finance, accounting, business, economics or math. The only “science” in the list was computer science at 1%. Any other science, biology included, would have to represent less than 1% of the total of that group.
Now it could very well be that investment banks try to hire BS Biology+MBA or BA Art History+MBA applicants if they come from good schools, but we are more concerned that deb111 has a good fallback, a Plan B, in case grad or professional school doesn’t happen.
Who the on-campus recruiters choose to hire does give an accurate taste of what the career market is really like for most graduates.
I don’t agree with this one bit – although this is EXACTLY what they want you to believe. Campus recruiters skew the job market. They are there to make it easy for students to choose careers that they might otherwise not choose. Easy because the recruiting is right there and they are offering a lot of money. It makes students feel that these are the only types of jobs. The world is WAY bigger than the companies that recruit on campus.
Also, a degree from a competitive college in ANY area of study can get you into investment banking. But you have to have gone to what is called a “target school” – the schools that IBs want to hire from. You cannot go to University of Montana, major in history, and expect to work at Goldman Sachs. But you can major in history at Cornell, Williams, Dartmouth, Middlebury, Columbia, etc. and get a job there.The reason “most” of the hiring is done from among economics, finance, accounting majors, etc. is because those are the people applying for the jobs!
OP mentioned a biology degree and not wanting to attend medical school. However, OP did not specifically limit themselves to a bachelor’s degree.
One question that I wonder about is what jobs are available with a master’s or a PhD. I have a daughter who is a bio major in her second year, but at least so far has grades that makes acceptance to a good graduate program look very likely. I do understand that internships are also valuable.
The other thing that I wonder about: From time to time I, and presumably nearly everyone else, have samples taken at a doctor’s office and a few days later get results back. Someone must be working in a lab testing the samples that we are sending them. Aren’t these people biology graduates? What sort of degree do they have? What is the pay for people in these lab jobs?
If you go to an Ivy or a Near-Ivy you have a better chance of being recruited or hired by an investment bank, no matter your major.
If you are among the 98% of students who go to some less prestigious school, you probably need to major in business, economics, math, or else get an MBA from a top school to go with your BA in Sociology, along with no small amount of luck.
The majors that are popular with recruiters are also the majors that are popular with hiring managers in the real world, and the majors that are seen much more frequently on job boards.
https://www.careerwomen.com/which_majors_are_in_most_demand/
https://www.glassdoor.com/blog/50-highest-paying-college-majors/
There are actually brick and mortar colleges out there that have on average a NEGATIVE return on investment.
Grim:
https://www.vox.com/2014/5/23/5742576/heres-what-people-actually-do-with-liberal-arts-degrees
The BS Biology by itself does NOT give you the qualifications to do the lab work. I haven’t heard that it pays all that well.
I presume that the OP is trying to devise a backup plan in case Med School doesn’t happen and wants to know if a BS Biology, by itself, opens any doors other than in retail sales or food service. It a good question to ask with almost any degree.
You can also do TFA, NYC Teaching Fellows ( less competitive than TFA), City Year, etc. Take a look at Venture for America.
Teaching- once the 2 year commitment is over you can stay with teaching, or continue school on a related path… education policy, biology education research etc. You can also apply to many other types of grad programs.
My D is a bio major. Her resume includes several different research positions and internships, teaching, working in underserved communities, working as a translator ( this obviously requires knowing another language) etc.
Really…anything is possible ( other than engineering, nursing etc).
Keep in mind that career paths are often fluid. As a bio major you might work…in some capacity …at a research lab for a year and be bored out of your mind ( or you may love it and continue). From there you may find yourself working in PR doing something related to healthcare…or bio education…and that may spark an interest in another degree that you may want to pursue, etc. You may find yourself in non lab based science research for a few years.
My point is that a biology major doesn’t have to lead to one direct path ( such as medicine) for 30-40 years. It certainly can…but it might not. D’s prof had many paths in biology before ending up on a college campus.
The middle class is being destroyed. Increasingly, one needs a college degree to get low-paying jobs for which a high school diploma used to be enough. If you are spending four crucial years of your young adult life in getting a bachelor’s and perhaps even going into serious debt to pay for it, you need to get that marketable degree and aim for the jobs that pay well straight out of college or just make sure you can go to professional school. A biology, psych, history, music, etc, degree by itself isn’t going to cut it anymore. Maybe back in the '50s it would have.
Whenever I hear people say the word ‘useless’ in reference to a degree, I have to assume that no further education is likely to be available for them and that they still need to support themselves financially.
A biology degree is not useless, there are many avenues for jobs. If you like bio, stick with it. With that said, I would make sure to take some classes (maybe a minor or double major) in business and/or stats/quant/data sciences. As several posters above stated, summer internships, volunteer work and/or school year research opportunities are important.
I strongly agree with those saying to not limit yourself to on-campus recruiting and your school’s career center. If it’s a good career center, use it, but not exclusively. LinkedIn has significantly changed hiring behaviors and practices over the last 10-15 years. Contact people at companies with jobs you like, contact alums from your school that were bio majors and/or work at companies/jobs of interest, I could go on and on.
Networking and actually speaking with people will bear fruit in your job search. Contact hiring managers directly (generally better than HR)—again DO NOT wait, or limit yourself, to on-campus recruiting.
My list of jobs is similar to that of @brantly
-Pharma/biotech/medical device/diagnostic/hospital product sales reps, some entry level marketing jobs here too, although many are filled by sales reps coming in from the field. Some of the larger companies also have management training programs for undergrads. These are typically 2 year programs with 4-6 rotations in different company departments----do your research, but companies like Johnson and Johnson, Abbott, Baxter, Merck have had these programs in the past
-Pharma/biotech/medical device/diagnostic/hospital consulting jobs, some focused on strategy, some on operations, some on science/clinical trials. Companies like ZS, Deloitte, LEK, SG2, Cap Gemini, etc. all hire out of undergrad. Upward mobility may be limited until you earn a grad degree, although one sure way to not be limited is to have success selling consulting projects. There are many, many small to medium consulting shops as well, especially in healthcare geographic hotbeds: Boston, RTP, San Diego, San Francisco, Chicago
-Clinical Trial Development/Project Management jobs: Either at above types of healthcare manufacturers/distributors, or at companies that provide clinical trial services to developers/manufacturers. Some of these service companies have become huge and also have consulting, sales and marketing roles: Quintiles (now part of IQVIA), PPD, Covance, et al
-Science Research jobs at aforementioned manufacturers, as well as at universities and governmental agencies. Some companies, and certainly the universities, may help fund your master’s degree
-Health Insurers: These companies also have multiple functions and opportunities for bio undergrads
-Investment banking companies do hire bio majors out of undergrad as research analysts, but not as deal makers
-Advertising and PR, especially those with a strong healthcare presence (Grey, Abelson-Taylor, et al)
-Science writing/med editing-best paying within healthcare companies/service providers, rather than at journalism entities
-Teaching - will likely need some education classes and/or some type of experience at something like Teach for America, and ultimately a master’s degree
-Healthcare/public health non-profit - NGOs, Clinton Initiative, Gates Foundation, and many, many more.
Lots of ideas here, and there are many more. Getting experience in research, volunteering and/or summers will help you make contacts, and identify what types of jobs you may or may not like. Good luck
…Many examples have been given here of jobs for biology majors that involve working in sales, or getting a graduate degree, or working for low wages, or at dead-end jobs, or working at jobs that a high schooler could get.
Instead, let’s see some solid examples of decent jobs that specifically ask for a Bachelor’s in Biology, exclusively.
I just did a quick search on a job board for “Accountant” and “Biologist.”
Accountant: ~600 jobs
Biologist: ~13 jobs.
That should give an idea of how much more in demand a business education is, versus a science education.
The recruiting that goes on at college career placement offices tells a similar story.
But not everyone wants to be an accountant, thankfully.
If your are interested in getting into the Pharma/Biotech industries there are many options. You can go into the research part, the quality control, project management, clinical research or more into the business development part of it. Depending on your interest I would recommend doing some internships during your undergraduate years. Many Pharma/biotech companies hire students during the summer. Also, that can help when you graduate and look for jobs since they already know you. If you are interested in the research part, you could probably find undergrad research opportunities in your University.
Also, I would recommend to consider getting a Masters degree. This you can do while you work. Some companies have programs that allow you to pursue your Master and they will pay for it. This will allow you to grow faster within the organization.
I have worked for 20+ years as a cancer researcher in the Pharma industry and I have met so many people that started with a BS in Biology and then took many routes in this industry. In my case, I did a BS in Bio. I acquired some research experience working at academic labs. After graduating, I was offered a research job at my University and while working I did my Master’s degree in Cellular and Molecular Bio. This experience helped me get my first job at a Biotech company at a higher level. I have worked for 4 companies during the last 20 years. I have been able to grow, learn and contribute to my organizations. The work has been very rewarding.
I’m not mentioning this just for the sake of talking about myself but, just want you to understand that there are many options out there for people that study Biology. Biology is not just for people that want to go to Med School.
I wish you best of luck in your future!