Happytimes2001 - I also used to think the same thing, but I’ve met so many fascinating people who took interesting paths to have fulfilled lives.
I also know people who don’t have huge paychecks but are happy because they love what they do - I know this is shocking for some.
It’s not a judgement, it’s a reality.
My kids will never major in accounting or engineering or computer science , does that mean they’re destined for mediocrity?
I admit I am not following the Biology job market, but I believe it can be a springboard for other occupations besides being a doctor.
- any other medical-related field and job
- Veterinary field
- any agriculture or botany related job.( also, at my alma mater, viniculture).
- Ecology, wildlife management. forestry I guess.
I knew bio majors who became: veterinarians, biology professors, biology teachers, pharmaceutical reps, bio lab research technicians
Many of these require further training but a biology background is at least highly relevant.
From quick glance it would likely also provide suitable background for further study in more applied areas, eg Nutritional science
I work with a lot of colleagues with BS in biology or biochemistry. Even some who have AA in biology and no higher coursework. They work as lab techs/trainers/assistants and make 60-80k with full pension and union representation. For these jobs, there is no substitute for the biology degree. I work in a federally funded research facility.
Are there are lot of these positions open all the time? No. My department probably hires 1 permanent per year; an adjacent department just hired 2 permanents. So facility-wide, we probably staff ~4-8/year. We hire many temporary workers and often turn them into permanent staff either at our facility or a related federal lab.
I will say that the staff we hire are very passionate about their science and excellent at what they do. Occasionally we staff who realize after a couple of years that they’d rather be elsewhere. But the ones who stay more than 5 years tend to stay for life. The ones who are successful and enjoy the job constantly stay current on the latest lab technology and techniques - it’s a requirement of the job.
A person should not go into a career path that s/he dislikes, since s/he is unlikely to do well at it. However, before committing to a career path, s/he should be aware of how competitive, well paying, and subject to external risks it is. A career path that is highly competitive may weed out many aspirants (forcing them to find something else to do), but the strongest practitioners are more likely than others to be successful. A career path that is not that well paying may be perfectly fine for someone who does not have high spending habits now or expected in the future until retirement. In terms of external risks (typical example is the wild swings in oil prices affecting petroleum engineering employment), some people are better able to manage them than others.
Most people, myself included, do not possess any extraordinary inborn talents or aptitudes. We aren’t born to be great artists, musicians, scientists, writers, athletes, politicians or entrepreneurs. We might actually love or be passionate about those areas, but we will never excel at them. So as careers or subjects of study, those are unwise things for us to choose. There are few good jobs in any them and the numbers are against us.
So when having to choose a career, the best overall strategy is for us to keep money at the top of the list, by choosing degrees and career paths that will at least pay a living wage with plenty left over for us to pursue our outside interests on our own terms.
@Leigh22:
Is there a link to that job you talked about?
The “0-2 years experience” means that anyone with less than 2 years experience won’t be considered.
There are 60,000+ new biology grads each year and at least as many more in closely related majors and not enough good jobs for them, in science. Conclusion: Use your college education to study something that will improve your chances for success, not diminish them.
I think everybody has to do what works for them. Not every 18 year old wants a BA/BS degree in engineering, nursing, accounting or teaching. And…some may decide years later to go into teaching or nursing. Careers often change.
My D is the “dreaded” biology major, but I really have no concerns. She is a very strong student coming out of a well regarded school, and she has taken ( and is currently taking) full advantage of her opportunities. She is exploring a few short term positions ( 1-2 years) that interest her …and will decide what path to follow. She will continue her education, so she can’t be counted as somebody who will remain employed long term with a BS in biology.
I do think biology majors can get lab positions, but the entry pay will likely not be high. Regardless, if one enjoys this type of work ( it’s not for everybody as some find it isolating) the individual can work his/her way up to a higher position and salary. I know a recent grad living in the city with 2 roommates…doing research with her biology degree. It works for her…at least right now.
I agree that a person should not enter a career he or she hates…that could lead to all sorts of problems. I also agree that before committing to a career path, one should explore risks, competition, etc. A relatively low paying field may be ok for somebody who doesn’t spend much, but it may not work for others.
We are all unique, and we are all fueled by different things. My kid was adamant about not going to school for a vocational type degree, and I was not fighting with her about it. It’s her life, her decisions, and I trust her ability to eventually support herself and make positive contributions to society.
If a student is interested in biology, how might a degree in environmental science or environmental studies compare in the job market? There is quite a bit of overlap in the coursework between bio and environmental studies/science.
I think there are some similarities, but there are also a lot of differences in the classes between the two majors.
I think the undergrad research and internships can overlap a lot…for example, you could get involved in water studies, food studies…etc. It isn’t uncommon for a research team to consist of different majors.
Ecology is subtly different from environmental science. You will probably take an ecology class in pursuit of a biology degree, but possibly not any environmental science, which might be more akin to physics, chemistry or engineering.
A search on a job board yields 2193 ‘entry level’ jobs in business, but only 23 for environmental science (Los Angeles.)
That’s because business, nursing, engineering, and teaching are ‘vocational’/‘professional’, the name of the job is in the major.
For other majors it takes an indirect path.
The trick is to work on that path starting Sophomore year and on developing skills where the knowledge learned in history, English, biological Anthropology, Environmental science… is used in a professional setting. In addition, complementary skills (quantitative, linguistic, management, Cs/its, etc) can be added.
Biology is in a worse situation than, say English or History, because there are so many of them (hundreds of thousands who didn’t get into med school) and because so many were putting med school related activities they don’t have usejl internships. Prospects for chemistry or physics majors may not be much hotter but there are far fewer them so better odds of standing out. Physics is known to be as hard as engineering and will comm a lot if respect.
.
“For other majors it takes an indirect path.”
That indirect path is just as available to those job seekers who majored in subjects that have the name of a job in them.
It depends, but generally not. Those are two very different paths.
For example, unless an Accounting major double majored in History, English, or Philosophy, they’d be highly unlikely to have the courses and internships for a professional writing job. An Engineer couldn’t start working in marketing. An education major couldn’t start supervising water safety at a water park.
DTB - geraniol gave very specific examples of those with biology degrees finding meaningful high paying employment.
I simply do not agree with you, regardless of how you spin it.
Agree to disagree.
@Leigh22:
The numbers being hired are very few and many of the hires are temps.
Physics majors tend to have strong math/logic skills, so they are more likely to be able to “retool” their way into computing and quantitative finance than biology and chemistry majors. Some may go into some types of engineering jobs where an ABET-accredited degree or PE licensing is not needed, since engineering is heavily based on physics (though physics majors would have to self-educate or learn on the job the engineering design process).
I meant
- hundreds OR thousands
and
*will command a lot of…
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_318.30.asp does say that, in 2014-2015, 109,896 biological science majors earned bachelor’s degrees.
https://www.aamc.org/download/321496/data/factstablea17.pdf says that in 2018-2019, 11,843 biological science majors matriculated to MD medical school (out of 29,443 who applied to MD medical school).
https://www.aacom.org/docs/default-source/data-and-trends/2015_mat.pdf?sfvrsn=25da5497_8 says that in 2015, 5,848 biological science majors matriculated to DO medical school (out of 16,967 who applied to DO medical school).
Some applicants may have applied to both MD and DO medical schools.
But it does look like there are almost a hundred thousand bachelor’s degree graduates in biological science each year who do not go on to (MD or DO) medical school (although not all of them applied or were initially pre-med but did not apply). So your original “hundreds of thousands” may be more correct if you are counting a few years’ worth of biological science graduates.
Of course a biology major isn’t useless outside of medical school.
But why arbitrarily decide this? That’s moving the goalposts, IMO. The original question wasn’t “what jobs can I get that require a bachelor’s in biology and ONLY a bachelor’s in biology”; it was “is a biology degree useless?” If you can get a job with a bachelor’s in biology, even if it’s not directly related to biology and doesn’t require a biology degree specifically, then who cares whether someone with a business or art history or philosophy major could also have gotten that job?
By that logic, most majors are useless, since few jobs outside of specialized professions actually require any specific major. I work in technology and I know people with all sorts of majors here, including a lot that you wouldn’t expect based on what they are currently doing.
I also think there’s a conflation here of employment and salaries. Most biology majors (or people in general) don’t make six-figure salaries…ever, let alone right out of college. But that also wasn’t the question. I think a lot of people here have a skewed idea of what college graduates make coming out of college. $33,000 a year for a new graduate isn’t out of the ordinary and is enough to live a middle-class lifestyle in most areas of the United States. Will you be having caviar for breakfast, no, but you’ll be able to feed and clothe yourself. That’s what I started on when I graduated from college - living in New York - and I did just fine.
For some people, money is at the top of their list of considerations when choosing a career, and that’s great if that’s what they really care about. For others, other factors are more important - like geographical choice, flexibility, interest in the core tasks or the field in which the job is located, opportunities for advancement, professional development, benefits offered by the company, and many many other factors. I make pretty good money. I could probably had made more money had I chosen to go to medical school instead of getting a PhD, or maybe been a software developer…but I don’t want to do any of those things, and the amount of money I make is more than enough to live an upper-middle-class lifestyle in my metro area, and I LOVE my job. I don’t think some people understand how wonderful it really is to truly love your job. I have turned down multiple higher-paying offers because I love my job so much.
I do hiring for my job and this is patently untrue. I am honestly kind of baffled by anyone would think that, since 0-2 plainly means “some number between 0 and 2.” If we put “0-2 years of experience,” we’re looking for someone entry-level who has less than two years of experience, and someone with more than two years of experience would actually be overqualified for that role. There are a lot of reasons why a specific team/org/company might explicitly want to hire entry-level/junior people (they cost less, for one).
Honestly, sometimes even when we say “at least 3 years of experience” we are willing to hire someone really good with 1-2 years, especially if the market is competitive and it’s difficult to find someone with three. I have seen us hire someone more junior than we actually wanted, but I have not seen us hire someone more senior than we were going for.
@juillet:
" If you can get a job with a bachelor’s in biology, even if it’s not directly related to biology and doesn’t require a biology degree specifically, then who cares whether someone with a business or art history or philosophy major could also have gotten that job? "
That’s not the point that I was making. There are people with college degrees who are working the same jobs, same pay as people -without- college degrees. IOW, their college degree or major did not improve their wages or employability.
@juillet:
" $33,000 a year for a new graduate isn’t out of the ordinary and is enough to live a middle-class lifestyle in most areas of the United States. "
That will qualify you for a $770/month mortgage, which doesn’t buy much of a house in most places, and none at all in some large cities. The prospects are worse if you have student loans to pay down. And where is the down payment coming from, on $33,000/year? You would be “middle class” only if you were the sole person in your household.