<p>Hi, I am a rising college freshman.
For the past few days I've been reading the forums like crazy. The general trend with science majors esp (Chem and Bio) are that they are worthless majors that will lead you unemployment and hate life. And the only reason to get a science degree is if you want to go to professional school. </p>
<p>Has anyone heard of a bioprocessing BS? The school I am going to offers it and I believe it pays about 10k more starting salary than BS in Bio or Chem. IDK if this will work but I want to get a BS in this field. While in college I'm going to try and do 3 summers of interning, work for few years at a pharmaceutical company. My goal is to use science to get me in the door in the pharmaceutical field and then go into management, will this work?</p>
<p>My interest:
-Wants to get involved in management
-Hopes to one day have own business
-Love interacting with people
-Doesn't like math (no engineering or compsci although highly lucrative)
-Wants to get an MBA after working for 2-5 years</p>
<p>I know this is getting long and I'm going to wrap it up. If anyone want to recommend me a career path/major based on my interest I'm all ears. </p>
<p>It sounds a lot like my school’s clinical laboratory science major, although I’m not sure what classes are a part of this major so I can’t really tell you if its good or not. If you want eventual managament I’d totally suggest minoring or double majoring with business admin, or economics, so you can get the skills and understanding needed to make management possible.</p>
<p>Have you considered technical sales/marketing? I’ve heard that could get quite lucrative.</p>
<p>I agree a straight science degree would be a terrible idea. </p>
<p>If the degree is clinical lab science like Colorand light says I’d take a pass. I looked into being a med technologist/Clinical lab scientist and decided it was a dead end job with mediocre pay, crazy hours, and no respect from physicians.</p>
<p>The only reason I want to stay away from business in my undergrad is because I plan on getting an MBA from the best school I can get into when I get my BS and work for a few years. Most MBA schools wont enroll you fresh from undergrad at least the prestigious ones wont. And also I’ve heard its better to study business in grad school not undergrad. </p>
<p>I’m okay at math but when I was looking at the requirements for engineering and compsci I realized that the math requirements would kill me. I have taken calc 1 and will need to take calc 2 next year, but I don’t want to go any higher. </p>
<p>Would an Econ degree make sense in the situation?</p>
<p>All the scientific supplies companies VWR, Fisher, Sigma Aldrich, Agilent, Waters, Phenomenex, Varian, Metrohm have sales people that try to establish relationships with companies that have laboratories. These sales people call, manage accounts, travel on site, suggest new products to meet the customers needs, answer questions about products etc.</p>
<p>Industrial hygene and chemical safety is another suggestion that is often overlooked. My company especially is huge on safety and has dedicated chemical safety officers that deal with regulatory compliance, EPA, OSHA, proper storage, disposal. There are also consultants. That can also be good but you need to start early developing this career.</p>
<p>Agreed. So how can I start early and distinguish myself? </p>
<p>My plan:
-When I get to college in August, ask around everyone in my department about internships and apply to all the good internships I can find.
-Get 4.0 or really close to it
-Join 2 clubs, + participate in intramurals, and maybe club ultimate frisbee
-Do research
-Make strong connections with teachers for amazing rec letters. </p>
<p>Also are there any specific skills I can start developing over the summer to help me with technical sales?? I have been working on developing some transferable skills (time management, discipline,writing, speaking…) already.</p>
<p>Being involved in Marketing/Sales/Recruitment myself, while getting my Economics/Finance degree myself, you either have selling skills or you don’t. You can learn how to sell, but those who succeed are self motivated, and usually self taught, gained from experience. Technical sales, know everything about your product. The ins and outs of it. The last thing you want is when someone asks you about the product is for your reply to be “Um…”</p>
<p>Firstly, we already know you like business. But do you like Bio? Do you like Econ?
And doing something just because it’s “different” or looked favorably by b-schools, and not because you enjoy it, is going to hurt your gpa and hurt your chances.</p>
<p>I still don’t see why you can’t do business. If you’re so set on b-school, you might want to do consulting or finance, which are top feeders to b-schools.</p>
<p>Also, one possible benefit is that you may realize once you’re in the workforce that you don’t need an MBA (and many do not). It is common for consultants, bankers, execs, etc… to be promoted up past the post-MBA level without getting an MBA.</p>
<p>As a side note, sales skills are not something you prepare for through a major (you can prepare through extracurriculars)</p>
<p>I agree with everything he says in that article, with a caveat about the tail end of #3: “Purpose proceeds [sic] profits, and if you pursue your passion, the profits will follow.” The monetary profits for some passions might not be very big, but you can usually make a living. If you’re working in a creative field, those profits may take a long time to materialize and might not be enough to live on. But his main point, that purpose precedes profits, is dead on.</p>
<p>And I love this: “Believe me, if you fail in life, it won’t be because of your major.” That’s a fact, Jack!</p>
<p>I strongly disagree with the article. Good jobs are becoming a luxury awarded to an increasingly small portion of the population. </p>
<p>Companies when they hire are looking for 1. relevant experience, and 2. a relevant major. They do not want to train you. They want you to already have what you need to do the job. If you did not get that from college and an internship you will not be hired. </p>
<p>That follow your passion and majors don’t matter advice might have been good advice 30 years ago when there were tons of jobs for college grads and being a college graduate with any major impressed employers enough that they would hire you for an entry level job and train you with the expectation that you would be with them for 30 years. Nowadays the average job lasts 5 years. Companies do not train because they will likely not recoup that investment training you. That is why more and more college graduates are having trouble transitioning into the professional work force and are underemployed. Companies are more interested in poaching employees from their competitors that already have most of the skills to do the job.</p>
<p>Just look at all the Liberal Arts majors working minimum wage jobs. Did they all just lack passion in their subject? Why would someone study a Liberal Arts major unless they had a
significant interest in it?</p>
<p>My advice is make a list of careers that you can at least tolerate and pick one that has solid job growth and pays a good salary.</p>
<p>Also keep in mind that hiring nowadays are done first by computers which have no intelligence at all (they pick relevant key words from your resume) and 2. by HR people who often are not much brighter. It is very 1 dimensional thought process. Don’t think that either group is going to see potential in someone whose resume isn’t filled with practical and specific qualifications.</p>
<p>^The exceptions to that would be Wall Street and consulting, where they DO train you.
Unfortunately, the only liberal arts majors who get those jobs got their degrees from Ivies/Stanford.</p>
<p>I agree with the basic idea behind the article, which boils down to “choose what you love,” however i think it over-simplifies the issue. You definitely need to balance job market demands with what you love. I also get the impression that too many psychology majors simply choose psychology because it looks easy, which goes against the advice on the focused student article. As a result, psychology is HUGE in many colleges, while it only seems to have clinical applications as well as some in education and certain very narrow areas of business. </p>
<p>I think simply too many people are going into humanities majors that are ultimately useless. For example, in the United States there are slightly more fine arts majors (5.60%) than Engineering majors (5.4%) and there are more parks and recreation, leisure, and fitness studies majors, than physical science majors (egad!). </p>
<p>History/humanities are also huge and second only to business majors in popularity. </p>
<p>While a really passionate humanities major may be able to find his/her niche, I think that these statistics underline a problem in science and math education. Too many seem to not want anything to do with it and many who are interested in science, lack preparation. </p>
<p>Even in our current economy I’ve heard stories on the news of labor shortages in engineering. Those who are opting for physical sciences as opposed to engineering or health sciences (such as myself) also have lucrative options in mining and petrochemical industries where there is a demand for chemists, geologists, and geo-physicists. Even Wall Street firms often higher physicists and astronomers for their data crunching and mathematical abilities since as terenc mentioned before, they are often more inclined to provide on the job training. </p>
<p>Once again, my experience runs 100% counter to sschoe2’s claims.</p>
<p>My graduate research was in trace metal preconcentration and my first position was in atmospheric science. The next PhD hired after me also had no prior experience in atmospheric science, and when he later left that job he went to work for Nalco and then Siemens in water technology.</p>
<p>Companies are looking for PEOPLE, not degrees. That’s the basic truth of the article. The success or failure of a company is based on the PEOPLE who work there, not what degrees they hold. Once someone has demonstrated a certain minimum competence, the employer knows they can do the job – but they want to hire someone who can do the job WELL, and that’s what they’re looking for in an applicant.</p>