<p>You made a ridiculous statement that implied that people who do well in school in science and don’t get a job in science are just lazy or poor planners. I know this blame the victim mentality towards the un and under employed is popular but it has little basis in reality. </p>
<p>I had a plan. I started doing supervised research my last semester of undergrad and continued at that same lab for my MS doing all sorts of biological and chemical experiments related to protein biochemistry. I thought I’d be a shoe in for pharma with their move towards protein therapeutics. I applied to hundreds of job all over the country. I was willing to relocate, I networked with pharma recruiters… What happened. </p>
<p>Pharma decided they didn’t want to do discovery research in the USA. They laid off tens of thousands while opening plants in China and India and decided to just do regulatory, clinical trials, and some analytical in the USA. They also decided to go with a permatemp model where they hire people short term without beneftis and toss them to the curb after a year or so. </p>
<p>So I used my biochem background and worked hard for a position in the food industry. I then spent nearly 3 years without benefits falling further behind in life getting treated worse than a blue collar worker. I interview every chance I get for a better job but the competition is insane because most other companies are doing the same crap and everyone hates it. </p>
<p>Most of my colleagues have abandoned the field or are still languishing in post-doc limbo or temp job limbo.</p>
<p>Yes there are well connected people out there that have first dibs on the few remaining good jobs in science. My point is that I wouldn’t count on it.</p>
<p>Networking is a great tool, and in the 21st century, social networking is imperative as well. However, networking alone is not going to land you your dream job or a job at all. Supply and demand is also a big factor. For example teachers. You have your high salaries and you have your low salaries, but the median salary is not that high. Now why is that? Isn’t there a demand for them? The truth is, there is an overabundance of teachers, which drives the wages down, just like when there is too much of a single fruit the price will go down until excess is all gone.</p>
<p>Where did I say that? If a person has personality defects to the point where they cannot behave in a professional manner that is a valid reason to reject someone. </p>
<p>If the person just doesn’t seem like someone you’d want to have drinks with after work, sleep with, or go to a sports game with then that is cronyism and is frankly an abuse of someone’s hiring authority to pack a company with cronies.</p>
<p>Do you think there’s a continuum between someone that doesn’t behave in a professional manner and someone you want to bang after work?</p>
<p>My labmates and I don’t hang out after work, but I still enjoy working with them. The guy we chose not to accept didn’t have personality defects; he just didn’t fit in with the general work style of our lab.</p>
<p>So what you are saying is that you would not have enjoyed working with the person you rejected. So that indicates to me either the person you rejected is irritating in some way indicating a personality issue or the person doing the hiring is shallow or oversensitive.</p>
<p>What I’ve seen in the private sector is doesn’t fit either means the candidate has an undesirable personality traits or we just want to disregard qualifications and pick someone for shallow reasons like a pretty girl or someone the same age and likes to talk sports.</p>
<p>Yes there are all sorts of personalities out there and everyone is different. However, if a person has good manners, acts professionally, and does the job there is no reason it should be an issue.</p>
<p>sschoe2, Because of your timely advice a year ago, my nephew investigated other science majors beyond biochem. He is currently majoring in Genomics and Molecular Genetics. He worked last summer in a lab with 5 people who had biochem degrees who were overloaded with the 12-15 hour days, doing mindless lab work. Why did they drive 2 hours a day one way to this job that paid under $35,000? They were saddled with large student loan debts from a very prestigious school. </p>
<p>You encouraged him to think outside the box. He is, and so far it’s panning out. (He’s also managing debt better than most of his peers…)
He will graduate next year and is looking at grad schools, but only grad schools that will pay him to go.</p>
<p>Tell him to keep in mind to also look at the attrition rates and where the graduates end up. A lot of professors are looking for grad students as cheap labor to do work that has little relevance outside of academia.</p>
<p>One needs to find a program/advisor that is actually going to mentor you and doing work likely to lead to a job and not post-doc limbo.</p>
<p>Yes! He’s worked very hard and is now on the “top of the heap” at the university he attends. (I sounded the alarm upon reading many posts on this site.) He took the advice given and is better for it. </p>
<p>It does sicken me that there are SO MANY very bright young people languishing. You’ve got to hit the road running at a very early age…LISTEN to what others say around you!</p>
<p>Nephew is now working in North Dakota (a 17 hour drive from home). Applied for 30 internships. Interviewed for 7. Got 1. This is with a 4.0 GPA, 35 ACT, and 2 previous internships. It’s really tough out there! By the way, he’s having a blast!</p>
<p>A prime example is a company in downtown Chicago. Their job description indicates they need someone to do the typical protein biochemistry experiments, assays, sds-page, purification… They have had nearly a dozen recruiters positing jobs for over a year demanding someone with specific glycoprotein experience.</p>
<p>I landed an internship that I did not meet the requirements for (I did not have an MBA) through networking - I will be the first person without an MBA ever hired into the position. This will be my third internship in the pharmaceutical industry, two of which, I gained through networking.</p>
<p>From my experience, hiring in the pharmaceutical industry has a “fast-track” and a “slow-track.” The easiest way to get on to the fast track is to have an internal referral - you are otherwise on the slow track and stuck in the resume black hole.</p>
<p>Ineffective networkers have the mistaken belief that quantity trumps quality</p>
<p>Sure, networking will help you get on top of a pile of excrement just the same as it will get you to the top of a pile of gold. But too many people in this thread seem to forget just how small the top is. You’d have to be quite ignorant to deny that the state of science is quite dismal right now. Telling people that it’s not so bad because you just have to be able to get to the top of the pile is a horrible argument.
There are, after all, tenured professors of philosophy who are pretty well-paid. So does that mean philosophy isn’t a bad major because you just have to network yourself into one of these top positions? I think not.</p>
<p>Networking and experience are the new college degrees and gpas nowadays.</p>
<p>I have a friend who was a philosophy major who ended up being a programmer and now makes 60k a year right out of college. Didn’t take a single CS class, but was self taught.</p>
<p>I also have another friend who majored in Religious Studies and minored in Math (consisting of Calc I-III, linear algebra, ODE, and Probability and Stats course). He is now a financial analyst making 55K right out of college.</p>
<p>It’s all about experience and networking. You can’t expect to graduate with any degree and get a job. </p>
<p>It’s what you make of your degree that gives it its value.</p>
<p>Sure, degrees don’t get you jobs. And sure, 55-60k is pretty decent money right out of college.
But here’s the kicker: not all degrees are created equal. I’d wager that your two examples are exceptions to the rule. Even if they’re not, those salary numbers aren’t very impressive. Impressive when compared to junk-tier majors like the ones they started with, but at best average compared to a lot of the more in-demand majors around.
When you lack formal training, you’re fighting an uphill battle to find a job that’s worth anything. Some might win, but more will not because it’s a harder battle to win. If CS didn’t happen to be peaking again (the bubbly, make subpar decision kind of peaking), your philosophy friend would have found himself with a junk-tier job.
But no worries, you could even flunk out of high school and find a nice cushy high-paying job if you’re a good networker, right?</p>
<p>You don’t have to be the “top” of a science field to make a decent living. A manager will pull high five or low six figures, an AD will pull ~200k at any pharmaceutical company. </p>
<p>The same could (most likely) be said about a lot of top engineering firms.
Science isn’t in a great place right now, but to call it a pile of excrement is a little extreme</p>
<p>You’re forgetting that managerial work IS pretty far up the pile of excrement. So is pharma. Only a select few can get that job because you don’t need as many managers as you need workers.</p>
<p>And engineering is far removed from science. Engineering actually does have decent job prospects. Science has pretty much become a joke in this country. Engineering involves a different like of work as well, one with more math and economics than science. </p>
<p>Almost every scientist would be satisfied with a 70-80k + benefits position for life (in industry OR academia) even with a PhD. That honestly shouldn’t be too much to ask for, given how important they are. But no, we’ve forgotten how to think about the long term and to think about how maybe it’s not the fault of the scientist that their field is a pile of excrement. We’re really all about the short term, all about shiny gimmicks and economic bubbles. </p>
<p>The U.S. will certainly pay for it, but not before a decade or two of stagnation because we scared off all the scientists.</p>
<p>I think we need to differentiate between the Research and the Development of R&D. The closer you are to commercialization, generally, the better paying your job is - for medical affairs, medical information, regulatory affairs, marketing, market research, business development & licensing, etc (I could go on), entry level is manager if not higher. </p>
<p>Though what you say is definitely largely true for basic science research. I believe that clinical research is a whole other story with decent job prospects</p>
<p>A science (or pre-healthcare) undergraduate is nearly a prerequisite for half of the fields I listed - it also comprises a large percentage of people in some of the more “business” roles like BD&L & Marketing.</p>
<p>Almost all of the colleagues in medical/development I worked with at two different pharmaceutical companies had an undergraduate science degree, a clinical degree (MD, DO, PharmD, RN, NP), or a MS, PhD.</p>
<p>It’s a damn shame then. Lab science is as important as ever to technological advancement, but its only real use has been reduced to that of a stepping stone into the Biomed industry.</p>