Problem deciding a path after bachelor’s degree

Graduate School
1

<p>I am a Chemistry major with a concentration in Biochemistry and this coming school year, I will be a college senior and that means I need to figure out quickly what I want to do after my graduation. Recently I have been scratching my head and ripping out my hair because I have been chasing this one goal all this time only to now realize that it is not what I want to do anymore. Generally speaking, I want to pursue a career that is very lucrative in the job market as well as very good pay ($80,000 and above).</p>

<p>Back in high school, my dream was to be a pharmacist but gradually I did not want to pursue it anymore. For me, the nail in the coffin hit after my second year of college when I realized that I would not be able to fulfill both my degree requirements and pharmacy school prerequisite courses within 4 years. Now that I think about it, I still kind of want to do it. </p>

<p>My backup plan when I thought pharmacy was down the drain was to go to graduate school for a Ph.D n Chemistry mainly because it was free and the program even paid you a nice little stipend on top of that. What I wanted to do with that was to come either become a college professor or work in industry. However, these past few weeks I’ve read that a Ph.D in Chemistry may be worth a lot but it is extremely difficult to find a well-paying job and that many would be stuck doing postdocs for a measly $35k-$40k/year or work in some other position that does not involve Chemistry – reading that has been extremely discouraging. On top of that, I do not yet have any research experience so it makes me feel like my chances are grim. Currently, all I have is a decent GPA (3.42) and management experience (and hopefully a good GRE score in the near future).
These past few days I’ve been considering these options and I would like some very insightful opinions about which I should choose:
1) Continue to pursue a Ph.D – my desired branch would be medicial chemistry or related: I would not have to pay tuition and even get paid for it and I would be able to receive my bachelor’s in 4 years since I do not need to take extra classes. However, I do not feel like my chances are great at getting in and the well-paying jobs seem very limited.
2) Go for a PharmD instead: it would mean I will need to stay a fifth year in order to take the prerequisite courses for pharmacy school and then there’s the expensive tuition which I’ll figure out something for. I’ve heard both sides of the story where one says pharmacists are in high demand and the other side that says they need to commute for hours to get to their workplace.. I’m not sure which side to believe.
3) Go for medical school or school of dentistry instead: it would be the same conditions as pharmacy school – extra year as undergrad and expensive tuition, but it seems like jobs as a doctor are relatively easy to find anywhere,
4) I’ve also visited other options such as going for a Ph.D in something more lucrative, going to law school, or go for an MBA.</p>

<p>Bottom line is I really want a career that won’t kill me trying to find and one that pays very well. I know this sounds really greedy, but I really love science so that’s why these are options I’ve pondered on most, but at the end of the day I do not want a measly $50k/year for 8+ years of schooling + debt. Anyone please give me some advice! Thank you very much in advance</p>

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<p>Bump, please any insight would be appreciated.</p>

3

<p>It may not be what you want to hear, but I think you’d be a good candidate for taking a gap year or two. My advice is not to go to graduate or professional school unless you know that that is what you want to do. It’s a difficult and often expensive undertaking, and it’s not something you do to figure out what you want to do. You may find yourself with a degree that you don’t want to use in a career that you don’t want to pursue. Or worse, you may drop out in the middle of the program and have wasted all of that time and energy.</p>

<p>I don’t have any specific advice on which path would be the best for you, but in any of them, if you work hard and you’re good at what you do, you can make a good living from them. I would recommend that you take some time to figure out which path you’d like to go down. Do you have any experience in any of those fields?</p>

<p>Do you like to do research? If not, a PhD is a long time (even if you’re getting a small stipend) to do something you hate, and it’s going to set you up for a path that you might not enjoy. Research isn’t for everyone, and it’s not something you really know until you work in a couple of labs.</p>

<p>Do you like medicine? Do you actually want to be a doctor? Have you worked or volunteered in a hospital or clinical setting? Because medical school is a long and expensive undertaking to do something you hate.</p>

<p>You could ask similar questions for any of the other programs you’re considering, and it is a wide range of them. You don’t want to find yourself in a graduate program doing work that you hate for a career that you don’t really care about. If money is really the deciding factor, do the math (considering how much you would pay for schooling, what’s the median starting salary of the profession that you choose, perhaps factoring what the job market looks like), and figure out the most lucrative option.</p>

4

<p>Wow. Are you the future me? I am almost exactly the same situation as you except I am an incoming junior.
I also thought about doing pharmacy for the longest time. However, after rreading some recent articles and talking to some family friends pharmacist, it seems pharmacy might not fare well for newcomers in the future. Of course that’s all speculation so who knows?
The main reason I did have an inclination towards pharmacy in the first place was also because I liked science. So of course I also considered research too; which I did for two quarters. If I learned anything about research is that a phd is really really helpful. And if you want to be paid well, you have to be rather innovative; that’s a talent not most people have or something most people can keep up for decades.
But at the end of the day I am still surfing the web for some signs too just like you. </p>

<p>And just a side comment: Do you really have to stay for an extra year to graduate and satisfy pre reqs? As a biochem major, almost all my classes overlap with pharm school and med school without even being considerate for most part. </p>

<p>Oh another thing, even if you end up choosing pharm, pharm schools might not end up choosing you. I hate to be the one to say it, but our gpa are both a bit on the low side. Not getting accepted into any schools for the first cycle is a huge uncertainity we have to consider :(</p>

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<p>Thank you baktrax - it definitely was not an answer I wanted to hear, but I have considered taking a year off to get my head sorted out and at this moment I think that probably would be best in the long run unless I decide absolutely very soon. All the main choices I’ve listed I can see myself doing, so liking it will not be a problem. I’m just worried that I won’t be able to find a decent/good job after I finish.</p>

<p>Thank you DistressStudent - a PharmD or Ph.D are still my top choices, but my fear is not being able to find a job after getting it. As to answer your side question: it would not be a full year, probably just one or two extra quarters depending on availability of classes. It is a couple of classes that are common to many pharmacy schools such as physiology and communications that are not required in my major. Also, I have looked at stats of many first-year pharmacy students and many of them have average GPAs of 3.1-3.5.</p>

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<p>Then I guess the difference comes from the fact that we are in different states then. Most cali pharm schools don’t require communication (requires public speaking so many that’s the same thing? But it was a GE anyways) and only a few requires physiology. And according to 2008 stats, cali pharm schools’ admitted applicants averages to about 3.5; it should be slightly higher by now. Newer schools have lower GPA averages, however. </p>

<p>Also try reading this: [California</a> Pharmacists - The Real Story on Job Outlook - Page 5 | Pharmacy | Student Doctor Network](<a href=“California Pharmacists - The Real Story on Job Outlook | Page 5 | Student Doctor Network”>California Pharmacists - The Real Story on Job Outlook | Page 5 | Student Doctor Network)
if you don’t have time to read the whole thing, look for the post made by a panda guy on the end of the fifth page regarding research. The important thing to take away from the thread is that most people do think that the pharmacy field is being oversaturated right now.</p>

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<p>Do not get a PhD just because it’s free and the program pays you a stipend. Trust me, the stipend is not worth it. You can probably get an entry level job that pays more and is less work. Plus, if you don’t have any research experience as you noted your chances are slim, and it doesn’t sound like you want to do anything related to research in chemistry necessarily.</p>

<p>Law school is no longer lucrative; there are a glut of lawyers on the market so unless you graduate at the top of your class at a top 15 law school you won’t make much money. You also don’t want to get an MBA directly out of college. Nobody wants to hire an MBA without any work experience. Medical school is extremely competitive, and you can’t just toss your hat in the ring half-heartedly. If you aren’t already pre-med, preparing to go to medical school could easily take you an additional 2 years at least after college (one year to take the prerequisites and the MCATs, and one year to apply. You’d also need to start shadowing doctors and volunteering, and you’ll be competing with students who started doing this freshman year of college).</p>

<p>Graduate school is a means to an end, basically. If you don’t know what to do yet, then you shouldn’t go to graduate school. Since you’re just starting to be a senior, it’s not too late to just look for a job. You won’t make $80,000 right out of undergrad - even starting investment bankers and management consultants don’t make that (well, not base pay. If you include bonuses, it may be almost $80,000). But just apply to jobs that look appealing to you and pay around what you want. You can major in anything and go into management consulting if you’re clever. Investment banking, marketing, and finance are other options (IB and finance if you’re good quantitatively especially).</p>

<p>P.S., you may need more than 1-2 years. A gap of 1-2 years is good for someone who already knows what they want to do, but needs to improve their resume or application package in the interim time. Sometimes it takes a little longer to decide what you want to do, and that’s okay.</p>

<p>I’m also going to go out on another limb here and say you have to take anything you read online with a grain of salt (especially on SDN). I’m not saying that you should aim headfirst for oversaturated fields, like law or English literature, without a care in the world. But I’ve read “that field is oversaturated” about almost everything, even fields where people have been saying that there are shortages like nursing and accounting. (No, seriously - half the people in nursing say there’s a nursing shortage, and half the people say there’s a glut and there are no jobs.) I think the economy in any field is partially based on your region/location but also partially based on your skill level.</p>

<p>My point is, do heed cautious messages but don’t let them completely rule your life, otherwise you’ll never pick anything. And don’t pick something you don’t like or don’t care about just because you think it may be lucrative, because in the next 5-10 years that may be the bad field. Nobody though real estate or law was going to implode the way they have 5-10 years ago.</p>

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<p>Quoted for emphasis. This is a very good point, and I’ve heard the same thing about pretty much every field, depending on who you ask.</p>

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<p>Thank you. I think I might just start doing that. I currently have two years working in management and after senior year I will have three. Hopefully that will help me when going for one of those jobs. Just one question: how soon should I start applying? After graduation? A few months before?</p>

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<p>Consulting, IB, some marketing and finance often begin recruiting in the early to mid fall (September/October), interviewing throughout fall and giving offers in the early spring (January/February). Most of my students in those fields knew where they were going to be working after graduation by the end of February/beginning of March. So if you want those, then you need to start applying in the next month or two. They probably recruit on campus and have information sessions; they may even do interviews on campus, so check out your career office.</p>

<p>In other fields the cycle isn’t quite so long but you should definitely begin looking before graduation. In today’s economy it’s not uncommon for it to take recent graduates 6-12 months to find a job.</p>

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<p>Thank you juillet for all your help, it has definitely put my mind more at ease. Some clarification questions: specifically what type of marketing, consulting, or finance would I be looking for? Where should I look to apply for these jobs besides a career fair?</p>

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<p>One thing I do at my part time job which I think I’m pretty good at and like doing is payroll, but it’s probably only the first two steps or so in the payroll process (making sure employee hours are correct, fixing mistakes, finalizing employee hours before it gets sent to processing - afterwards that stuff is sent to the payroll department to take care of). I’ve looked at many jobs involving payroll but many of the job requirements state that applicants must have knowledge/experience with the full process from start to finish (including use of ADP), so how would I get this kind of experience? Would they train me? </p>

<p>In addition, I’m a bit worried about choosing this type of work because I will graduate with a degree in chemistry, so I will not have much experience in business, I also have taken no classes related to business (maybe math, if that counts) so my knowledge of the field is pretty limited.</p>