<p>I also graduated with a biology degree but now am in school for an allied health job and am retaking calculus and then will apply to med school (Including osteopathic). It’s not over just because you had an average GPA the first time around.</p>
<p>Plenty of allied health jobs in Physical Therapy, Occupational therapy, clinical laboratory science, nursing, physician assistant studies, dentistry etc. You should have all but maybe one prerequisite for each. Therefore transferring into one of these programs is much much easier for a bio/biochem major than a humanities major that only took one science class. You can always live with your parents an extra year or three and repay your loans if you major in a high demand health field. The concept of going to college at 18, graduating at 22 with an awesome job with benefits isn’t applicable in many cases to our generation.</p>
<p>There did actually use to be a relative boom in biology/chemistry back when pharmaceutical companies weren’t run by short-sighted wall street thugs that outsource all their R&D and put all their other staff as contractors for low wages with no benefits. If you already have a bio degree either go into healthcare, or try to pick up some accounting classes and go for your CPA–don’t even think you need a full accounting degree for this, just 30 credits of accounting and passing the tests.</p>
<p>I do agree however that there needs to be transparent data at each college about job titles, salaries, and graduate school endeavors by university alumni of different majors 2, 5, and 10 years out of university so people can accurately decide how much debt each degree is worth etc. If McDonald’s needs to report its dietary data for french fries lest they be sued, how the h*** do colleges get away charging 40k a year and not giving this data. Can you say lobbying and government backed loans?</p>
<p>I graduated long, long ago. At the time, the PA program was a relatively new development. Most people who graduated from four-year colleges earned degrees in English, History, Languages, Psychology, Biology, Chemistry. Business Administration as a major seemed to be becoming more common. “Studies” degrees were rare. Computer Science degrees were rare. Law and Medicine had about equal prestige. Engineering was, in some circles, looked down upon but that was changing rapidly. The “yuppie” existed by then but the term had not yet been invented. </p>
<p>It was probably the time of the tipping point between the old era when any BA/BS practically guaranteed a living wage and a new era in which college degrees would be considered standard equipment and no guarantee of anything. It was probably the time when what one majored in really began to be important. I sensed it then, and I am sure some others did too, but nobody was talking about it.</p>
<p>The actual practice of health care is still largely out of reach of those making the financial decisions. For now. </p>
<p>FWIW, the accountants themselves don’t seem to make business decisions, they simply report the facts to those who do.</p>
<p>Students who are interested in a survey of career prospects can now do some of the leg work themselves. By typing “biology” on a job-search site, I saw 200 “hits” nationwide. Typing “business” yielded 1000+. You be the judge.</p>
<p>You NEED computer and computer programming skills. Not knowing how to code is a tremendous disadvantage on a resume. Some people can go their entire careers doing nothing even remotely related to what their degree is in if they simply know how to use a computer.</p>
<p>@gravenewworld: Any suggestions as to which programming language(s) one should learn (if it helps, I’m a Geology major hoping to get into mineral exploration or hydrology.) I know some MATLAB but that’s about it.</p>
<p>It’s funny you should mention computer programming. I took a few programming courses in college but this was in the days of mainframe/mini computers with dumb terminals. I did well in the courses, but didn’t have much time to do more than the assignments. Unfortunately the accounts were deactivated at the end of each quarter. I asked if I could buy some computer time in order to practice and learn more during breaks between quarters, but was denied. I don’t know if actual CS majors were treated that way.</p>
<p>Later when PCs came on the scene, I thought that I could learn more on my own. Unfortunately, that does not usually count as experience in the eyes of employers.</p>
<p>JeSuis, MATLAB is a good choice for geology. You might also pick up Python - a lot of the coding style is very similar, and it’s open-source, so if you go to a company that won’t pay for your MATLAB license (which SUCKS, btw), you don’t end up having to start over from scratch. Those are probably the biggest two in the earth sciences, setting aside things like Fortran, which just, well, hurt.</p>
<p>Like the OP, I’m also on a pre-med path, but I’m a junior. Biomedical Engineering was mentioned earlier as an alternative degree to Biology. I didn’t read through all the posts here (sorry!) but what can be done with a BA in Biomedical Engineering if one isn’t accepted into any med schools? Can any degree in the medical field still be pursued with such a degree? What about careers outside of the medical field? Thanks.</p>
<p>I’m not really all that familiar with BioE but from what I know you take all the prerequisites for most health programs. I also think you can get a MS/PhD and actually get a pretty good job in medical devices. I don’t think R&D for medical devices is perceived as risky as for pharmaceuticals (limited patents, huge investments) so I’d conjecture the industry is a bit healthier. In addition, if you learn some solid engineering skills you can in many cases just snag an entry level engineering position.</p>
<p>Yeah its better than biology, but at the Bsc level, not substantially. If you really want to have your options wide open, take mechanical or electrical engineering as an undergrad with all the prerequisites for health programs. You’ll have the math skills to do quantitative finance after an MBA, the solid engineering fundamentals to do a BME masters (or any engineering for that matter), and have all the prerequisites for Med, pharm, dental, PA school etc…</p>