Hello folks,

I need some help!  what are good options available in terms of future job prospect for someone with biology/chemistry degree?  What subjects have better job growth in future?  I have been searching online, however, it would be good to know from someone who has experience in these fields and have been doing or completed graduate studies in these fields.  Any info in this matter is apperciated.

First of all, what's ur qualification ? BS, MA or PhD ?
I must say PhD is almost necessary for a good job in Biology/Chemistry field. Without PhD you'll end up working as a Lab Technician or Research Technician in Labs which doesn't pay well.

If you have PhD you can do lots of things. First, you can become Professor in Universities which is a respected Job, however, the Pay might not be as great as some IT folks make.

How about Computational Biology or Bioinformatics ? Have u thought about it ?

Thanks for your input purana kagaz. 

I would not go into programming or maths.  So, I would not consider bioinformatics or computational biology as I do not think I can excel in these fields.

I am looking for graduate school right now.  However, I want to make sure i will end up in good field so that i dont have to worry about jobs after working hard for many years. 

Any other field that fits biology major well and has good job prospect?

if you prefer biology go to applied science like biomedicine..... same is the case with chemistry (like industral chemistry)..,in anyway  need to the applied science to have decent payment... Purana Kagaz is right in tthe sense of money.. the payment is too less in these pure science untill you go for a research or computational... so think before you go any forward in graduate level...
Good luck

Moss,

Thanks for your response.  Ye, i am looking for applied science majors related to biology or chemistry.

Hey biology,

I was in your shoes few years back. I used to stay away from any courses that required use of computers other than MS office. I used to think I can never do any computational stuffs. However in my 4th year in grad school, I got exposed to bioinformatics, not because I wanted, but because I had no other options (it's a long story). Then I started liking it and I have decided to pursue my career in bioinformatics. Trust me, it is doable. Although I'm still learning programming, but it is not so difficult that I used to think. If you have no interest then it is different story, but if you are staying away only because you think you can't excel, then I suggest you just give it a try. For that you can choose a lab that does both dry and wet labs. Do wet lab stuffs and learn programming from the lab members who do it. Then if you really like you can go into it and if you don't then you can continue doing wet lab stuffs. When I started, there was nobody to teach me and still I'm the only one who does that in our lab.
Bottomline, keep your mind open to purana kagaz's suggestion, you won't regret.

Sparty

Thanks Sparty.

How about graduate study in pharmacology, molecular biology, cell biology, immunology, infectious disease?

I guess i am looking for something that is lab based rather than high tech computer stuffs..:)

Biology,

You can do computational stuffs while majoring in any of the above. My major is molecular biology, and I'm doing bioinformatics. I have one paper doing purely wet lab stuffs and one submitted just doing bioinformatics. Now, I'm about to graduate. I'll still be in the field of biology, but will be doing computational stuffs too. In ten years from now it will be very difficult to survive in our field (biology) if you can't use computational approaches to solve biological problems. Just think, how expensive was it to sequence a whole genome in 2000. Now people are sequencing like crazy, thanks to next-gen sequencing. So in future it will be cheaper to sequence a genome than analyzing the reads. Furthermore, you don't have to join Department of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics to do computational stuffs. You can do these stuffs being in any of the above departments you mentioned above.

goodluck

Sparty