

Ask HN: Jobs for Science Majors Without Graduate Degrees? - presidentender

How can a new graduate with a Bachelor's in Physics, Biology or Chemistry make best use of that degree? For programmers and engineers, jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities abound. But a science major asked me for advice earlier, and I was at a loss. I suspect that research positions are occupied mostly by grad students, and can't think of anything other than research that's directly related to those degrees.
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hugh3
Physics or biology or chemistry? You're cutting a pretty broad swath there.

OK, one thing you can do is to work in positions directly related to your
field of study. I have friends with biology degrees who work either as lab
assistants in universities, or else somewhere in the bowels of a Big Pharma
company doing... I don't know what. Most of these sorts of jobs don't tend to
be that great though -- in a scientific organization anyone without a PhD is
probably not going to be able to rise very high.

A second thing you can do is... pretty much anything else! If you're not going
to be specifically putting your brain to work on hard-science problems then
you can go write software or work for a bank or be a management consultant
or... I dunno, fly aeroplanes or join the military or do whatever. For a job
not requiring any specific knowledge I'd always prioritise a science major
over an arts major, simply because I'm more confident that the science major
will be numerate and understand how to solve problems.

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bendmorris
Programming skills can be combined with a science Bachelor's to qualify for
some pretty cool jobs. There are some opportunities in bioinformatics,
software development at a research company, etc. for Bachelor's holders,
although some will want at least a Master's or will require at least a little
CS coursework.

Honestly, a lot of degrees are really largely meant to prepare you for grad
school, and you just named three of them. In a perfect world, college advisors
would let you know this before you signed up for the major.

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a3camero
I'm a science graduate and found it very useful working at a startup in
Waterloo, ON. I was assigned a fair bit of work related to statistical stuff
that directly stemmed from learned stats in science. Maybe you'd get that with
another degree, but it certainly didn't hurt to have a background in science +
database programming even in a field outside of science.

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drallison
Research? Fundamental research? Not much of that done these days, and probably
not by people with an undergraduate degree only. Even PhD's have a difficult
time finding research jobs. Research is mostly done in universities. The great
far horizon industrial research labs (Bell Labs, IBM Research, and so forth)
either do not exist any more or have been redirected to short-term development
support.

Graduate school is a good next step. Either continuing study of a hard science
or moving to computer science with an eye of working at the boundary of
computer science and real science.

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a3camero
And not just graduate school in science. Professional school (re: law) might
also be a good fit. The thinking skills you learn in science are pretty useful
in other areas.

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bartonfink
I have friends from high school who got bio degrees and wound up being
travelling sales reps for pharma companies. It seems like a terrible spot to
be in, because you're stuck between the experts who created the drug and the
experts who will be prescribing the drug, both of whom know far more about the
drug and its interaction with the human body than you probably do. I'm not
sure that having a bio degree really helps all that much in the field, except
to add some sense of legitimacy to the pitch. '

I hear it pays well though.

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dstein
My rhetorical question would be how is possible for someone to complete a
university degree before asking a question like this.

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deafcheese
You'll probably have to look outside of science, but actually you are
qualified for lots of policy and business jobs. The trick is to look for jobs
that sound more social science/humanities, and then your science degree
(despite being only a bachelor's) will be viewed as "hardcore."

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triviatise
Business analyst/product manager. Also, all the big consulting companies hire
science majors as consultants.

