Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="LightPhoenix" data-source="post: 2394406" data-attributes="member: 115">This is based solely on my experience as a biochemistry major.One thing that's not really made explicitly clear, or even implicitly, before or during college is the difference between the clinical side of things and the research side of things.  While both sides have their differences, they also have some similarities. Clinical work tends to be a lot less theory and a lot more practicality.  A lot of it is drug testing - dosages and what not.  Depending on where you study, you may not be doing a lot of the lab work.  For example, at the hospital/college I work at (<a href="http://www.upstate.edu" target="_blank">Upstate University</a>) the clinical and anatomical pathology labs at the hospital end up doing a lot of the testing, and the "lab work" is really a lot of data collection.  That's something to check into. Reasearch work on the other hand is the opposite - more theory, less practicality.  Rather than testing drug dosages, you'll be developing new drugs.  I personally feel there's more diversity on the research side of things, but it's also a bit more work.  In the US, a lot of that is done in the private sector - Bristol-Myers-Squibb, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and the other big pharmaceutical companies. To answer a few points you made specifically: One, you will have more opportunities on a clinical path.  There are lots of hospitals out there, and most do some degree of research.  A teaching hospital will naturally have more. Two, especially with molecular bio, that's a pretty research-oriented path.  Neuroscience less so, in fact there's a fair degree of balance with it. Three, you're not going to start on top.  It doesn't matter what path you take, you'll be doing other people's work for a good long time.  The key is to find a college where a professor is doing work you're interested in, and working with them.  That way you're still working on stuff you're interested in, and you're more likely to have a better relationship with your teacher. Fourth, go as far as you can.  Get a PhD if you can.  It'll pay off in the long run. Fifth, with Comp Sci as a minor, you may want to look into bio-informatics.  In any field, if you intend to use Comp Sci, you're probably looking at a research track. Sixth, most college programs, unless specifically pre-med, are research oriented.  That means lots of chemistry.  If nothing else, in organic chem, remember nucleophiles and electrophiles.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  Finally, there are other options.  The FDA has a large group of researchers, as do the EPA and other scientific government organizations.  Even the FBI has some researchers.  You could also be a college professor - that's one of the easiest ways to get your own lab, and some degree of freedom.   And don't forget that you can switch between the two.  Right now I'm doing clinical work, but the laboratory experience will help me get clinical or research jobs.  My degree makes me suitable for either, and yours probably will too.</blockquote>

Verification