Is it really 21st century science?

So, what kind of discipline is life science, and what is its prospect and current situation? In the following "professional prospects" part, I will share my understanding with you in three aspects: scientific research, professional employment, and career change.

Prospects: Further study and employment

1. Scientific Research

If you are interested in life itself and want to explore it in a scientific way, then welcome to the field of life science research.

The training mode of domestic life science majors in the undergraduate stage is more research-oriented and encourages students to continue their studies, so the proportion of students going abroad for doctoral study is relatively high. The specific research retention rate depends on the setting of the institution you choose. Different institutions have different regulations. You can go to the official website to check the research retention situation of your favorite institution in previous years.

At Tsinghua University, for example, 40% of its graduates are eligible for postgraduate studies in China. 40%-50% to further their studies abroad; 10% employment. Students who have the intention to go abroad contact the seniors who have successfully got the offer to consult experience and suggestions.

One of the most orthodox ways to cultivate this discipline is to continue further study at home and abroad, participate in various academic conferences, publish papers, work in research institutes or universities, and concentrate on academics. The general work scenario is doing experiments in the laboratory, processing data, and writing papers. As long as you have a great interest and love for your research topic, everything else is a natural and well-developed reward.

However, it should be noted that the current academic field is different from the absolutely pure and absolutely ideal career of scientists in most people's childhood imagination, and it is increasingly becoming a job to a certain extent, a relatively niche industry.

There are many practitioners of scientific research, and true scientists are still a minority, just as artists are entertainers. As an industry, it has its KPI. If you do not want to be bound by the result theory of "thesis on hero" and only want to do the topic you are interested in without deliberately pursuing results, then in the selection of graduate students, you should know more about the laboratory style and choose the research environment that suits you.

At any time, there are very few real scientists, most of them are engineers.

2, professional employment

In his novel Brave New World, published in 1932, British writer Aldous Huxley predicted that one day humans would play the role of God and transform life.

If your interest in biology is not to explore the world, but to transform the world, then there are many directions in the field of biology that are biased toward industrialization, such as medicine, food, agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, fishing, environmental protection, gardens and so on.

This kind of direction is more closely related to social needs and has more social value, and can enter the research and development position of the company in the future, or raise money to start a business. In school, I can also take advantage of social practice, production internship and other opportunities to practice in enterprises to understand the market dynamics.

3. Change careers

If you find in the process of studying in college that you are not interested in biology itself, the value drive is not strong enough, and you care more about employment opportunities, salaries and development prospects, then biology may be exactly the four sinkholes that netizens say for you.

The salary of undergraduate biology is not high, coupled with the physical exertion of experimental work is very hard, some people choose to enter the company as a non-technical work such as sales, more people may consider changing careers, public, teaching, Internet, finance, law... There are all kinds of success stories.

Many of my undergraduate classmates have successfully joined Internet companies or transferred to the department of computer science. In short, when you have the idea of changing careers in the process of biology learning, you should collect information in time, make up for your lessons, actively seek internships, and prepare to change careers.

If you change careers, it does not mean that the undergraduate knowledge is wasted. The importance of the Internet giant to the computer field and the vigorous development of the life and health industry indicate that the biological industry is an industry that will not decline, and it is an industry that capital and people are concerned about.

It is also very helpful to accumulate certain biological knowledge and master the biological background in the undergraduate course for future career change. Computer/financial talents with a biology background are highly sought after in the field of biological computing and pharmaceutical investment consulting.

If it is difficult to master in one field, break the discipline barrier and do the cross talent in the hot field of biology. The crossover talent is currently rare, can borrow the information difference between the professional to obtain development opportunities, eat a wave of information dividends.