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Career Choices for Computational Biologists?
wengkius writes "I'm entering grad school this year and will be working towards a higher degree in Computational Biology. While my undergraduate training has been in computer science, I'm looking to apply what I've learned in a new area that has piqued my interest. Now my question is this: apart from the obvious career choices that I have thought of (academic research, pharma corporations, biotech startups), are there any other career options that I have yet to consider? Would be great to hear from Slashdotters who are familiar with the field."
Huh? Sorry, IANAL nor a degreed professional, but if I'd spent that much time of my life and that much money... uhm, I'd have given it way more thought than you seem to have done.
/.'s opinion of the worth of computational biology, well I'd say that there is lots of work to be done yet. That whole genetic splicing and stem cell research and genomic research etc. There is also AI and robotics research teams that you might find interesting.
Not to slam you unconditionally, I'm sure you have given this some thought, but since we don't really know what you are good at and what you like (other than school) how about you give us a multiple choice list of things you have considered and we as slashdotters will duly vote in the latest poll.
If you simply want
I'll wait for the multiple guess poll, thanks.
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Planning is no use anyhow.
Here's the truth: if you get a really good education then what you are doing 5 or ten years later can be entirely different. So focus on the education not on specific mad skilz. Do learn a new skill at each job however as that's what's going to get you the next job.
Personally, I've published papers in atomic physics, remote sensing, computational biology, medical imaging, information theory and half a dozen other fields, radically changing fields every 5 or ten years. The only common thread is a versatile education.
You can add National Labs to your list as well. It's easier to change fields and keep your job there than almost any other employer.
I work next to a lab of computational biologists (immunology, actually), and one career path that isn't quite so unusual is finance. There's a lot of demand for excellent quantitative and computational skills in finance/investment banking. It may not be related to biology, but it's a very real possibility.
Working at a national laboratory is another option. I was an intern at Los Alamos for two summers working on proteomics research as a code monkey. There is a pretty broad array of topics you can work on at places of that size, so that may provide you more opportunity to find something you like than working at a university. And it probably pays better :)
I know it is still academic research, but it is a very different environment than a school lab.
I got my PhD last year in a similar field, and I made the leap into video game development. Best decision I ever made. Besides the fun factor, the biggest issue in a science career (well, in academia at least), is just how freakin long it takes to get your career going. After grad school, 6 years in my case, you have to do a post-doc for a few years, then get (hopefully) get a tenure-track faculty position, then work your ass off to actually get tenure. Then, if everything goes right, your career starts. For me, that time commitment was simply not worth it.
I'm currently a student in a graduate-level biology program. We had a speaker from the USPTO (United States Patent and Trade Office) come and talk to us about a month ago. From what he was saying, the USPTO is dying to recruit more computational biologists. Basically, there's a lot of companies who are trying to patent biological database algorithms, and very few people at the trade office have enough know-how to properly determine if the patent should be granted or not, (or even if such algorithms are even patentable at all).
So, if you don't mind the paperwork and the lack of lab access, then there's a career that will accept you right away (according to the speaker).
"Operating systems suck: you're better off using only the BIOS" --trainsaw.com
Submitter here. Thanks for all those replies. Some of them were really helpful and will no doubt be food for thought when I consider my options. I did an internship in one of the big pharma companies (**K) and managed to do some interesting (to me at least) work related to molecular drug discovery using computational approaches. As a CS student, I would have never imagined using the stuff that I learned on a field such as this. The only thing that gives me reservations about working for big pharma is of course the ethics. I don't mean the animal testing part (security was quite tight at our research site as we were frequently the target of militant animal rights groups) but rather the gouging patients with ridiculously priced drugs part.