Slashdot Mirror
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."
A program at my previous college would graduate 5-6 bioinformaticians with PhDs a year. The ones who got snapped up were the ones who also had a substantial background in the biology they were working with. Take whatever genetic/bio courses you can fit in along with your bioinformatics work. When choosing a doctoral project, try to find one that involves collaboration between your advisor and professor in the genetics or cell biology department. As some posted above, bioinformaticians can find jobs pretty much anywhere biologists are employed, but the biologists will be important in making any hiring decisions and they want someone who understands the biology in addition to being a wiz at the computational stuff.