Post: #1

All right. I wanted to make a topic here for some time already, but I didn't want to ask you guys without doing my homework first.
I've finally ran out of ideas to be honest. I will be getting my bachelor in Biotechnology next year, but I've realized, that I don't really want to work in this field and I would love to work remotely - from what I found, not really possible unless I'm an consultant of some sort, which won't happen anytime soon as it requires tons of experience in certain field.
I'm willing to finish my bachelor, forget about it and focus on something else entirely, but truth be told I don't like the idea of so much time wasted , so I would rather use the knowledge gathered at the university somehow - especially as I kind of like science overall - molecular biology, biochemistry being my two favorite fields so far, but possibility to work remotely is very limited here.
Of course I've done my research on working remotely outside of science-related fields, programming, marketing, copywriting, translations etc as there were tons of topics about it here, but if anyone has some idea on what a young, motivated guy can focus on I would greatly appreciate it.

Yet as not to spam the forum with another: "How to work remotely" thread, I would like it to be more science-oriented in terms of location independent job possibilities.
From what I've gathered, there are a few options:
a) Biostatistician - not typically a remote field, but I saw such offers. Downside is, that it requires heavy mathematical skills, which I don't posses. R/SaaS are the leading languages here, but I doubt I would be able to learn them. I've put that aside for now.
b) Bioinformatics - so this one is interesting as I had a basic course on the university for one semester. It was pretty interesting, but we were only learning how to use and search databases for scientific purposes, we didn't touch required programming knowledge at all.
Downside is that from what I've found jobs are rather limited for specialists only, so if I were to pursue this field I would have to say bye-bye money and travel for quite some time and I'm not really keen on giving up my best years entirely.
c) Computational Biology - so to be honest, this one was the most interesting - of course from what I saw from jobs requirements, they require heavy education as well, but requirements vary much more depending on what the company needs you for in comparison to the two other fields I've mentioned above - and because of so many appliances, there is more work even though it's not always under the name of "computational biology" with a good possibility to land a remote job.
d) Field Service Engineer/Field application - Okay, it's not that much of a typical remote job, but one that requires a good amount of travel. Frankly, I was never good at such things, but it's always some possibility.
e) Sales/Marketing - to be honest, I didn't give it much thought either, but if somebody has some experience with science and sales or actually could give some insight on remote marketing overall I would greatly appreciate it as well.
f) Finance - I would probably have to pursue another degree in Finance/Accounting and start from there looking for a remote jobs focusing pharmaceutical/biotech companies.
I doubt that my biotech degree would be of much use here anyway.

I've started to learn programming now and I chose python as my first language.
I doubt I will ever be able to become good at it or if I am even able to learn it at all at this point, but pulling this off would definitely give me some additional prospects, like traveling while I'm still fairly young and pursuing more education to get into computational biology or bioinformatics for a better salary in later years.
It seems like the best course I could take at the moment, so I will try to stick to it despite so many ups and downs I already had - but from what I heard, it's exactly how it works when you are trying to learn programming with 0 previous experience in this field.

If anyone is working somewhere after biotechnology or know somebody, have any ideas if something like this would be possible to pull off I would greatly appreciate any career tips.
As I said, I'm open to any changes as I'm still relatively young and willing to start from the scratch in basically any field.

Thanks

Post: #2

No specific advice for you here, but check out /thread-40522.html, threads on data science, old posts by Nemencine.

Post: #3

Im kind of in the same predicament as you, I have a degree in Biology that I acquired 2 years ago.

Within these last 2 years, nothing has really happened and Im partly to blame.

Some of my options that I considered are:

1) Going back to do a 2 year 2nd degree in nursing

2) Going back to do a 2 year 2nd degree in Business --> specifically Finance or Management Information Systems

3) Getting a diploma in allied health such as X ray tech, respiratory therapy

4) Doing a professional program such as law, physiotherapy, medicine, dentistry etc. However this would all have to be done outside of Canada as I dont have the top marks required to get into these programs

5) The military

6) Right now Im looking at sales jobs, but idk how thats going to go as I have chronic periods of low confidence and non clinical depression. ( I can put on a mask when necessary tho).



The problem with all these options is that most are not location independent which is a factor that I am also placing a lot of weight towards. Ive been looking into big data and such, but I feel it would require a background in IT, computer science etc.

Bioinformatics seems like a good cross between what we have and want. I was also thinking that MIS combined with a little more technical knowledge would be good for big data but idk.

Post: #4

Well, I will allow myself to bump this thread a little bit.
Apart from remote working, is anyone here that has a degree in Biotechnology or any related field and is working as an scientist?
I'm still considering other options, despite learning programming, which is not really going well for me at the moment, but that is probably to be expected at the beginning.

Sonoran, just like you said - most of those jobs aren't location independent and it will be really hard to find one that is.
Best I could think of is becoming a specialist in certain field and just changing jobs once a year or two. If you are good, you can get a job basically anywhere as long as country is pretty much developed.

Bioinformatics is great, but it's still not that much location independent - although it's possible to find a good job, yet you need heavy background in programming to land any of those jobs and to be honest, being a good programmer you will much easier find a job as a developer than in Computational Biology or Bioinformatics.
At the moment this is what I'm aiming for, but not sure if I can get on this level. I'm giving myself a year to see how it goes. If it doesn't work out, I will probably stick to typical scientist career and think from there.

Also sonoran, as you an native English speaker with a degree in Biology you may consider freelance writing. I saw quite some offers for writers with expertise in Biology, but they were all for native English speakers - I applied anyway though, but no luck. Thing is that they are part-time at best and they require some more experience than just a degree, but that wouldn't be a problem if you were really into it.

Connecting biotech/science background with finances/sales may be a good option as well, but as I said market isn't that much developed in this direction yet, but if you were to focus on it, you would probably find a suitable job.

Post: #5

Did you see the Biology freelance writing on mainly sites like elance/upwork ?

Im in the interview process for this one biotech sales job which Im quite looking forward to and if that works out I will very likely consider salesman as my career path lol.

Post: #6

(11-10-2017 06:37 PM)teddy bear Wrote:  Well, I will allow myself to bump this thread a little bit.
Apart from remote working, is anyone here that has a degree in Biotechnology or any related field and is working as an scientist?
I'm still considering other options, despite learning programming, which is not really going well for me at the moment, but that is probably to be expected at the beginning.

Sonoran, just like you said - most of those jobs aren't location independent and it will be really hard to find one that is.
Best I could think of is becoming a specialist in certain field and just changing jobs once a year or two. If you are good, you can get a job basically anywhere as long as country is pretty much developed.

Bioinformatics is great, but it's still not that much location independent - although it's possible to find a good job, yet you need heavy background in programming to land any of those jobs and to be honest, being a good programmer you will much easier find a job as a developer than in Computational Biology or Bioinformatics.
At the moment this is what I'm aiming for, but not sure if I can get on this level. I'm giving myself a year to see how it goes. If it doesn't work out, I will probably stick to typical scientist career and think from there.

Also sonoran, as you an native English speaker with a degree in Biology you may consider freelance writing. I saw quite some offers for writers with expertise in Biology, but they were all for native English speakers - I applied anyway though, but no luck. Thing is that they are part-time at best and they require some more experience than just a degree, but that wouldn't be a problem if you were really into it.

Connecting biotech/science background with finances/sales may be a good option as well, but as I said market isn't that much developed in this direction yet, but if you were to focus on it, you would probably find a suitable job.

Get a sales engineering/pre sales/post sales job. Often remote and pays well. You're basically the nerd on the sales team, no actual quota, you have to have a little social skills tho.

Post: #7

Teddy,

It is always sad to read from scientists that are looking for a way out. I’ve seen it many times with former colleagues and friends. I can relate well. It is a tricky beast.

Just the other day, a girl reached out to me on LinkedIn for mentoring/advice. She finished her Master’s degree in molecular biology, an internship in medical writing (it sucked), and now she is applying for jobs and no one gives a shit. On the contrast, her boyfriend is making big money with an IT job. Frustration ensues.

As a scientist, you normally start out with a fascination for learning and unraveling things, and you are getting disillusioned over the years in academia. The good thing: You realize this now and want to take action. You “only” invested time and money for a Bachelor’s degree and not many additional years.

A Nature article from October acknowledges that “Global figures are hard to come by, but only three or four in every hundred PhD students in the United Kingdom will land a permanent staff position at a university.”

http://www.nature.com/news/many-junior-s...D=55217903

Options?

Digital Health / IT
If you get programming skills, you will have options in the emerging digital health fields and could work with one of the many startups. Probably not perfect for location independence.

Sales
Always lucrative – if you are good.

Field application scientist?
I interviewed for such a position back then after my Masters. Seemed boring. Not location independent. You’ll be in your car on the road a lot. I decided against it. A former lab colleague did this for a while, she hated it big time.

Content marketing
If you decide on the copywriting / content writing route, specialize early and clearly! Position yourself f as a premium writer. That means, stay away from freelancer portals! Really, don’t even think about them. Most of the “jobs” there are voluntary slavery. Those clients usually do not appreciate you and are not people you want to work with. You don’t want to be treated merely as a money-producing object, but seen as a subject that builds lasting business relationships.

Buy a good book on cold-calling from amazon or audible, write down your ideal clients and start cold-calling agencies and companies. Sure, it sucks. But I got results from this.

Lynda and coursera have excellent resources to educate yourself. Also, have a look at copyblogger, growhhacker, sumome, thrive architect, gaps.com.

Staying happy and sane: Don't consume motivational stuff like Tony Robbins pep talks and Gary-V “just hustle harder” bullshit. This is dangerous and missing the point. Don’t get bitter. Keep a long-term perspective and keep your self-esteem up.

Post: #8

Thanks a lot for comprehensive post @Chase. Seems like I suddenly got some more ideas thanks to you as well.
I will keep trying with learning programming. If I manage to learn it, then I can always ditch my biotech degree for good - I will get a stable job with a lot of possibilities for remote work, which would be perfect for me. Not sure if I'm able to pull it off though, but I will keep trying for now.

If that doesn't work out, I will try sales. I've got some social skills and I got some experience from freelancing in marketing overall, so that may always account for something.

As for writing - seems like a hard to get and not that much profitable job, but I will also consider it.
As I said, I want to focus on programming now and see where it will take me.

@sonoran - Yeah, I did see some on upwork and I believe there are opportunities to be found, but I wouldn't recommend to look for them there for anyone located in an more expensive country. You can give it a look though, not many offers, but they do appear from time to time
The gig I've mentioned I have actually seen on indeed or glassdoor, they required 3+ years of experience though, but it's definitely a better place to look at than freelance websites.

Anyway, thanks again for your input guys. Greatly appreciated. I hope Scientists will get to experience some brighter days soon

Post: #9

On a sidenote: If you're starting out with your own business, you might be able to get all kinds of training, coaching, and courses for free.

I don't know where you are based, but in Germany, the employment office is generous, if you can convince them that a coding school or some other training is useful and necessary for your business.

Post: #10

Speaking as a former science professional, many of us are trained in labs, work in labs, and find fulfillment in the labs. I wouldn't be surprised if many of my colleges made babies on a lab bench.
However, you soon learn there are limited opportunities in the labs. Recall that Master Roosh started out as a science professional.
I was fascinated by sales. Couldn't find a science sales job because those only went to the people who already had sales accounts (huh?). Like I often say, sucks to be in a declining industry.
I had to learn sales and accounting when I started my own business. I recommend science professionals who want to leave Engulf and Devour Amalgamated find some kind of service business you can start up with your skills. I learned the hard way that to do any kind of manufacturing in this country is a risk most of us can't afford to take. You can try science sales and marketing work, but I find the type of person who thrives in a lab environment can't deal with the personalities outside it. Your experiences may vary.
Just my 2 cents.

Post: #11

I don't plan on starting anything on my own yet as I'm young I would want to focus on education, but education alone doesn't bring much value nowadays.
I'm located in Poland and I know, that there are pretty good benefits from EU for starting business owners as well - probably similar to Germany. I may look into that. Thanks.

Thing is, that I was never that much thrilled about being a scientist. I just went there cause I was pretty much clueless teenager, that sucked at maths and though he can't handle any IT-related field. I should have tried anyway.

I read about Roosh having a science background as well in one of his articles. If I recall correctly, he had a background in Microbiology.

One more question though - how are non-native English speakers valued when it comes to sales/marketing, especially pharma/biotech oriented? I'm sure native speakers have an edge here, but is it much harder to land one for a non-native? Of course there are also opportunities on local markets, but the vast majority requires very-well spoken English.
I don't have any problem with writing, even though I'm sure, that there are improvements to be made, but making a good impression when talking on phone or in person with some qualified person seems like a pretty hard task to do for an non-native speaker to be honest. It's just not the same language fluency as I have in my mother-tongue, you can't exploit all the opportunities, that you would if you spoke in your native language.

Post: #12

(11-10-2017 06:37 PM)teddy bear Wrote:  Well, I will allow myself to bump this thread a little bit.
Apart from remote working, is anyone here that has a degree in Biotechnology or any related field and is working as an scientist?

Yes- you can PM me if you have any questions.