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help me decide
Elin
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
When I started school with an intent to get a degree in Biology I took it as wrote that I would need a masters to do anything in that field. Looking at the career tracks I want to peruse just cemented that. Working for US/State Dept of Fish and Wildlife almost every posting required a Maters. My "back up plan" of teaching Biology at a Community College requires a Masters.
Problem: I'm only a year and a half in and I'm getting burnt out. Because I have had a long lapse between High School and College (11 years), I had to take some "remedial" courses I shouldn't have had to take, but my HS credits no longer applied. Because of that I've needed to take classes over the summer last summer, and will need to do so this coming summer as well.
By the time I even GET my BS I'll be 32, and I'd like to start working in a field I enjoy sooner rather than later. I was looking at jobs in the zoos and low and behold they only need a BS in zoology, biology, or a related field. Some of them also require animal care experience but I'm going to look into getting a job in a local kennel/humane society, and my local zoo offers summer internships, paid and unpaid. It would be an hour commute for that, but even unpaid worth it for the experience/connections.
Given this information ... would you go for the Masters? If I don't my career field is much narrower than I originally planned, but I'll be working sooner (hopefully). If I get my Masters I'll have more options but I'll have to wait longer, get more schooling that I'm not sure I want at this point, and have more debt at the end.
In the event that you DO think a Masters is where I should be heading to, the College in the area offers a non Thesis option for the Masters in Biology. I'm assuming that is what I would be looking for? I'm not really all that sure how a Masters program works. I'm the second person in my entire extended family to attend College, and the only person in my immediate family that graduated High School.
PS - Calculus is easy, algebra is the hard part but having a Calculus test on your 30th birthday still blows.
Problem: I'm only a year and a half in and I'm getting burnt out. Because I have had a long lapse between High School and College (11 years), I had to take some "remedial" courses I shouldn't have had to take, but my HS credits no longer applied. Because of that I've needed to take classes over the summer last summer, and will need to do so this coming summer as well.
By the time I even GET my BS I'll be 32, and I'd like to start working in a field I enjoy sooner rather than later. I was looking at jobs in the zoos and low and behold they only need a BS in zoology, biology, or a related field. Some of them also require animal care experience but I'm going to look into getting a job in a local kennel/humane society, and my local zoo offers summer internships, paid and unpaid. It would be an hour commute for that, but even unpaid worth it for the experience/connections.
Given this information ... would you go for the Masters? If I don't my career field is much narrower than I originally planned, but I'll be working sooner (hopefully). If I get my Masters I'll have more options but I'll have to wait longer, get more schooling that I'm not sure I want at this point, and have more debt at the end.
In the event that you DO think a Masters is where I should be heading to, the College in the area offers a non Thesis option for the Masters in Biology. I'm assuming that is what I would be looking for? I'm not really all that sure how a Masters program works. I'm the second person in my entire extended family to attend College, and the only person in my immediate family that graduated High School.
PS - Calculus is easy, algebra is the hard part but having a Calculus test on your 30th birthday still blows.
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Elin on
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I think in the long run you should still keep working toward the masters -- a wider field of possibility is going to do you a world of good, and although who knows what the job market will be like once you get it, trying to get a good job in a field that may be saturated with people who do have their masters and are also going for the same jobs will leave you high and dry.
If there are no jobs that I can find I'll go for my Master's/Doctorate then. If I can get a job then I'll pay off my loans and see what my future prospects are at that job. If I have room to go up (I think this is unlikely, but I'm not 100%) then I'll stay at that job. I plan on getting more education eventually but I don't know when.
That's what I'm doing I hope that can at least give you some ideas. There are some very good jobs that you can get right out of college with a degree in biology, but you need a little luck to get them.
Pretty much sums it up.
It was talked about in a another recent job/education thread, but having a Masters can limit your options to only jobs that require a masters, eliminating anything lower.
I'd find a place you'd enjoy working at now, and see how it goes. Always an option of moving up there into a higher position, or another place may consider that experience more valuable than a piece of expensive paper.