Jobs in STEM?

[Anonymous No.11258426]

How do I get a job in STEM if I study something biology related but don't do any networking or internships?

[Anonymous No.11258495]

You don't.

[Anonymous No.11258783]

>>11258426
I have pharmacy degree and work in advanced analytics/data science team in R&D division of big pharma company.
As a mathematical modeler and data scientist I am a professional user of R among other langs and stacks. I learnt everything related to computer science/mathematic/statistics/probability on evenings and holidays during my university studies. If you want to get a good job with biology background and avoid being a cheap overworking whitecoated lab rat, you absolutely need strong quantitative skills (but stear far away from stuff from bioinformatic curricula - there are already fuckloads of bioinformaticians, even guys with bioinf. phd at my company are considers themselves super lucky for getting shitty entry jobs with shitty projects.
The best advice for you now would be to learn R language and the best start into it I can give you is swirl: https://swirlstats.com/students.html
swirl is a package containing interactive R tutorials going very meticuously from absolute basics to advanced features and techniques in used in professional enviromnment. We use it for our student interns to learn them R. You absolutely need to familiarize yourself with the "tidiverse" way of doing stuff in R.
For best chances for a top job in real data science you need to very well understand the business of your area, natural sciences degree is big plus.
For more realistic entry level data science, which will be in fact only dashboarding/data presentation (just a step from excel monkey) you can learn tableau/spotfire

ask me if you want 2 know more

[Anonymous No.11258808]

>>11258783
Wow thank you.
What about python?
Why is R more important?

[Anonymous No.11258961]

>>11258808
>Wow thank you.
Happy to help. I also didn't have any interships and barely any networking opportunities, because I was from small postcommie country where my degree of pharmacy is still heavily about traditional pharmacy-store role and I had no professor or TA or anyone around who would know a real thing about computational biology, quantitative pharmacology, PK/PD modeling and simulation. So If I wanted to know something more I had to desperately selfstudy anything anywhere I could find <- my boss told me this was the most impressive aspect about me, during interview and then at the job why he hired me, so go for it even if you have to struggle now as I did. I started this job literally one day after my final state exam.
>I learnt everything related to computer science/mathematic/statistics/probability on evenings and holidays during my university studies.
forgot to add that I learnt all of that from MOOCS on edx.org, coursera, harvardx etc..
to be continuted..

[Anonymous No.11258975]

>>11258426

Med school if you have a high GPA and mcat but I believe they also want to see internships as well

[Anonymous No.11259009]

>>11258975
>med school
STAY AWAY from this meme

[Anonymous No.11259049]

>>11259009

You make 400k starting sir

[Anonymous No.11259060]

>>11258961
Okay please tell me more. Did they really value all you knew which you'd learnt by self studying?
Didn't they say they wanted proof?

[Anonymous No.11259176]

>>11258783
what electives do you suggest are best for the future? statistics and math based or bioinformatics based?

[Anonymous No.11259329]

>>11259060
>Didn't they say they wanted proof?
bingo. Because anybody would knew that they do not teach CS/math stuff on pharmacy I took the proof part exceptionally seriously. You need to demonstrate to be proficient in such skills, and not just by doing few online courses few months before graduation, when you suddenly got redpilled about job market prospects.
I devised a plan - in my 3th-4th uni year I had already completed several challenging online specializations on coding/stats/simulation on edx and coursera and had verified certificates of completing these MOOCS with high grade. I wanted to use this to *secure a prestigious and difficult research project with _skills (programming/applied modelling) directly useable in industry setting_* to advert to my potential employer.
With this I contacted numerous accomplished applied mathematicians from different universities as potential master thesis supervisors. Because I was prepared (courses and certs.) and had a very good idea aboud my research plan, I choose one of them who believed me I can fully plan and supervise my research on my own, as he knew math, but didn't know shit about how it apples to pharmacology.
I battled 3 years with self-imposed fuckhuge difficult master thesis, only one of its kind on my pharmacy faculty and succesfully delivered it.
I also had a joint modelling sideproject with my classmate who I taught everything I knew and we submitted a poster to quite prestigious privately funded biophysical symposium in germany and the german academics awarded us the stipend to attend this international science event (1week, ~30phd students, 10profs) and completely paid our stay.
To summarize:
thanks to my plan, by the end of my studies I had
-Msc of pharmacy degree
-Verified certificates from structured online courses that I know my math and programming
-Succesful and unique and independently led master thesis that was *applicable to industry*
-External validation from abroad german scientists

[Anonymous No.11259347]

>>11259329
>-Succesful and unique and independently led master thesis that was *applicable to industry*
can you tell us more about what it was about?
What made it applicable to industry?

>-External validation from abroad german scientists
how did you get this?

[Anonymous No.11259496]

>>11259329
that's very interesting. I actually had the same idea for my masters thesis.

Is the bioinformatics curriculum really overrated?
what would you suggest instead at uni then?

[Anonymous No.11259497]

>>11259347
>can you tell us more about what it was about?
>What made it applicable to industry?
I wanted to do (and now doing) thing called pharmacometry and quantitative systems pharmacology. You basically study the dynamics of how a drug interacts with body and how body interacts with the drug (pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics) and devise a mathematical model describing that dynamic of interactions, which you then use to simulate a virtual patient populations and virtual clinical trials under various scenarios of interests pertaining possibilities of toxicity, efficacy and opportunities/risks in special populations.
-for my master thesis I did a uniquely realistic model of cell metabolism under anoxic condition on molecular level accounting for things like ionic strength, changes of pH and how it affects enzymes etc. and was able to match my simulations to real-world data of what is happening in cell during ischemic conditions and how what happens when you throw in a certain drug.
So by my master thesis I proved I can program fuckhuge but realistic models in matlab, and know how to connect mathematics and pathophysiology.
>-External validation from abroad german scientists
see previous post:
>I also had a joint modelling sideproject with my classmate who I taught everything I knew and we submitted a poster to quite prestigious privately funded biophysical symposium in germany and the german academics awarded us the stipend to attend this international science event (1week, ~30phd students, 10profs) and completely paid our stay.
-publish on prestigious conference basically

[Anonymous No.11259524]

>>11259497
I see. That's great. You've provided alot of inspiration

[Anonymous No.11259528]

>>11259496
bioinformatics today is an old overcompetitive meme today. those guys are fucking happy if they can find a job in pharma programming some infrastructure software for some lab automation
bioinformaticians know shit about what big pharma industry values most
avoid

[Anonymous No.11259544]

>>11259528
so did you pay to get verified certificates on edx or was your word of mouth and project enough proof?

[Anonymous No.11259605]

>>11259544
when I was doing them (2013-4), it was free to gain cert with pgp signature if you passed the tests. And on the coursera I exploited the "financial help" option to get verified certificates for free, it is a form where you state your motivations, financial situation (poor student/my parents are retired seniors on postcommie retirement…)
MOOCS changed my life

[Anonymous No.11259638]

>>11259176
gobble up as much stats and probability courses as possible anon.

[Anonymous No.11259770]

>>11259605
>>11259638
okay thanks

[Anonymous No.11259827]

>>11259524
thanks a lot! I didn't have any mentor and peers around me working in this field so I had very serious problems with self-confidence and absolutely no mental support from my boomer parens (pharmacy and computers? the fuck have these two things in common? you are completely deluded dreamy faggot anon. Are you so stupid that you need to spend so much time to study? Why don't you just accept being a pharmacist in pharmacy in this godforsaken small town near our village?)
for this reason I was scared shitless of outcome that the plan I laid out for myself won't work out. Thus I spent every moment awake on reaching my goals, but coupled with my afforementioned reasons for low self-esteem I was constantly on verge of burn-out. Because of this I also had low self-esteem once I was in my dream job working on drug research with PhD's from MIT and was constantly overworking and stressing myself unnecessarily.
You sound to be a burger, so you do not know how I wanted to be in your skin back then, being able to talk in person to competent professors and professionals… I didn't even have any money to travel abroad to conferences where I would be able to meet face to face with people researching/working in this field.

[Anonymous No.11259950]

>>11259827
you really make me feel like I waste my time considering the resources I have at my disposal.
You're a real success story.
I'm only in my second year but I think I should really focus on following your path hehe

[Anonymous No.11260807]

Y'all should go to trade school

[Anonymous No.11260847]

>>11258426
Big fat ghost tits.

[Anonymous No.11260944]

>>11259827
where do you see the future going though?
do you think data science is going to be big in 2022 and beyond?
People are saying it's going to be oversaturated with data scientists from CS

[Anonymous No.11260951]

>>11259827

Is data science the only thing pharmacies will pay your amply for? Is it also possible to work your way up in the lab? I am almost done with my life sciences study and I might also want to work at a pharmacy. Any tips?