I'm planning on doing biochem and I am curious what did you with your degree do or are planning to do with it Were you able to find employment at some place relevant ( i.e not low skilled retail) upon graduation?

my friend got a job right after he finished his degree at some factory that makes some kind of drugs. he is in charge of something over there, but is in good position right after a 4 year undergrad. he said he got the job because he worked in a factory for 9 straight years and not because of his biochem degree. lol

All pure-science degrees are worthless unless you have really high marks upon graduation and can get into a professional program like dentistry, medicine, etc.

My suggestion is that if you want to work in a lab, go for MLT qualifications. UOIT offers a great degree/diploma program. There's also other schools that offer this.

All pure science degrees are not worthless unless you have high grades, it depends on the program and the field you are planning on going into. I can't speak for Biochem but in regards to Physics, grad schools require A- or B's normally for admittance to their Master's Programs while going straight into PhD requires an A or A+ (as well as research experience of course). You can choose to look for a job with your degree or work towards a masters/PhD and look for a job after that.

Your best bet is talk to alumni from your program, upper years in it and academic advisers as well as the faculty it self and hear from them. Odds of finding Biochem alumni on this forum are probably not that great.

Cheers and have a great summer

I didn't do a biochemistry degree, but a biology one and am in the Physician Assistant Medicine program at McMaster - another career option that you can look into.

Originally Posted by PAstudent

I didn't do a biochemistry degree, but a biology one and am in the Physician Assistant Medicine program at McMaster - another career option that you can look into.

Always the physician assistant, never the physician eh

^That was a very dick comment

I have not actually graduated yet, but will be going into my 5th year of teh Biochem program (I'm in Coop). Most of the people that graduated this year decided to do a Master's at Mac or UoT. There were the odd ones that got jobs as research assistants or lab technicians at different universities but that was definitely rare. What I would recommend is to talk to an advisor, the career/coop office, or apply for the coop program. With coop you can see some of the jobs that are out there by actually working for two 8 month terms. It really helps you to decide where you want to go in life, plus you get the experience to put on a resume (the money also helps).

Originally Posted by theboywho2

I'm planning on doing biochem and I am curious what did you with your degree do or are planning to do with it Were you able to find employment at some place relevant ( i.e not low skilled retail) upon graduation?

Dr. Macdonald arranged something like a "talk" last term during a BIOCHEM 3D03 lecture where she had two of her previous students show up and talk about their experiences straight out of undergraduate core Biochemistry. The gist of it is that there are plenty of opportunities out there and you just need to send out wave after wave of resumes and not really mind rejection. IIRC, the two ladies she invited are now working in some pharma company and applying general Science concepts through secondary research. I don't really remember the details, sorry.

You could contact (via e-mail) or visit Dr. Macdonald for more information.