is biochemistry boring and useless?

You can expect biochem to be less bio and more chem -- typically biochem degrees require A level chemistry but not necessarily biology (rather they want 1 or 2 of biology, physics & maths).

Job prospects -- apparently half a century ago 2 blokes called Watson & Crick (plus a girl that nobody remembers) discovered something fairly important. Even ignoring everything else in biochemistry, that alone is attracting enough funding to keep the biotech sector afloat for the next two decades minimum.

PhD -- the serious money requires expertise, if you want to earn 20k then your BSc'll do, if you want to earn 40k then it's a PhD and/or years in the lab, if you want to earn 100k +percentage +immortality you're going to need a PhD.

Reply 3

80s Love Child!

I guess a degree level biochemistry work would be quite challenging enough to you compared to A level chem /bio.
If only i was good at chemistry, I'd choose biochem over biomed.

Reply 4

Biochemistry is certainly not useless! I studied it at university level for two years (In scotland you have to do more than one subject) and I could see that it was very important in the study of disease amongst many other things. Biotech is big business at the moment and any molecular biologists are in a good position to get jobs there.

As for staying in science then I would definately recommend a PhD as this is really a baseline for most people in research.

Reply 5

Tom H

9

callumph

You can expect biochem to be less bio and more chem

Untrue.

Depends on where you go. Imperial is more bio and less chem.

Reply 6

Tom H

9

You don't necessarily need a PhD to suceed in Industry. With a decent degree, most of the necessary knowledge you can pick up and gain with experience. After all 3/4 years of working in a lab is 3/4 years of working in a lab, no matter what you might be able to call yourself afterward.

Reply 7

username68316

3

Tom H

You don't necessarily need a PhD to suceed in Industry. With a decent degree, most of the necessary knowledge you can pick up and gain with experience. After all 3/4 years of working in a lab is 3/4 years of working in a lab, no matter what you might be able to call yourself afterward.

Fair point.

On a related note, would it make any difference if for example at imperial I did the 4 year biochem degree with a year in industry, as opposed to a 3 year Bsc?

What i mean, can you still progress to do a PHD after doing the degree that involves a yr in industry?

Reply 8

Tom H

Untrue.

Depends on where you go. Imperial is more bio and less chem.

I was possibly unclear -- I was trying to imply the relative importance/relevance of the A levels rather than the content of the degree syllabus.

For admission to most university biochem or biotech courses chemistry is an absolute requirement whereas biology is more flexible. For example Imperial requires a grade A in chemistry and a B in biology, and will accept AS biology where chemistry must be A2.

Reply 9

Nathan_Ley3

On a related note, would it make any difference if for example at imperial I did the 4 year biochem degree with a year in industry, as opposed to a 3 year Bsc?

What i mean, can you still progress to do a PHD after doing the degree that involves a yr in industry?

I wouldn't expect that to present any problem at all.

Indeed it may well help -- not least because it's an opportunity to develop a relationship with a company that may fund your PhD work.

Reply 10

Tom H

You don't necessarily need a PhD to suceed in Industry. With a decent degree, most of the necessary knowledge you can pick up and gain with experience. After all 3/4 years of working in a lab is 3/4 years of working in a lab, no matter what you might be able to call yourself afterward.

It depends on the type of biotech work you're looking for -- consider afterall the similarities & differencesbetween working in a university lab and working in a lab for a big pharma. If you're doing R&D lab work then there's a lot of overlap, though granted also a lot of differences in processes and deliverables.

The biotech sector is really driven by academic research these days due to the pipeline problems the big pharmas face; the academic research --> spin-out --> buy-out process is vital to a lot of the big pharmas, and that's often of much more interest to people than the more standard model of undergrad degree followed by basic lab work in industry.

Reply 11

Tom H

You don't necessarily need a PhD to suceed in Industry. With a decent degree, most of the necessary knowledge you can pick up and gain with experience. After all 3/4 years of working in a lab is 3/4 years of working in a lab, no matter what you might be able to call yourself afterward.

I wouldn't exactly agree with that in the context of science in industry. A PhD is more than 3/4 years in a lab so I don't think that you may gain all that you would in a PhD from spending time as a graduate in an industrial lab. Being a successful industrial scientist such as a synthetic chemist, etc. generally does require the academic skills gained during a PhD as well as the practical and technical skills from lab work. From my experience of working in the chemical industry (4 different companies, 2 countries) if you want to remain in science (lead discovery, lead optimisation, etc.) and progess to running your own team then you really need a PhD, I have not met anyone without one in this type of job - this is because you need to be able to come up with novel methods and approaches which requires both a body of knowledge and experience. To be successful in industry with just a first degree generally means moving away from science into other areas such as production, management, etc.

Reply 12

st3456ee

callumph

You can expect biochem to be less bio and more chem -- typically biochem degrees require A level chemistry but not necessarily biology (rather they want 1 or 2 of biology, physics & maths).

Job prospects -- apparently half a century ago 2 blokes called Watson & Crick (plus a girl that nobody remembers) discovered something fairly important. Even ignoring everything else in biochemistry, that alone is attracting enough funding to keep the biotech sector afloat for the next two decades minimum.

PhD -- the serious money requires expertise, if you want to earn 20k then your BSc'll do, if you want to earn 40k then it's a PhD and/or years in the lab, if you want to earn 100k +percentage +immortality you're going to need a PhD.

watson went to one our local schools! weve got a memorial in the town centre....its pretty appaling actually!

A2 chem is much harder but really enjoyed it when it pieced all together. i considered biochemistry as an option

Reply 13

cleeinnorthants

watson went to one our local schools! weve got a memorial in the town centre....its pretty appaling actually!

You may have you discoverers of DNA the wrong way round -- Watson was a Yank (Chicago if memory serves). Crick was from the Midlands (quite possibly Northampton).

Anyway, back to the plot...

Watson & Crick were actually physicists, so maybe biochem *is* useless afterall... :wink:

Reply 14

Jenii

15

I was in your position, and when I realised i was pickig biochem courses on the basis of how many outside optional modules you got I realised I need ed to change my ideas! This was about a month ago- and now I'm really happy with waht i've picked and I *know* I'm happy to study politics and ecoomics for 3 years!

Now is the time to change your mind! Look around- biochem might be for you, but hey there miight be other things as well that float your boat even more!

I felt pushed into it as I was doing bio and chem and a lot of my teachers seem to think all arts degrees are a complete waste of time (I geuss because the're science teachers)- but when I started like 'exploring beyond the syllabus', reading books and so on I discovered I couldnt stand it and the reaso I liked it at school was because I find it easy to remember useless facts like how the krebs cycle workd or whatever.

Reply 15

ixivxivi

11

apparently half a century ago 2 blokes called Watson & Crick (plus a girl that nobody remembers) discovered something fairly important.

Rosalind! Rosalind! Such a cool person :biggrin:

. Well I think so.

Watson & Crick were actually physicists, so maybe biochem *is* useless afterall...

...James Watson was a biologist at first :P wanted to go off and study birds.

I'm really way to into the whole DNA discovery...

And, polarman, if you don't want to do Biochemistry, don't! I personally think it sounds great and focuses on the areas of science that I'm most interested in, but there's certainly no point in making yourself miserable doing something you'd rather not.

Reply 16

callumph

Watson & Crick were actually physicists, so maybe biochem *is* useless afterall... :wink:

Watson was a biologist and Crick was a mathematician.

Reply 17

ChemistBoy

Watson was a biologist and Crick was a mathematician.

It was a fairly flippant comment, but in my defence they met when they were both molecular physics work at Cambridge's dept of physics.

If memory serves they were doing high frequency molecular spectroscopy or something similar. Watson was certainly a biochemist, sure, but I'm not sure I'd consider Crick a mathematician -- I think both his undergrad (at UCL) and PhD (at Cambridge) were in physics.

Of course real science blurs the boundaries between the three main disciplines, most particular when you're working at a molecular level; in the 40s and 50s when modern biochemistry was taking off the bulk of the new research work was being done by people from chemistry & physics backgrounds rather than classical biology ones.

My comment that they were both physicists was a little flippant, but there's a fair amount of truth in it -- they were applying physics solutions to biological problems.

Reply 18