Page 37 - Biotech Career Guide

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BIOTECHNOLOGY CAREER GUIDE
advanced job-ready skills. Likewise,
many schools offer five-year, com-
bined bachelor’s/master’s degree
programs in biotechnology that
serve academic and professional
goals. Students take graduate-level
courses as undergrads and com-
plete a substantive research project
in the fifth year. Often oriented to
industry-specific needs, these pro-
grams can give grads a big leg up
on placements in the private sector.
DEGREES TO
BRING TO WORK
A common form of master’s degree
aligns learning with clearly defined
career areas or job skills, often
called “professional” master’s de-
grees. Johns Hopkins University
features master’s degrees in areas
like Biotechnology Enterprise and
Entrepreneurship, Regulatory Sci-
ence, Bioinformatics, and Food
Safety Regulation, in addition to
a joint Business Administration/Bio-
technology degree.
The University of Washington
runs master’s degree programs in
Pharmaceutical Bioengineering,
Applied Chemical Science & Tech-
nology, and Biomedical Regulatory
Affairs. Such applied degrees attract
both recent grads looking to enter
these fields as well as currently em-
ployed professionals aiming to ad-
vance their careers.
Biomanufacturing is a vital sector
of the biotechnology industry. A
means to produce in volume all the
vital building blocks used in biologi-
cally-based products and systems,
this area requires a unique blend
of technical and business skills. A
collaboration with the pharmaceuti-
cal company Novo Nordisk, North
Carolina State University’s Biomanu-
facturing Training and Education
Center offers two master’s degrees
that prepare students to step into
leadership roles on either the techni-
cal or management side of the field.
TARGETED LEARNING
WITH CERTIFICATES
Even more aligned with job-related
content and operations are certifi-
cate programs. Consisting of a small
set of courses — three to six — and
hands-on instruction in a lab or other
work-like setting, certificates deliver
concrete instruction in narrowly
defined areas, anything from biosta-
tistics to project management to
clinical trials. Certificates are also
frequently available as either online
or on-site learning, making them ac-
cessible to already-busy students
and professionals alike.
ALWAYS LEARNING
As fast as biotechnology is growing
and changing, you will always need
to be learning new things with a
job in the field. With all the options
available, you can find programs to
help you keep up with advances in
the field at almost any phase of your
career. Just remember that whatever
you learn and however you learn it,
your newfound biotechnology skills
will support the work you do to
make the world a better place for
all of us to live.
the school — is a joint effort of the
Colleges of Engineering, Comput-
ing, Sciences, and Design, address-
ing nearly every imaginable ap-
proach to biotechnology.
Other types of degrees blend
academic learning with general
training in professional areas. The
BioTechnology Institute at the Uni-
versity of Minnesota offers academi-
cally rich graduate studies that still
reflect the needs of industry part-
ners involved in shaping the pro-
gram. Graduates gain both compre-
hensive field knowledge as well as
University of
Washington
SEATTLE
University of
Minnesota
MINNEAPOLIS