[riverdawg]

“A BA in a hard science is not a ticket to a great job. Generally, the good jobs are at the Ph.D. level.”

This, and the fact that there are many pre-med biology majors who decide (or have it decided for them) that they are not going to go to med school. Each year there is a surplus of these majors who then find out that good jobs in biology require a graduate degree. Some of them re-direct their careers by going to nursing or pharmacy school, where they can make good money and use some of their biology training.

[Myrddin]

I finished with BA in Molecular Biology at Revelle College, UCSD when I was 19. My original intent was medical school. I did a year a graduate work at SDSU where I finished all my course work for an MS in Microbiology. Along the way, I was hit with a very bad case of pneumonia. I decided a life of smelly labs and begging for grant money wasn't really what I wanted. I very quickly acquired a First Class Radiotelephone license with Ship's RADAR endorsement and Extra Class amateur radio license. The computer science shelf at local bookstores became in insatiable habit. At 57, I enjoy a pretty good job using both CS and EE skills. My co-workers have PhDs in math and physics. I take their mental "doodling" in MATLAB and make it run in real time. My only regret is that my work keeps me away from home most of the time.