Life Science Career In 2020 & Beyond
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Life Science Career in 2020 & Beyond
Life Science Career Tips

In a recent survey, it was found that, in the year 2030, the majority of people will be working on jobs for which the technology doesn’t exist even today. This means that there is going to be a lot of transition in the next 10 years. All of that technology is going to be discovered in this decade, especially in life sciences, because nothing much has been done in the previous hundred years or so. Thus, so much more is going to be expected in this decade.

Before we actually get into knowing how to make a career in life sciences in upcoming years, you must have three key points:

  1. Self-belief: Do you have a self-belief that you can succeed in a career or a career in life sciences?
  2. Right Focus: Do you have the right focus? Are you focused enough to make a career in life sciences?
  3. Willpower: Do you have the right willpower to achieve your goal?

The right mix of these three will help you succeed in any career you choose! You must have self-belief, you must be focused and you must have the strong willpower

to make a successful career in life sciences.

Create A Vision

If you have these three, now, you must create a vision. You have to create a vision of yourself in 10 years from now. Right now, we are starting in 2020, we have to think about ourselves in 2030. To create that vision, you have to visualize yourself on how you want to be or where you want to get to in the life science domain, 10 years from now.

Now, close your eyes and visualize.

What do you see?

Do you see yourself as a successful research scientist? Do you see yourself as a successful scientist in a big MNC or a big research lab or maybe heading a department?

The Right Degree

Whatever that vision is, you have to start working in that direction. For that vision to happen, you need the right mix of a degree right?

Do you think a general BSc degree can be enough to become a researcher or scientist? Of course, you’d have to study your masters, maybe your PhDs! Whatever be your vision, you must look forward to that degree which will support and be the stepping stone of achieving your vision.

The Right Mentor

The next thing which you will need is a mentor.  If you have the right vision in mind of what you want to become from now or 15 years from now, then you must have the right degree along with the right mentor.

Here’s a disclaimer about mentors!

There are a lot of quacks around on YouTube or in real-life too, who will just promise you that they are going to help you, they’re going to mentor you, but they are really not very optimistic people. They are negative about most of the things. So if you find someone who is negative, never adopt him as a mentor, because a negative mentor is going to do more damage than having no mentor.

Now, what exactly is a mentor? A mentor is someone who will guide you through your journey to reach your goal, to reach your vision. A mentor is someone who has the experience and who has the clarity of thoughts and must be an optimistic person.

Right Platform

A right platform plays an important role as it helps you to look up to on all your doubts, needs, opportunities to achieve your visions. If you want to succeed in your life science career, then you must refer to BioTecNika. You can consider yourself lucky to have BioTecNika in our country, as very fewer countries have resources like this. BioTecNika has customized everything right from the graduation level, to the postdoc level. We literally have everything that is needed for the life science people. Make sure that you visit BioTecNia every day. Look out for the job opportunities and the daily news.

Start Looking At The Job Opportunity Beyond The Salary Point

There are times when you look at job opportunities, sometimes, you tend to get carried away with a salary. You’ll see the jobs having high salaries and you’ll apply there, but when the salary is looming, you won’t even look at it. Does that happen? Yes right?

But please don’t do that!

What you should be doing is, look at those job opportunities where you have a learning opportunity. If you are a fresher, then you surely must look for those jobs that have a learning opportunity. Join those jobs. Even if you think that job is not going to be monetarily very beneficial, don’t worry, eventually, you will get there. Right now is the learning phase, and to keep learning, you must join those jobs when you have more opportunities to learn.

Be Up to Date

Next, you must also visit BioTecNika’s news section. Generally, the news means people talk about a lot of negative things which happened or is happening in the world. Here at BioTecNika, the news means all the positive research work which is happening all around the world. You would be overwhelmed by all the new research that keeps happening every single day! Visit our website, check out the new section, acquaint yourself with something new each day. These news articles are going to help you with more than just being updated.

When you go through the news section and the job section, you will realize that there are some upcoming technologies. You can pick and choose those upcoming technologies and acquaint yourself, take some certification programs for those particular technologies. This will help you with a new opportunity, it will help you stand out from the crowd because, everybody comes with a CV, which is simply an MSc or Ph.D. There’s nothing different or unique about them. But when you come to an employer with a different approach to the same problem, they will like it, they will like your approach, they will understand that you have put in more effort and you want to be successful, thus, making you an ideal candidate for the job!

If you’ve already got a job, you might be someone who’s already got a job and some people will not be happy with their job. But guess what! If you are learning there, then there is no problem and no need to worry. Eventually, you will earn but learning must not stop. You must learn while doing your job. That’s very, very important here. Because life science is a knowledge-intensive industry. The more knowledge you have, the more techniques you know, the more skill set you have, you are going to grow for sure.

Whether you’re a postdoc, Ph.D., master’s or bachelors or you are a student who wants to pursue a career in life sciences, you must keep this in mind that:

  1. The first thing you have to do is to create a vision.
  2. The second thing you have to have is self-belief, focus, and willpower to achieve that vision.
  3. Then you must have the right degree.

The problem starts when we start correlating a degree with money, thinking of how much we can earn after getting this degree or that degree. But the truth is that the life science industry can pay you 10 times more than the IT industry, but you have to have the right knowledge.

I’ll give you a small example of a story which happened with one of my colleagues.

He qualified his CSIR NET, and then went ahead and did his Ph.D. He then got a very low paying job in Malaysia as a lecture, yet, he took it up. Then he got a call for a post-doctorate at Stanford. He took it up again, he did his post-doctorate from Stanford, came back to India. He worked with us at BioTecNika for a few months. Then he got an opportunity with ITC, which is a big research company. Today he holds 25 patents. Now, he’s irreplaceable because of those patents, because of the research, because of the knowledge, which nobody has, in his spirit in his domain. He’s an expert.

So if you are an expert of your field, you become irreplaceable and if you are irreplaceable, then no matter whether it is a recession economic downturn, or whether it is something which is going to impact the company, the company can never replace you or remove you because you become an asset to the company. So if you really want to be successful in life sciences, remember you have to become an asset to your company where you work. And if that has to happen, you must keep learning, whether you are on the job or off the job, and eventually, the money will come. The person in the above-stated instance, he’s earning 35 to 30 lakhs or more per annum. So it’s obvious that we have a lot of opportunities, but it only belongs to those who are willing to do it, who are willing to achieve, who are willing to have that vision and the mindset.

Remember, excellence is a progression.

Excellence is a work in progress.

So you are a work in progress.

Don’t ever look at yourself and regret anything. You are the person who is going to be successful in the life science industry, you are the person who is going to lead the industry. And if that has to happen, the book has to start today. Have the willpower, focus, and self-belief, get that degree, and go ahead! Pursue your Ph.D. and don’t have questions. Take those questions out of your mind. If you want to prepare for CSIR NET Exam, go for it, do it. There’s no harm in it. If you want to stand out from the crowd, you must write the CSIR NET or GATE exam or other competitive exams as these will help you. But what will not help you is negative thoughts, negative mentor, reading those comments where people say there is no scope.

I have heard a mechanical engineer saying there is no scope in mechanical engineering. I have heard a civil engineer saying that there is no scope in civil engineering. There are always some snobs in every industry who say there is no scope. But here I am, telling you the reality about the scope. Here I am telling you that billionaires can be built out of this industry.  There are many people who have done that. Why can’t you? In the next 10 years, i.e., the life science careers in 2020 & beyond are going to evolve, new technologies are going to come, why can’t you do it? Why can’t you get in and dip your fingers in this and achieve? Why don’t you pick those opportunities?

But to succeed, you have to be prepared. First, finish up your BSc and MSC or any degree that you are doing. If you’re already a Ph.D., then start looking for opportunities. There’s BioTecNika’s job section, news section, you can refer to the certifications which BioTecNika has to provide.

In the certification courses, we at BioTecNika, do a lot of research before we actually put in one certification course for you. For instance, a particular job needs you to have spectrophotometric skills, right? So what do we do is we talk to the experts of the industry, ask them how can we help students acquire this skill. Then we design that course accordingly. Then we present you with an opportunity to take up the course. Why don’t you go and achieve, why don’t you go pursue it? Finally, when you do this course in the end, after qualifying the certification exam, you grab that certification. With a certificate in hand, when you apply for that particular job, the employer will value your certification a lot and they will give you that job because BioTecNika is already known in the industry. While the others who don’t have that knowledge might not get the job.

There has to be this bridge, which will fill the gap between the industry and the academy. BioTecNika is exactly that bridge and we already do that. But we will fail if you don’t have self-belief, we will fail if you’re not focused enough, you will fail if you don’t have thought of achieving. Don’t let that happen! Stop listening to fake people who claim to be experts in the industry and do not give you the right “Gyan” (knowledge).

Create a vision of yourself in 2030 and start working in that direction.

BioTecNika’s vision, mission, and goal are to help you understand the industry, understand the academy, understand how you can traverse through and grow. We are already on our way! What’s your goal? When are you going to start your journey to reach your vision?

Editor’s Note: Life Science Career In 2020 & Beyond, Life Science Career In 2020 & Beyond, Life Science Career In 2020 & Beyond, Life Science Career In 2020 & Beyond

Shekhar Suman is the Co-founder of BioTecNika Info Labs Pvt. Ltd. He is an Entrepreneur, Writer, Public Speaker, and a Motivational Coach. In his career, he has mentored more than 100,000+ students toward success in the Biopharma Industry. He heads the BioTecNika Group, which comprises BioTecNika.com, BioTecNika.org, and Rasayanika.com. An avid reader and listener who is passionate about BioSciences. Today Biotecnika is India's largest Biotech Career portal, with over 5 Million subscribers from academia & Industry. It's ranked among the top 50 websites worldwide in the Biology category.

2 COMMENTS

  1. Thank you so much for motivating article.My name is ashka .I completed MSC microbiology last year. I am working in qc department in pharma company.I want to work in research lab.but don’t know how to prepare.i request you sir to please guide me.
    Regards,
    Ashka.

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