As a student reading or aspiring to read biological sciences in the universities, you may be tempted to ask, what can you do with a biology degree? Well, a complete and comprehensive guide to the essences and opportunities that comes with your degree in biological science, with relevant information is provided by this article.
Universities In The World: Best Universities For Life Sciences
What can you do with a biology degree?
A degree in biological sciences has been tailored to cover a wide range of studies namely
- Evolution
- Life and living organisms
- Plant life
Holders of a degree in biological sciences or students pursuing biology are graced with the foundations and abilities to further pursue careers in these areas after university. Most graduates go on to teach or work as laboratory technicians and researchers however, some further their studies in postgraduate disciplines
Some job roles available to biology graduates include:
- Quality control technician
- Pharmaceutical sales representative
- Ecologist/wetland/food scientist
- Genetic counsellor
- Biologist
- Physician
- Health educator
- Park ranger
- Biology technician/researcher
- Agricultural/food science technician
- Teacher
- Physician liaison
- Environmental scientist
- Forensic scientist
What jobs do biology graduates go on to do?
If you want to know what you can do with a biology degree, then you must note that most undergraduates of biological sciences further continue their university studies beyond undergraduate level. Most holders of undergraduate degrees in biology move on with a master’s or a doctoral degree course.
These further studies are mostly needed because though most undergraduate level biology degrees help students develop transferable skills, students would require further levels of study to practice careers in advanced areas of biological studies.
Biology students who go further to graduate and postgraduate schools can go on to work in research and, depending on their specialization, often find themselves in either molecular and cellular, organismal or field biology.
Roles available for graduate of higher learnings in biology include
- Neuroscientists
- Microbiologists
- Genealogists
- Zoologists
- Botanists
- Entomologists
- Environmentalist
- Ecologists
- Oceanographers
- Marine scientists
- Nutritionists
- Medical researchers
Graduates who choose not to continue their studies further than undergraduate level can become
- Laboratory technicians
- Science writers
- Teachers
- Biotech marketing and sales roles, among numerous other positions
What is generally the course outline for a biology degree?
A biology degree mostly takes 4 years for completion so if you are wondering what you can do with a biology degree, you may certainly complete the degree after a four-year course outline.
In freshman year, the biology course mostly encompassed and introductory courses to the main subject of study. These introductory courses allow students to develop an understanding of some of the major sub-disciplines of biological sciences be it evolution, animal sciences or plant sciences.
As students’ progress to higher levels of their education, coursework drastically reduces and there is special concentration on fieldworks and practical sessions which happens mostly in the laboratory and rarely on fields.
In most cases students are expected to select more specialized modules of interest and progress to conduct final research projects on them, which usually ends the degree course.
In a biological school, assessment of students occurs throughout the duration of all biology taken by the students, and it may be in the form of exams, assessed practical work, short-answer tests, essays, presentations or a combination of them all.
Also, some universities across do not offer a general biology degree. They, however, allow their biology students to study for a selected major or more specialized courses under biology such as ecology or biochemistry, which often have a similar structure to a broader biology degree course but are more focused on one branch of biology.
What is biology?
So now, the question to ask is what is biology and what is a biology degree? Why are people so interested on knowing what you can do with a biology degree?
Biological sciences are mostly known as the study of life and living organisms a major branch of the three main scientific disciplines.
Biological sciences entail several specialized fields and most of these specialized disciplines work on the basis that cells are the basic units of life and they make up the composition of all living things, while genetic information within the cells is responsible for determining the structure and function of each individual cell.
