Hopkins Biotech

Also, look at the prereqs. Admission requires all the same courses as med school, minus physics. Just sayin.

Tall Chai Latte, I am completing the Hopkins biotech program and would offer a couple points to consider. First, don't make a major life decision based on the opinions of an anonymous person posting to an internet chat room. That being said, here is my two cents about the program: 1. The program is for working students, not professional students. If you want the experience of spending two years on campus somewhere right after leaving undergrad for twice the amount of money, that's fine. Yes, the biotech program is expensive, but only half the cost of a two year full-time program, not including the opportunity cost of leaving a full-time job. My first MS was a traditional full-time on campus program and was not worth the time or money. 2. Because it is a part-time program, the goal isn't to help students find their first job out of college. It's to help students advance in their current position, or even transition to a new industry. The only schools with established job numbers are MBA programs, law schools and med schools. Can you trust the numbers for anything other than the top ten schools, even in those programs? No, and even those schools pad the numbers. One of the cons of the biotech program is that it doesn't offer many tools for networking with fellow students. 3. The content at Hopkins is solid. I looked at the biotech programs at many other schools, including the one where I earned my first MS, and it was the only one that offered in depth courses in life science. Many of the others were too heavy on management courses, or didn't offer wetlab/dry labs. 4. Like everything in life, you get back what you put into the degree. I wrote, in three courses alone, research papers that all were more comprehensive than my senior thesis in undergrad. This is without taking the thesis option as part of the biotech program. I have probably read 200 journal articles in the program in addition to all the textbooks, and feel confident speaking about the up-to-date specifics of biotech across medicine, energy and agriculture. This program blends the science, with journals (case studies in b-school), and applications in a way that very few programs can match. Adding physical wetlab courses (like Recombinant DNA lab) and dry labs (protein bioinformatics) to my coursework added the hands on tools to apply the knowledge. 5. The professors are all top rate, with many working in industry. As only one example, the molecular bio professor for my class runs the U.S. Army's biodefense lab, and was as hard as any undergrad prof I ever had. 6. The name carries weight and the students in my classes were brilliant. This included venture capitalists, IP attorneys, entrepreneurs and bench scientists at the biggest biotechs in the world. 7. The program is quantitative where it needs to be. The biochem requirement covers all the quantitative aspects Michaelis Menten Kinetics and you will have assignments on the hard math. The nanobiotech course I took also incorporated the quant side, as did the Recombinant DNA wetlab. 8. The last post is correct, biotech isn't what it used to be. Indeed, the opportunity is dramatically better than what it ever has been, and the Hopkins program makes it obvious that the most exciting work in the industry is only now in progress or has yet to come. 9. The world does care anymore about standard cookie cutter degrees. Most major research universities have shifted to a multidisciplinary curriculum, so the idea that one should be a chem major and that's it doesn't reflect reality. If you're the type of person that likes to invest all your money in one stock and go for broke, then fine. But if you think diversification is the best way to protect yourself in a down job market, then programs like biotech are for you.