bob_mcbobson

thanks for the link! Will start filling it out now

hey juilletmercredi, I'm going to make a screenshot of your post and then hang it up on my wall. In all seriousness, this is the kind of information I wish I had received when I was younger and starting undergrad. Anyways, i've already found the Student Employment center at my university, and I'll try and talk to my professors about potential internships. I'm afraid my next summer will be booked up with my Master's thesis project, but hopefully in the autumn I will be able to sort out my next step. Thanks so much for your response.

Hey everybody, I am about to start my master's in bioinformatics in a few weeks. I have started learning online some basic programming in order to be better prepared for class, also started looking over my old notes on molecular biology, and so on, but I have been troubled in the past few weeks with other kinds of questions– namely, what will I do after my Master's is complete? For a variety of logistical and emotional reasons, I had no idea what to pursue after I finished my Bachelor's in biochemistry. I did some internships, but I felt lost and overwhelmed with the number of options available. The fact that I was also having to decide what to pursue between two continents (I went to school in USA, but my parents live in Europe) made the decision process much more difficult. I eventually found a graduate program that fascinates me and will give me a versatile set of skills that can be applied in a variety of fields. But given its relatively short duration, I'm worried about running into the same blockade as before. Although obviously the circumstances will be much different than before, what can I do avoid this? At the heart of this issue is the hackneyed "I don't know what I'm doing with my life" theme, which I will not get into mostly because I have found that it isn't constructive to try answering that question head-on. Instead I want to learn about what strategies I can implement in the near future so that I can figure out whether I should find a job/internship, do a second Master's, or even possibly pursue a PhD as soon as this Master's program is finished. I am open to any and all tips from anyone who has been through this kind of predicament.

not trying to bump this topic, but i did also wanted to ask another question: does anybody have any advice to dispense as to what one should do in graduate school in order to make the most of it (apart from studying hard)? What are the best ways to make connections with the professors and/or peers?

Honestly, at ths point, I don't have any particular goal in mind. I personally am leaning more towards getting a job after the Master's, but I'm not excluding the possibility of pursuing a PhD quite yet. My main plan right now is to work as hard as possible, attend as many workshops and lectures as I can, and see in which direction I can take my education in.

Hey folks, I was hoping you could give me some advice in choosing where I should pursue my Master's degree. I have recently been accepted to the University of Edinburgh as well as Johns Hopkins University to study bioinformatics, and I have found myself feeling very conflicted as to which university I should choose. A quick bit of background– I have no previous computer programming experience, and am moving into bioinformatics from a purely life science track (Bachelor's in biochemistry), as I decided somewhat recently to switch gears in my academic direction. Thankfully my background in the life sciences was solid enough to get me accepted by the universities, but given my current knowledge of bioinformatics, I'm not sure which university better fits my profile and offers a more thorough education, more networking possibilities, and more post-graduate opportunities from the Master's level. There are many more financial and logistical advantages for me to attend the program at Edinburgh, and by all means it is considered by many to be a great university, but I am hesitant to choose this mainly because Johns Hopkins is such a highly ranked university in the life sciences (top ten in the world). That being said, rankings must always be taken with a few grains of salt, and additionally, rankings do not indicate the quality of a particular program. What's more, when I compare the structure and courses offered by the programs side by side, it seems (at least in my perspective) that University of Edinburgh's MSc program is better than Johns Hopkins. So I am reaching out to as many people as I possibly can in order to find out whether it is worth it for me to make the extra effort to attend Johns Hopkins, or if the University of Edinburgh's Master's program is on par with Johns Hopkins. Thanks so much for any help and advice you can provide.