Careers in Biology

What are Your Career Goals?

• Do you want to cure a disease?
• Reduce pollution?
• Teach Biology?

You have to first envision your career and then plan it.

If you want to speak with a representative, call 909.537.7396 or the Department Chair, Dr. Jeremy Dodsworth, at jdodsworth@csusb.edu. Alternatively, you can contact any of our faculty to set up an advising appointment at our advising hours website.

Advising Tools Through the Career Center

Uncertainty about career goals is normal for freshmen and sophomores. It is difficult to know what career will suit you until you have explored a few. The Career Center on campus offers two assessment tests that may help you identify careers you want to explore. The Strong Interest Inventory yields a list of specific jobs and careers you may want to investigate; the MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) is a personality inventory. As of this posting (January 2015), these tests may be taken free online using the instructions in the attached

However, you must make an appointment with the Career Center to get the results (a half-hour appointment if you took one of the tests or an hour appointment if you took both).

Additionally, online tools, such as www.mynextmove.org can help you explore career options.

Getting a bachelor's degree, in this case a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in Biology, is the easy part compared to trying to identify a career that would utilize your degree the best. With a B.S. in Biology you can be a:

• Scientific company sales representative or technical service representative
• Laboratory technician (medical, microbiological, biotechnological, etc.)
• Food, dairy, brewery production, quality control
• Animal technician (looking after animals in zoo, pet store, vivarium, veterinary hospital)
• Greenhouse/garden curator(botanical technician)
• Agricultural or wildlife fields
• Environmental technician, consultant

Of course you can go on and get a M.S. or apply to graduate schools for a Ph.D. or go on to professional schools and be a physician, a dentist, a pharmacist or a veterinarian.

Broadly speaking Biology can be divided into Molecular and Cell, Organismal and Field Biology. If you want to decide your area of concentration by finding out what the occupational outlook (that means how easy is to get a position and how much it pays) visit the Occupational Outlook website set up by the Bureau of Labor. Otherwise you can start by visiting ExploreHEALTHCareers.org for ideas or by looking through the different options listed below: