>>7959625

My first year out of undergrad (back around 2011 - 2012) I had a few temp jobs in CROs and small biotech firms. What's up?

>>7960592
Not OP, but do you have any advice on what you did well or what you would do differently? Specifically I'm a chemistry major graduating in a month.

>>7959625
My friend works in biomedical research. His company is working on cancer research.

From what I gather he spends a lot of his time cataloging genetic information, taking and analyzing samples and killing lab rats, either once they get too sick or the experiment is concluded.

>>7959625
Yep - Biopharm contract manufacture.

>>7960819
Not who you asked, but here's what you need to get right: Data recording.

Record fucking everything.

When we hire new PhDs I spend the first 6 months beating bad habits out of them.
2 missed datapoints can invalidate a 6 month study.

Be anal as fuck about your data recording and then, even if your interpretation is shaky, you (or more importantly someone else) can go back to your original data and re-evaluate it.

>>7960852
Volume of data becomes more critical in the commercial world.

>>7960861
gmp bullshit?

>>7960592
How long did coworkers tend to stay in mfg?

I can't imagine working biotech mfg for a lifetime.

>>7962782
No, it wouldn't be Pharmacopeia compliant.

>>7962786
You get two types.
1 type lasts a few years and then either leaves the industry or goes for an office job.
The other type sticks it for a long time. It's a lot of money for a valve monkey.

>>7962804
>It's a lot of money for a valve monkey.
What?

where the fuck do you work

>>7960819

Sure. My advice is to go to academia and be a lab tech for a few years. With some experience in being involved a project, having lab techniques, helping run a lab (orders, safety, etc.), you will have many more opportunities available than you will just out of undergrad without any post-graduate lab experience. That's really what I can't stress enough: doors will open to you that you wouldn't have thought were possible just a few years prior.

In my case, I went to academia as a lab tech, stayed for two years. I ended up going to grad school, started a PhD program in 2014. But, people that I worked with as techs ended up in grad school (PhD, MPH, MS, etc.), med school, research associates in industry, or even on the business side of pharma.

>>7962786

Can't disagree with this guy >>7962804. I would add that, as I mentioned, as I was in smaller firms, so most people seemed to be in the type that moved on after a few years. I remember, in one job I interviewed for, one guy was leaving to start a PhD, while the other got an RA position at a big-name biotech corporation.

The few mfg lifers that I know are in big pharma: Genentech, Pfizer, Allergan, Novartis, and the like.

>>7962851

I can't imagine moving into a lower paying QC position and being a simple analytical bitch or moving into QA and being the goddamn plant inquisition.

Managerial roles look shitty unless the pay is decent (which isn't the case in most biotech firms vs modern production facilities). Also, the constant shame of not going on to grad school....the market is so fucking horrible right now for chemists. Take a look at the c&en postings and the chemjobber blog....chemists are no longer white collar in any way and we don't have a union.

It is impossible to start a chemists' union at this point, because the system is too advanced and we would be quashed by pharma and the large academic labs like baran and the ivys.

I'm starting to think that choosing synthetic organic chemistry as a life career choice was a really bad idea and that my "enlightened" decision was trash in comparison to my friends that went into business and marketing or even client-side CS.

Fuck.

>>7962880
Some people do the QC shift because they want better work/life balance.
Shift work is hard.

>>7962812
Fixed asset plant.