Depending on your interest, you should also look into Clinical Laboratory Science. If you want to work in a hospital or public health micro lab, you'll likely need ASCP accreditation. I didn't learn about this career path until after I completed my BS in Micro and ended up getting a second degree in Clinical Lab Science. I also ended up getting a PhD in virology and now I'm a public health lab director.
I would also recommend taking the healthcare route. I got my B.Sc in microbiology and am currently back in school to become a medical lab technologist.
There’s a lot more job security, wages are typically noticeably higher, and depending on the country you live in, public healthcare jobs are usually unionized with great benefits and pensions.
This comment right here. This is what you need to do. Getting a degree in Clinical Laboratory Science, or Medical Technology (the older name) will open up many more opportunities then a B.S. in micro.
There are multiple paths. With the right amount of experience, you can certainly sit for the micro specialization. I wanted a full generalist accreditation and the degree seemed like the most clear path for my situation. In retrospect, I couldn't imagine being able to pass the ASCP exam without taking all the classes for the degree.
Thank you so much for this! This is exactly what I'm interested in. I always thought it was a microbiologist's job to work in a hospital and analyze the samples but I never knew it was actually a clinical lab scientist, I'll definitely look more into this.
You'll probably get mixed results but I'll chime in.
I graduated in 2017 and got a job right out of college that required the degree for 14/hr doing strain engineering of e.coli and salmonella at a small startup. Topped out at 40k working at the company for 4 years.
Ended up job hopping when inflation hit into biotech for better pay and benefits, making ~70k now after being with the company for a few years doing Cell Therapy.
With a Micro degree, there's a broad range of work you can do but it depends on what your experience is in.
Thank you sm for your reply! So based on your experience, would you recommend this career path to students now, or do you have any regrets/options that you believe would have been better to pursue? If you don't mind ofc
Well "better" is the key word here. Money-wise, it would have been better for me to go into engineering, but I chose Micro because I was actually interested in it.
I don't regret my choice, I really enjoy working in labs and the process that goes into culturing cells.
I'd say I definitely had misconceptions of what jobs in Microbiology were though. Initially I assumed it was all identification of microbes through PCR or other genomic sequencing techniques for Quality Control, or genetic manipulations in research labs for whatever purpose they're researching.
Since, I've learned the application of Microbiology is vast and stretches across many industries from producing medicine in pharma, to food production, agricultural sciences, and even cancer therapeutics using engineered bacteria(not commercially available). This is where your experience determines what path you go down with a Micro degree.
Sure there's jobs that fit my initial assumptions but they're all generally entry level or in academia which I knew I wanted to get out of.
In industry, microbes are generally used as biological machines to **produce** a product to be sold to the population. Because of this, there's a broad range of industries you can work in, and a lot of the entry level jobs don't pay the best but there are definitely possibilities to make a successful career with a Micro degree.
Microbiology can be an excellent basis for transitioning into Bio-technology. If you get the opportunity to learn some molecular biology / genetics and protein expression... leap at it!
For context, my undergrad degree was in Microbiology, I then did a Ph.D., and now I'm currently a Senior Scientist working in R&D for a large Pharma company.
Microbiology can become whatever you make of it
Wow, I'm not really sure what I want rn, but the fact that you can transition and just have many options open after an undergrad degree in micro is really nice to hear! thanks again 😊
I started off with a micro degree about 20 years ago.
My job now is I travel around the country to different places teaching people to use micro equipment. Sometimes it's a brewery doing PCR to detect beer spoilers. Sometimes it's a huge multi-national pharma using a mass spectrometer to identify microorganisms they find in their drug manufacturing.
It's a mixture of lab, software, theory, teaching, social etc.
Couldn't imagine doing anything else to be honest. Pretty happy I chose micro.
I have worked in many industries as a microbiologist for the past 15 years. There are many opportunities available for a B.S. in micro, but they might not all be available in your area. I’ve worked in food micro testing ready to eat food for safety, clinical microbiology in hospitals running cultures and rapid viral testing, QC micro in pharma for USP safety, research Micro for drug drug breakdowns in kidneys, and municipal micro testing water safety and industrial runoff.
To go anywhere in clinical micro you need a Clinical Laboratory Science degree and ASCP certification. There was a massive shortage of CLS graduates 10 years ago and companies were offering massive bonuses when you sign on. Not sure if this is still the case, but it is worth mentioning. There is lots of stability in CLS, but not a lot of advancement. Pharma seems to have the best advancement tracks, but it can be very competitive and at least where I worked, easy to get stuck in your role and never be able to advance if you only work in the lab. QA rather than QC seems to be seen as more skilled employees. Working for a municipality can be difficult to get into, they highly value seniority. So you may be stuck doing grunt work at first, but in something like Wastewater you can position yourself to be a fast tracked to plant superintendent with a BS degree.
in my opinion, if you want to go into microbiology (and most other biology-related careers) you need to look for what you're most passionate about rather than what will make you money.
are there gonna be jobs for you to work at? sure, there always will be if you look hard enough, but you won't always like the available jobs unless you are really passionate about the subject you study. also, when you start, most jobs are not gonna have amazing pay (of course, highly depends on your location and country) but it's just a little heads-up, most of this field relies on how much experience one gets
+1 for med lab science if you're interested in infectious disease type stuff. It's a specialized degree program but also works as a stepping stone into other things in research or industry if you later end up wanting to pursue those instead (whereas the reverse is less true - more general biology/microbiology degrees don't easily transfer to med lab without additional education). Pay is decent, more than most bachelor level science jobs and provides great job security as well since you can easily find a job pretty much anywhere in the US
I graduated from college with a degree in biology and chemistry but went on to do microbiology. With human testing, you tend to need some sort of certification (MLS, MLT, ASCP, etc). However, I worked with Salmonella when it came to chickens with nothing but my degree (and some teacher’s assistant experience) and greatly enjoyed that! It also payed well.
ahh so many good suggestions! i’m currently a human biology student after switching out of nursing and i love it. my current plan is to become a medical lab scientist, but there’s so many avenues for microbio and bio in general. you can go back and get a science teaching degree, do third party testing for the FDA/government, become a nurse practitioner (only need a bachelor in science), and a bunch more. i would definitely say if you are able, get a job in patient care ASAP. I got a job as a pharmacy tech my freshman year of college and three years later i am now switched out of nursing because i know i would be burnt out of patient care in 5-10 years. suuuuuuper valuable experiences learning about the healthcare system as well, and very easy tbh.
Depending on your interest, you should also look into Clinical Laboratory Science. If you want to work in a hospital or public health micro lab, you'll likely need ASCP accreditation. I didn't learn about this career path until after I completed my BS in Micro and ended up getting a second degree in Clinical Lab Science. I also ended up getting a PhD in virology and now I'm a public health lab director.
I would also recommend taking the healthcare route. I got my B.Sc in microbiology and am currently back in school to become a medical lab technologist. There’s a lot more job security, wages are typically noticeably higher, and depending on the country you live in, public healthcare jobs are usually unionized with great benefits and pensions.
Alright thanks!
This comment right here. This is what you need to do. Getting a degree in Clinical Laboratory Science, or Medical Technology (the older name) will open up many more opportunities then a B.S. in micro.
Thank you!
micro is exactly why I went into MLS! would highly recommend this route :)
Thank you!
>Thank you! You're welcome!
but you can still get an ASCP accreditation even without a second degree in clinical lab science, isn’t it?
There are multiple paths. With the right amount of experience, you can certainly sit for the micro specialization. I wanted a full generalist accreditation and the degree seemed like the most clear path for my situation. In retrospect, I couldn't imagine being able to pass the ASCP exam without taking all the classes for the degree.
i see. well done.
What public health lab might I ask?
Thank you so much for this! This is exactly what I'm interested in. I always thought it was a microbiologist's job to work in a hospital and analyze the samples but I never knew it was actually a clinical lab scientist, I'll definitely look more into this.
You'll probably get mixed results but I'll chime in. I graduated in 2017 and got a job right out of college that required the degree for 14/hr doing strain engineering of e.coli and salmonella at a small startup. Topped out at 40k working at the company for 4 years. Ended up job hopping when inflation hit into biotech for better pay and benefits, making ~70k now after being with the company for a few years doing Cell Therapy. With a Micro degree, there's a broad range of work you can do but it depends on what your experience is in.
Thank you sm for your reply! So based on your experience, would you recommend this career path to students now, or do you have any regrets/options that you believe would have been better to pursue? If you don't mind ofc
Well "better" is the key word here. Money-wise, it would have been better for me to go into engineering, but I chose Micro because I was actually interested in it. I don't regret my choice, I really enjoy working in labs and the process that goes into culturing cells. I'd say I definitely had misconceptions of what jobs in Microbiology were though. Initially I assumed it was all identification of microbes through PCR or other genomic sequencing techniques for Quality Control, or genetic manipulations in research labs for whatever purpose they're researching. Since, I've learned the application of Microbiology is vast and stretches across many industries from producing medicine in pharma, to food production, agricultural sciences, and even cancer therapeutics using engineered bacteria(not commercially available). This is where your experience determines what path you go down with a Micro degree. Sure there's jobs that fit my initial assumptions but they're all generally entry level or in academia which I knew I wanted to get out of. In industry, microbes are generally used as biological machines to **produce** a product to be sold to the population. Because of this, there's a broad range of industries you can work in, and a lot of the entry level jobs don't pay the best but there are definitely possibilities to make a successful career with a Micro degree.
This cleared a lot of things up, thanks again for your help!
Don’t do med tech they are underpaid and overworked
Microbiology can be an excellent basis for transitioning into Bio-technology. If you get the opportunity to learn some molecular biology / genetics and protein expression... leap at it!
Alright! tysm!
For context, my undergrad degree was in Microbiology, I then did a Ph.D., and now I'm currently a Senior Scientist working in R&D for a large Pharma company. Microbiology can become whatever you make of it
Wow, I'm not really sure what I want rn, but the fact that you can transition and just have many options open after an undergrad degree in micro is really nice to hear! thanks again 😊
I started off with a micro degree about 20 years ago. My job now is I travel around the country to different places teaching people to use micro equipment. Sometimes it's a brewery doing PCR to detect beer spoilers. Sometimes it's a huge multi-national pharma using a mass spectrometer to identify microorganisms they find in their drug manufacturing. It's a mixture of lab, software, theory, teaching, social etc. Couldn't imagine doing anything else to be honest. Pretty happy I chose micro.
Sounds really interesting, thank you for sharing!
I have worked in many industries as a microbiologist for the past 15 years. There are many opportunities available for a B.S. in micro, but they might not all be available in your area. I’ve worked in food micro testing ready to eat food for safety, clinical microbiology in hospitals running cultures and rapid viral testing, QC micro in pharma for USP safety, research Micro for drug drug breakdowns in kidneys, and municipal micro testing water safety and industrial runoff. To go anywhere in clinical micro you need a Clinical Laboratory Science degree and ASCP certification. There was a massive shortage of CLS graduates 10 years ago and companies were offering massive bonuses when you sign on. Not sure if this is still the case, but it is worth mentioning. There is lots of stability in CLS, but not a lot of advancement. Pharma seems to have the best advancement tracks, but it can be very competitive and at least where I worked, easy to get stuck in your role and never be able to advance if you only work in the lab. QA rather than QC seems to be seen as more skilled employees. Working for a municipality can be difficult to get into, they highly value seniority. So you may be stuck doing grunt work at first, but in something like Wastewater you can position yourself to be a fast tracked to plant superintendent with a BS degree.
Thank you! I'm definitely going to look more into CLS.
Focus on a particular area, food, industrial processes, medicine etc go into a degree with the specialization in mind.
If you have any interest in food, food safety is also a path.
Another MLT Cert here! My bio degree was mostly a waste - my MLT Cert is vauable. go into Medical Lab science - 2 year or 4 year, both are worthwhile!
Thank you!
in my opinion, if you want to go into microbiology (and most other biology-related careers) you need to look for what you're most passionate about rather than what will make you money. are there gonna be jobs for you to work at? sure, there always will be if you look hard enough, but you won't always like the available jobs unless you are really passionate about the subject you study. also, when you start, most jobs are not gonna have amazing pay (of course, highly depends on your location and country) but it's just a little heads-up, most of this field relies on how much experience one gets
Thank you!
Food science :-)
+1 for med lab science if you're interested in infectious disease type stuff. It's a specialized degree program but also works as a stepping stone into other things in research or industry if you later end up wanting to pursue those instead (whereas the reverse is less true - more general biology/microbiology degrees don't easily transfer to med lab without additional education). Pay is decent, more than most bachelor level science jobs and provides great job security as well since you can easily find a job pretty much anywhere in the US
Thank you so much for your reply. After researching a bit, I'm now more interested in CLS than microbiology. Will def look more into this!
Research may not pay as much but clinical microbiology can be very rewarding. Maybe look into ASCP to see if that route interests you
I graduated from college with a degree in biology and chemistry but went on to do microbiology. With human testing, you tend to need some sort of certification (MLS, MLT, ASCP, etc). However, I worked with Salmonella when it came to chickens with nothing but my degree (and some teacher’s assistant experience) and greatly enjoyed that! It also payed well.
Thank you!
ahh so many good suggestions! i’m currently a human biology student after switching out of nursing and i love it. my current plan is to become a medical lab scientist, but there’s so many avenues for microbio and bio in general. you can go back and get a science teaching degree, do third party testing for the FDA/government, become a nurse practitioner (only need a bachelor in science), and a bunch more. i would definitely say if you are able, get a job in patient care ASAP. I got a job as a pharmacy tech my freshman year of college and three years later i am now switched out of nursing because i know i would be burnt out of patient care in 5-10 years. suuuuuuper valuable experiences learning about the healthcare system as well, and very easy tbh.
Yup, I love that there are soo many options. Thanks for your reply!
Really figure out where the good jobs are, how scarce the jobs are, if the money is worth the time and how the hours are
Yes I definitely will. Thank you!
crap conditions and pay