Blog Post 6: Future Income Risk
I think that a lot of the choices that I have had to make concerning college have revolved around minimizing income risk and mostly one other factor. This factor is what I want to do after I graduate. Since I was a junior in high school I have wanted to create a technique for human embryo genetic engineering. This basically allows for the rewriting of human genes before a person is born. This has limitless potential for lowering cancer rates, heritable diseases (Alzheimer's, huntingtins), disjunction diseases (trisomy 21, 19, 13 etc.) and hundreds of other diseases that are due merely to a change in a few base pairs of a 3 billion base pair genome. Because of this, I chose my majors as molecular and cell biology and economics, so that I could get both a basis for the science side and a small understanding of the business side.
My other aim was to limit the costs of getting these degrees. While I had offers at 5 colleges, including two of the top ten ranked programs in molecular and cell biology, I chose to do the pathways program to U of I. While at Parkland, I took 18 and 19 credit hours in the spring and fall to capitalize on the low tuition and the scholarship that I got. Once at U of I, I planned to graduate in three years with both majors. I still tried my best to minimize costs while here by applying for a few scholarships, taking summer and winter classes whenever possible, participating in research for credit hours (gives reduced tuition for those hours in MCB) and by living in the lower rent apartments. This will all set me to graduate with just under 15k in debt.
While minimizing costs of graduation, I have also given myself the best opportunity at getting a high level job after graduation. I have participated in research, kept my GPA above a 3.5 and networked with a few professors. This has all given me the opportunity to go to graduate school for a PhD.
The next step for me will be to obtain a bioengineering degree from as high quality of a program as possible. The good news about PhD programs is that they often offer both tuition wavers and a small stipend for living expenses. This allows me to lower my future income risk greatly while acquiring no more debt and possibly paying off part of my student loans that I have already acquired.
This PhD has great value, both in industry and for my future plans to start a biotech company. For the PhD, I am required to write a thesis paper. When I do this project, I plan to work on a project as similar to the one I plan to do for my company as possible (most likely using mice as the specimens instead of human embryos). This will give me both a great starting point for the company as well as extensive help from mentoring professors while orienting myself in the field. For industry, this allows me to enter at a slightly higher position in most places. More importantly, the PhD will stop me from hitting roadblocks and ladders in advancement that some companies have.
This whole path somewhat contradicts itself. I plan to take a high risk, high reward gamble when I go to start a biotech company. At the same time, I have done my best to reduce all risk on my way to that objective and I have done my best to self insure so that even if this risk completely blows up in my face, I will still have good job prospects in an industry position.
My other aim was to limit the costs of getting these degrees. While I had offers at 5 colleges, including two of the top ten ranked programs in molecular and cell biology, I chose to do the pathways program to U of I. While at Parkland, I took 18 and 19 credit hours in the spring and fall to capitalize on the low tuition and the scholarship that I got. Once at U of I, I planned to graduate in three years with both majors. I still tried my best to minimize costs while here by applying for a few scholarships, taking summer and winter classes whenever possible, participating in research for credit hours (gives reduced tuition for those hours in MCB) and by living in the lower rent apartments. This will all set me to graduate with just under 15k in debt.
While minimizing costs of graduation, I have also given myself the best opportunity at getting a high level job after graduation. I have participated in research, kept my GPA above a 3.5 and networked with a few professors. This has all given me the opportunity to go to graduate school for a PhD.
The next step for me will be to obtain a bioengineering degree from as high quality of a program as possible. The good news about PhD programs is that they often offer both tuition wavers and a small stipend for living expenses. This allows me to lower my future income risk greatly while acquiring no more debt and possibly paying off part of my student loans that I have already acquired.
This PhD has great value, both in industry and for my future plans to start a biotech company. For the PhD, I am required to write a thesis paper. When I do this project, I plan to work on a project as similar to the one I plan to do for my company as possible (most likely using mice as the specimens instead of human embryos). This will give me both a great starting point for the company as well as extensive help from mentoring professors while orienting myself in the field. For industry, this allows me to enter at a slightly higher position in most places. More importantly, the PhD will stop me from hitting roadblocks and ladders in advancement that some companies have.
This whole path somewhat contradicts itself. I plan to take a high risk, high reward gamble when I go to start a biotech company. At the same time, I have done my best to reduce all risk on my way to that objective and I have done my best to self insure so that even if this risk completely blows up in my face, I will still have good job prospects in an industry position.
Since we discussed this previously, I have to wonder whether you've tried to do college too fast. Minimizing cost is the right economic decision, provided the output choice has already been determined to be at the efficient level. If output is too low, however, cost minimization can be misleading.
ReplyDeleteYou seem to have some interest in economics, in addition to the genomics. Exploring both of those in only three years of college - something must be getting short changed. Since you plan to pursue your studies in graduate school, this probably should be considered from a different angle, as you total years in college will likely be substantial. The issue is how many years of broad education you get before you narrow your focus and concentrate on a specific area. It may be harder to see the benefit of the broad education now. I suspect that down the road it will be more obvious to you.
I hope you have good luck getting into a top PhD program. When I was in grad school, many programs admitted students in two separate categories. There were those students whom they were trying to recruit. They offered fellowships to them. There were other students who bored the risk. They had to pay tuition. In a few cases the fellowship students didn't do well while the students who paid tuition the first year succeeded. So this is not a perfect separation of talents and drive and hard work clearly matters in addition to talent. But putting yourself into a position where you get your education paid for by the university you attend clearly reduces the stress enormously.
What I report in the previous paragraph was how it was in Economics at Northwestern back in the late 1970s. I don't know how things are now. And a lab science is surely different from a social science. But I'm confident that positioning yourself for graduate school matters and for that the cost minimization you talked about may not be ideal.
I agree with you analysis that there were definitely some things that got short changed. I see the effects mostly in my social life, but the education has had some corners cut as well. One easy to see example, is my GPA. I know that I am capable of a GPA that is exceptionally high, but instead I currently have around a 3.5 to 3.6. Not bad, but below what I know I am capable of.
DeleteOne reason for my choices that I didn't go into is the fact that I do not value, as you put it, broad education. I read an article once that said that a hard science major will only ever use 15% of what they learn in college and that within 5 years 75% of what was taught will be proven wrong or will be out of date. This is probably more prevalent in MCB than most majors.
I understand that the point of college is supposed to be teaching you to think a certain way and to open you up to new experiences and opportunities, but I don't see that in most cases. If that was truly the case, college would cost less and professors would be hired in a different way.
Your comments on grad school are still relatively true, with a few twists. Some places still perform acceptance in that manner, but many will now accept you to the masters program instead and deny you entry into the PhD program. Then, if you are a strong candidate after the masters program, they will let you roll it into a PhD and give you all the benefits that they would a PhD student (tuition waver, stipend etc.). Unfortunately, I do not have the money for this, so I will be looking for programs with both a tuition waver and a stipend.
Your reason to coming to college is one of the most interesting I've heard in a while. No doubt I agree that you are on the right path to get a head start in bio engineering. Designer babies aren't simply science fiction anymore and the applications of gene manipulations are endless. I'm excited to see if your start up will be the one that pioneers the 21st century into a new age or not. I want to know what is your inspiration for choosing your major other than finding it fascinating. I also would like to know if you think you are risking more going to grad school rather than immediately joining the work force.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the support! Looking at these PhD programs has been both nerve-wracking and a bit of a blow to my confidence, so it's nice to hear some encouragement.
DeleteMy inspiration for the major was more of a means to an end. I knew what I wanted to do, it's always been about putting myself in a position to be able to achieve it.
The grad school has a mix of pros and cons. On one hand, I will be making less money than in industry and I will be losing real world experience that I could be getting from being in the workforce. On the other hand, the PhD removes a lot of ceilings that others will hit within a larger bioengineering company and at the same time allows me to research farther into the specific project that I want to do. I may even be able to perform a preliminary trial on mice if I can get the right resources and approval.