Advice Corner: What Should an Aspirant Know Before Pursuing a Degree in Your Domain?

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What advice would you give to someone who is planning to pursue a degree in your domain?

I graduated from St. Francis College for Women, Hyderabad (2016-19) with a BSc in Life Sciences and later pursued MSc Biotechnology from Amity University, Noida (2019-21)… Here are a few tips from my experience:

  • If you want pursue a degree here in India - choose central universities if possible (Autonomous Colleges are good too, but check the reviews)
  • Before taking admission in the private uni/college look at the curriculum and compare it with other viable options
  • Have a visit to the uni, look for the facilities (essential equipments, instruments, machines, and labs)
  • ask passed-out students for their experiences (in my experience even certain quora reviews were helpful in deciding and also held true)
  • ask about the placement opportunities that were given for the previous years
  • every summer break do an out-house internship even if it is not mandatory… apply to various institutes around the country, explore your options (this gives you practical experience, this was advised to me by a senior who worked at HCL labs and Monsanto)
  • When it comes to career, if the option is available, pls do explore the opportunities out of the country
  • Remember that we an excess influx of Life Science graduates… so it might be a bit difficult to get placed in a specific area where you desire
  • You can always explore other career options apart from research labs or academic settings as I did
  • Do not hesitate to reach out to people in your field for advice, online or offline

Share your insights too!

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Ask urself if u r interested in it
Because one should know his or her interest first
If there is no interest mk matter how good of a college or a branch u will get into u will still be unhappy

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Try to get into a central college, and if it doesn’t happen, state government college, and lastly, private universities. Start preparing for the GPAT exam rigorously. So, even if you didn’t do your college from a top-tier institute, you can clear GPAT and do your master’s from there. If you want to get into teaching, then you can proceed with state government colleges too. If you want to join the industry, consider a Tier 1 college.

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Ask yourself if you are motivated by the work for yourself or for other people. Even if it isn’t about yourself and your own life, make sure your drive is strong enough and you have a reasonable amount of interest in what you do, otherwise you will be miserable.

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The insights you provided are really helpful for the ones who are yet to pursue a degree. I think it is highly important to enquire about the accreditation, facilities, resources, teaching quality, and placement offers and assistance prior to taking admission in any college.

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Have a short term goal of where you see yourself in the next 5 years. Plan a strategy for that, discuss with the seniors those who are in your field. Don’t study only the text books, but be aware of what’s happening around, that kind of knowledge is actually going to help you a lot.