ewbhockey

It's not that I don't want to continue doing research; I enjoy research quite a bit. I just don't foresee myself 20 years from now still doing it. And after looking at salary data from ACS and other random sources it's not very much, and the job security isn't the greatest either. I've spent a lot of time looking at jobs recently, and it seems that a lot of the jobs for a PhD wanting to do research are things like scientist I, II, III etc.. From there you can keep moving up, and the way I envisioned it that was where the MBA could come in and that would enable me to maybe move away from the research lab and more into the director/managerial area. I'm just concerned that the MS wouldn't be enough to get to that starting point though.

So after asking just about everyone I know and searching online for some kind of useful advice I've gotten more answers than I know what to do with so I figured I'd ask here. I realize there was a thread similar to this about 5 years ago, but considering the changes in the job market I'd like to get a little more current advice... So here's my story. I have 3.4 GPA and majored in biochemistry. I've done research on several different topics ranging from RNA to med chem to adult stem cells over the last 3 years, so I have a really broad research background. So given my background I really want to go into the pharma/biotech industry. My dilemma is this. I've been accepted to a decent graduate school for medicinal chemistry, and I say decent because it's no top tier school but it's not bad. I would have the opportunity to do some good research, and the general opinion I've seen is that the quality of your research and your advisor is more important than the reputation of the school (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong here..) The reason I'm hesitant about the PhD though is that I feel like I will end up getting locked into a career in the lab, and I know eventually I would rather get on the business side of R&D. But, I also realize it's significantly harder to work your way up in the pharma/biotech industry without the PhD. Another option I've been considering is maybe doing an MS and then MBA, since I feel like PhD and MBA is a lot (or I guess this could be an option). I want to do research for a while, and more PhD chemist jobs are research jobs, but eventually I would rather get out of the lab and get more into the business side of things. I guess my question is that I have no clue how to pursue this career idea I have, so I figured I'd ask a bunch of people and see what ideas I get back.