The 2009 Gameplan

I found a job board among other things on scientistsolutions.com. It got me to thinking about what I need to be doing academically in order to be able to jump into bioinformatics- and genomics- type internships this next summer.

There are a couple of interesting things I noticed:
* There are upper age limits for applicants; so everyone’s looking for young minds out of grad school. This could be because they want fresh ideas, or because they’re cheaper than the older guys with more experience.
* Education is highly respected in the scientific industry. This is relatively new to me because the tech industry is almost the exact opposite in my experience. Its always been in this order: how much do you cost, can you actually do the work. (most times education, if even brought up, has always been a 3rd or 4th tier hiring objective)

There are plenty of postings for technically inclined folks that are interested in learning the biology aspects of projects (they are still professional level positions, and not internships). Most of the posts are looking for:

Under the technical realm:
* strong c/c++ background (large completed c++ projects seemed to be huge plus)
* maybe some java
* perl
* Linux and Windows environment programming
strong relational DBMS (database management systems) skills: MySQL and Oracle are both popular choices.

Under the scientific realm:
*knowledge of different forms of life: bacteria, fungi, protists, protazoa, metazoa, etc
* Experience with Math/Science tools like Mathematica

Educational Requirements:
* Masters or Doctorate in Biology/Computational Sciences/Bioinformatics


So to do all of this I need to:

Under the technical realm:
* start contributing to a large science bound c++ project (something with genomics would be ideal)
* start scripting in scripting languages more for mac/linux tasks. Perl and Python come to mind here.

Under the scientific realm:
* start reading a whole hell of a lot of biological books (learn what the hell these guys are talking about)
* Boost my math skills (seriously need to audit another calculus course and start thinking math)
* Learn how to use Mathematica and other Math/Science related programs. (Probably noteworthy to mention that I need to find out what these programs are)

Educational aspects:
* Lock down in a game plan for a fast-paced but still valuable undergraduate degree in Biology/Microbiology (something where I can experience a broad spectrum before I lock myself into something specific)
* start checking out schools with strong ongoing research projects/grants in Bioinformatics related fields.
* Figure out something with the biology department as far as volunteering on internal research projects.
* Find someone that can offer some advice on where they’re at and where they see things going in the future.


This means that I’m going to be a very busy/broke person this year. (not going to have as much time to work for money this go-around) Who knows, maybe I’ll get lucky and come into some money for doing some of this.