Bioinformatics Career In Us And Gemany

Question

[User 9521]

Hi,

I am doing finaly year of my Engineering on Bio-Informatics from India . I would like to have my career in Germany or USA .

Could you please suugest me whether Masters degree options are good in Germany or USA ? and where i can get more job oppurtunitis .

Thanks in advance

[Michael]

I think this is off topic. The first thing you will have to do, is improving your skills in written English.

[User 59]

It's unclear - are you finishing a Masters and looking for a career? Or finishing an undergraduate degree and looking for a Masters?

[User 9521]

Hi,

Thanks for reply . I will work on improving my english ..

I am finishing Undergraduate degree and looking for Masters or job .

Answer 1

[Andrew Craig]

Speaking as someone working in industry in the UK and who has been involved in hiring we often have great difficulty evaluating oversees candidates for entry level positions.

Usually these candidates don't have much work experience so we mainly have to rely on educational records to asses their caliber. Ideally we want to see a good degree classification in a tough subject from a well regarded institution. The difficulty with this is that we are often not familiar with overseas colleges and univeristies and find it difficult to equate their qualifications to UK equivalents. You need to provide us this information to maximise the impact of your application. For example if you placed first in your year out of 500 students then say so. If your school has an impressive international ranking make a point of mentioning it. You also need to get the small details right. Make sure your CV is in a format appropriate to the country, such as a single page resume for the US, or two pages for the UK. Try to get a native German or English speaker to check it over if possible to correct any awkward phrases. If your application doesn't have a high level of polish it won't get a second look.

Of course if you were to obtain an MSc from a US or german school, this would overcome many of these difficulties. The catch 22 problem is that I expect admissions tutors in academia will also have the same initial difficulty assesing your application so the same advice above applies.

Answer 2

[User 59]

I can only comment on Bioinformatics Masters in the UK - and we have plenty of Indian students who come over for them. You might however be interested in a previous thread and for job opportunities after your Masters then this thread here is very informative.

And now for some shameless promotion for my institutions MSc in Bioinformatics and Computational Systems Biology.

As to your question I'm sure a Masters in the USA or Germany (or the UK) are probably all equally good. Any masters will increase your employability, and I think they are becoming somewhat essential for early-career bioinformaticians who don't necessarily want to head down the route of a PhD. I'd also argue where you complete your Masters can have no bearing on where you end up working, so study in Germany and then go work in the USA, or vice versa - your path is very much up to your own determination to study and work abroad.

Answer 3

[Michael]

First thing to think about is if you want a career in academia or business.

Either way getting a masters degree is highly recommended before trying to settle down in a specific country permanently for getting your career going. As a rule of thumb, the higher your education, the better your job opportunities and also chances of getting a residence permit, green card etc.

For starting a university career, going towards a PhD (Dr. title in Germany) will be essential.

There are PhD programs in Germany that allow to start from a Bachelor Sc. level, even though starting from a Masters level will be quicker.

You could do your Masters in Germany or otherwise continue your studies, they recently switched to the Bachelor/Master system, and I feel the education is very good in many places (some people might say it cannot compete with USA, but depends on the University).

For information about how to study in Germany mainly get in touch with the DAAD (German academic exchange service)

Also: the "Deutsche Welle" (german international radio broadcast) has some information on studying in Germany.