Knowledge of prospects post MSc Bioinformatics and bioinformatics at Katholieke University Leuven

Question

[das2000sidd]

Hi everyone

I am about to start a second MSc in bioinformatics at the Katholieke University Leuven in Belgium in less than a month. I have previously had a bachelors in biotechnology from India and MS in human genetics from US. I got interested in computational biology while working on my master's thesis where I dealt with whole exome sequencing data. However till date I have been more of a coder writing my own small snippets of code in python/perl as well as using published tools available in the literature for data analysis. But this course which is pretty intense for a 4 semester master's degree that focuses initially on quantitative subjects like calculus and linear algebra as well programming concepts such as OOP in java and finally moves into more advanced stuff such as statistical methods for bioinformatics, machine learning, SVMs and finally management and computational as well as statistical analysis of omics data. (If anyone is interested, here is the link: https://onderwijsaanbod.kuleuven.be/opleidingen/e/SC_51016883.htm#bl=01,02,0201,0202,0203) As you can realize from my background I am trying to get into more quantitative and computational courses from a more biology background (I have taken introductory biostatistics courses during my master's though) I know several of the members over here are quite aware (at least more than me) of how things are in the industry where individuals with bioinformatics background can find positions. So I wanted to know that based on the course module that is presented in the link I posted, are these skills going to be helpful to in getting a industry/research institute jobs without a PhD? I know my question sounds very naive but I just wanted to know what is the opinion of people who are actually working in the field.

Answer 1

[John]

From a purely academic point of view, I think all of those courses are awesome and I personally would take that course if I had infinite money and no commitments to anyone/thing else. I have much the same background as you - human genetics MSc and can script small things in Python.

However, I would not do it for the job prospects. You are already over-qualified for most jobs, and wherever you go to work will teach you the main skills needed in-house. For Academic prospects you're much better off finding a PhD and learning all these things on the side. Once you get to PhD level it doesn't really matter what courses you took or what modules you've completed -- it's about what you know and what you can do. It's about results. So another Masters would probably not be a worth-while investment.