After studying life sciences, is there really no future?

Last week, Westlake University announced that it will enroll the first batch of undergraduates this year; on March 19, Professor Shi Yigong, president of Westlake University, conducted a live admissions lecture on the Internet and responded to the statement that "biochemical ring materials are the four major sinkholes". However, the debate among netizens about the "sinkhole profession" has not stopped. Feeling this, He Yuan, who graduated from the Yanning Laboratory of Tsinghua University and is currently a senior teacher at Renmin University Affiliated Middle School, put forward his own views.

Written by | Wafumi (Senior Teacher, Affiliated High School, Chinese Min University)

"The 21st century is the century of life science", this sentence has been circulated for many years, but at the same time, many people think that "life science" is a sinkhole profession, and young children must not choose, because the job prospects are really not optimistic. Is this really the case? As a high school teacher, I am often asked such questions by students, so I will sort out my usual answers and provide you with a reference.

Biology majors are really not as easy to find jobs at the moment, and there are real reasons for that. I summarized several reasons:

1. Knowledge level: It belongs to the basic natural science, and the practicality of answering questions is not so strong

Biology is the study of life phenomena and the laws of biological activity, its main purpose is to satisfy human curiosity and explain the mechanism of life operation. It is not like finance, management and other majors, the knowledge learned can be directly applied to daily life, biology is not so strong practical. This is one of the reasons why people are generally willing to learn about finance rather than biology.

2. Skill level: The general skills developed are limited, and the professional skills mastered are not too extensible

The skills learned in biology are of little use in real life, and it is difficult to extend to other disciplines. For example, biology will learn about gene cloning PCR, cell raising and other technologies, but this is not used in our daily life (now we can do PCR can do nucleic acid testing volunteers). The computer science major is different, and the knowledge and skills such as computers and programming can be applied to most fields in the world today.

3. Industrial level: the industrial chain is not developed, the research and development cost is high, and the cycle is long

Compared with foreign countries, there are relatively few employment opportunities in the domestic life science field, and the rise of the biomedical industry is much later than that of foreign countries. Moreover, the field of new drug research and development has the characteristics of large risks, high complexity, and long time, according to the data of the journal Nature, the research and development cost of a new drug is about billions of dollars, taking about 10 years, and the power is less than one-tenth [1], so it is not an overnight thing to establish a complete industrial chain, and it still takes time to form a complete ecological chain.

4. Individual level: long growth cycle, high elimination rate, low income

The growth cycle required to engage in basic biological research is relatively long, at least to read a doctorate (on average about 28 years old), and then to do one or two rounds of postdoctoral work (about the average age of the outbound station is about 32 years old), but the number of people who can get a teaching position is very small, the elimination rate is very high, the income of low-level scientific researchers is low, and only the small number of people at the top of the pyramid can bring the value of transformation.

Looking at it this way, the life science major must not be chosen, right? Of course not!

If you're interested in life sciences — and other "sinkhole majors" — then be sure to choose. It is very important to follow the voice of the heart, nothing compares to the love from the heart. There are pros and cons to choosing any major, and interest and love are always the best guides. Thirty years of Hedong, thirty years of Hexi, the industry cycle rotation, professional cold and hot, the current popularity is not necessarily the future hot. Sticking to my heart and not forgetting the original intention is the most valuable.

If you don't feel about these majors, you just want to make money, then life sciences may really be a good choice. Even if you really choose a major just to find a job, you should consider the job market after four years when registering for the college entrance examination, rather than the current hot spots. I don't know if you have heard that Zhang Yiming, chairman of ByteDance, Huang Zheng, chairman of Pinduoduo, and Wang Xiaochuan, CEO of Sogou, have all chosen to invest in the field of life sciences after leaving office. Why?

First of all, life sciences are one of the national strategic industries and are supported by national policies. With the increase of the world's population and the intensification of aging, a series of problems such as food, energy, environment, diseases and resources have become prominent and need to be solved urgently. To solve these problems, it is inseparable from the technology of life sciences. The industrial development policies of each country will list life sciences as one of the national strategic industries. For China, the strategic significance of scientific and technological innovation is particularly important, the development of chip manufacturing, life sciences, artificial intelligence and other "hard technology", in order to solve the mainland's "card neck" problem.

Second, the life sciences sector has a broad market outlook, and capital is pouring into this field like crazy. In recent years, foreign biomedical giants have been optimistic about the Chinese market and capital has entered China in a big way; a large number of returned talents have also greatly promoted the continuous development of local biomedical technology. In 2020, there were 2,199 financings in the global healthcare industry, totaling US$74.9 billion[2]. A few days ago, I also saw an Internet factory recruiting senior scientists in cell biology and molecular biology, with an annual salary of up to 1.5 million yuan.

Finally, life sciences will make profound changes to the world from science to technology in the future. Life science is a very cross-cutting discipline, with the rapid development of science and technology, the division of disciplines is becoming more and more detailed, the intersection of disciplines is getting stronger and stronger, and many emerging disciplines related to biology are in the ascendant. In science, the life sciences are still in a very immature stage, many problems have not yet been solved, the brightest minds of human beings want to use their own wisdom to understand life, it can be said that the natural sciences are waiting for the life sciences to bring a new paradigm revolution. In terms of technology, technologies that we once completely could not imagine may profoundly change our world, such as gene editing, gene testing, gene therapy, brain-computer interfaces, and even consciousness uploading, immortality are possible, which will change the life, ethics, values and other aspects of human society.

Twenty to thirty years from now, the life sciences have the potential to become the same social infrastructure as the Internet is today, and the world may complete the transition from IT to Biotechnology. Life sciences will bring a new paradigm revolution to the entire scientific community, and biological technology will surely bring about the "fifth industrial revolution" in the process of solving problems such as resources, environment, energy, disease, longevity and so on!

However, if you choose a major and just stare at finding a good job, is it a bit of a self-esteem? Are we reading so many books just to find a "good" job? From small to large, planning to plan, just for the most secure life path? Struggling to get into a double-first-class school, just for the mediocre goal of going to work and getting a promotion and a salary increase? Asking for a house, afraid of being ashamed to see, Liu Lang is talented, where is the spirit of the scholar-doctor who "repairs Qi Zhiping" in China? Some netizens commented that Professor Shi Yigong, president of Westlake University, said that the answer of "choose a major do not consider employment" is a bit of a feeling of "why not eat meat paste", in fact, there is no understanding of Teacher Shi's logic. When we study not only to find a good job, when we go to school not only for employment, when we have lofty goals and lofty ambitions, thinking that what we want to accomplish is a career and not just a career, thinking that what we want to do is to serve the country, the nation and even all mankind, we will not only focus on the house, the car, marriage, and children, but to chase and solve more important missions. At the same time, when we do something bigger than myself, good jobs and high annual salaries may naturally come to us. It's like an exam, if our goal is 100 points, then generally only 80-90 points, but if our goal is 120 points, then it is not so difficult to get 100 points. In fact, the so-called "good job" and "high salary" are just a by-product of our pursuit of ideals, as long as we insist on what we want to pursue, no matter what major we study, the future prospects will usually not be bleak.

Marx wrote in his essay "Considerations of Youth in Choosing a Profession": "If a man works only for himself, he may be able to become a famous scholar, a great philosopher, a brilliant poet, but he can never become a perfect and great man." History recognizes as great men who work for a common goal and thus become noble themselves; experience praises those who bring happiness to the majority of the people as the happiest; religion itself teaches us that the ideal man whom everyone admires has sacrificed himself for mankind — and who dares to deny such teachings? If we choose the profession which best works for the welfare of mankind, then the burden cannot overwhelm us, for it is dedicated to all; then what we feel will not be pitiful, limited, selfish pleasures, but our happiness will belong to millions of people, our cause will exist silently but eternally, and the noble people will shed tears in the face of our ashes. I think this passage is particularly well said, when we are confused, when the ideal reality conflicts with poetry and distant places, when we do not know how to make a choice, looking at this passage, there may be a different understanding, which can help us understand our choices for the future.

bibliography

[1] Mullard, A. The drug-maker's guide to the galaxy. Nature 549, 445–447 (2017).

[2] VCBeat Research. 2020 Global Healthcare Industry Capital Report. 2020.

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