How to get into Bioinformatics

An excellent career path should be fulfilling and rewarding. You must have a passion for what you do to enhance your productivity. Besides, the career path you choose must have a range of highly satisfying opportunity lest it will be needless toiling acquiring the necessary prerequisite to match the job description. Globally, there is a need for new ideologies and inventions that will see life get better, therefore, any professional offering a propelling force will never lack an opportunity. The STEM subjects are a hotcake at the moment as many countries strive towards attaining industrialization and technological advancement. Some of the fields in this category (STEM) that has a place in the future include; medical field, technical sector, a consultancy. Bioinformatics is outstanding as a career as it involves the three pillars to the future.

What is Bioinformatics?

Simply defined, bioinformatics is an interdisciplinary area that involves the integration of knowledge from biology and computer science to give a fine-tune information-rich career majorly in research concerning living organisms. A study shows that over 9% of bioinformatics scientist have a career background emanating from computer science closely followed by biologists at 5.9%.

Bioinformatics is a lucrative and diverse career with numerous pathways allowing one to pursue different interests. Bioinformatics has undergone robust progression and evolution to suit the needs of the 21st-century man. A bioinformatician could find a job in biological research entities, medical technology operations, forensic studies, and pharmaceuticals. You don’t have to drop your interest in biology to take up computer science; you can do both in bioinformatics.

What Makes Bioinformatics a Good Career?

Bioinformatics is a lucrative and fascinating career that anyone having an interest in biology or information technology should read about and possibly venture into. Some of the exciting things that you may or may not discover about bioinformatics in your career expedition are elaborated below:

Liberty to explore many fields- a good career should allow you to enjoy working on different projects. You must have a passion for what you do, and you have to get the freedom to work at your pace. Result oriented person motivated by a desire for success should consider working on a bioinformatics project.
Rewards-bioinformatics as a career is considerably rewarding, and your family won’t go hungry when you undertake a job in bioinformatics. Atop, you will get contented when you see your projects transform other people’s lives through your work.
Job security; a certified bioinformatics scientist is a treasure to any organization because they are endowed with rare technical skills.
Numerous opportunities; be it the job market or in the specific field, you will have a chance to work at different places and interact with different persons. Bioinformaticians can never be confined to a particular job specification.

How to Become a Bioinformatician

Get a clear understanding of what you wish to get into and some expectations you may be required to meet or perform.

Learn More:
How to Learn Bioinformatics
Why is Bioinformatics Important in Genetic Research?/
What is Gene Annotation in Bioinformatics?

Intrinsic Factors

Before getting to bioinformatics, you must have done your research and established that this is what best suits your desires and you are motivated to do it either by passion or incentives attached. Liking what you do is sufficient motivation and a propelling factor towards success in any career. You probably have a role model who is involved in bioinformatics and would want to be like them, but then if it is not inbuilt in you, your efforts are in vain because you will always get frustrated in your course of work.

Finding something interesting about bioinformatics will most likely lead you to know if you got a passion for the same. You can fall in love with the computational techniques used in bioinformatics or just like the data analysis steps; this is a great clue and that you should try bioinformatics.

Background and prerequisites

To qualify to pursue a program in bioinformatics in any institution of higher learning, one must showcase the ability to comprehend necessary information pertaining to the related topics. Bioinformatics as a subfield of both computer science and biology draws from many disciplines mathematics, physics and statistics included. Good grades in these subjects may position you well in your endeavors to study bioinformatics at the undergraduate level. Analytical mindset, communication skills, and computational skills will act as a booster in your bioinformatics career. Besides, the prospective bioinformatics must be ready to undergo rigorous training and experimental testing. If you can’t sit down on a project that sometimes overlaps past midnight, then this is not your field.

Career levels

There exist different qualification levels in bioinformatics. Provided you get proper training; you can get to be a bioinformatician with as low as an undergraduate degree. The most crucial bit about bioinformatics if the willingness to learn new ideas and venture into new projects. Feeding yourself with more information and familiarizing yourself with current trends will prove crucial atop qualification papers. There are different programs available at the undergraduate level that will lead you towards your desire of becoming a bioinformatics scientist. You can either take biology related courses or computer science after that it is recommended that you do an internship training at a bioinformatics entity as this will allow you to acquire specific skills not taught in school.

You can quickly secure employment with a bachelor’s degree in bioinformatics. However, educational advancement promises a full range of opportunities and you will definitely wish not to be left out. Master’s programs are available, and with this, you can be recruited in biotechnology and earn handsomely. You can still advance to Ph.D. level at the graduate school, and key at this level is the skills that you gain and networks you create. It is critical to note that bioinformatics training doesn’t stop after school and hands-on training forms the bulk of facilitation that will make one a good bioinformatician.