A Biochemist Salary

Since I was young I always thought it would be cool to be a scientist.  Wouldn't it be so much fun to create new things, mix ingredients, have things boil over and make a difference in our world.  Scientists are the leading people on the forefront of discovery and they are creating and figuring things out daily.  I remember watching the movie Frankenstein for the first time and being in awe of how he created the monster. I thought it was so cool how he came up with the concept and from that point on I wanted to be a scientist.  Fast forward twenty years and obviously I am not a scientist, I gave up those dreams to be much more creative.  The truth of the mater is that scientists are experts in a field that is beyond hard.  Not many people are driven enough or determined enough to devote their lives to science the way scientists have.  Scientists devote their lives to research, study, experiments, long hours, constantly working towards inventing or discovering the next big thing.  There are tons of different avenues to go down when you look into becoming a scientist and one of the fields that you can choose to be a part of is biochemistry. In this article I will discuss what exactly a biochemist does, what  kind of jobs are out there, what to expect and what a typical salary is for a biochemist. 

Biochemist Job Description:

A biochemist is a scientist who is involved in studying and the chemistry of living creatures.  Biochemist immerse themselves into a world that is surrounded by figuring out how the body works, what certain various systems in a human body do and how they work.  Biochemist are constantly studying and analyzing what chemical reactions and combinations are happening in a persons body and what they do.  Many biochemist are moving toward the field of vitro research. In Vitro research deals with babies and the reproduction process in females and males.  This is a huge field now, especially for biochemist. Biochemist will be found observing, alalyzing, experimenting and identifying how things are work and what is or is not succesful. 

The bulk of a biochemsist job is research. They are constantly researching what they are finding and writning detaile descriptions of what happened.  Most biochemist will tell you that this fied of study if mainly seventy five percent of research both applied and basic.  Applied research actually takes waht you have found and it applies it to the factors that it affects. For instance if you are working on research for agriculture, medical, vetinary or marine life, then you would apply your findings to those specific areas.  Basic reseach is essentially gather all the materials that oyu would need to then therefore apply them. 

Many biochemists will work in labratories all throughout the country or the world.  There are many institituions, schools, colleges, medical facilities and more that employ biochemists all the time. Depending on where you work, what you are doing and how long you will be there will depend on what you are looking at making in salary and in grants. Many biochemists are more interested in how much they will be granted by their job to conduct the research they will need to figure out the next big thing.  Biochemists and scientists in genearl are always fighting for more funding. To conduct the experiments that they conduct and do the things that they do, takes time, money and stamina. 

Typically the normal workday for a biochemist will include duties around the lab, making sure all the instruments, weights and surfaces are clean, orderly and working properly. You will also find that they will be making sure that everything is sanitary and in the right order.  They will make sure that everything has been dried off, cultured, filtered, weighed, measured and much more. 

Education:

To become a biochemist will require a degree in biochemistry, chemistry or some other related science.  That is the minimum requirement to work in any kind of scientific field or labratory in America.  You will find that many biochemist or scientist in general will have a doctorate and if they do not have that they are working towards one.  You will find that most of the people in the field of science took all science classes offered in their college or university.  This would entail classes such as chemistry, biology, physics, and other science classes such as botany, anatomy, anthroplogy and others.  For biochemist specififcally you will find that they took mainly chemistry classes along with biochemistry and organic chemistry. 

Jobs:

Many biochemists will look fo remployment in the pharmeceutical fields, biotechnology industry, in vitro field, nutrition, genetics and biophysics. These are some of the top fields that will use their expertise to work on reseach and experiments in those fields.  As I have stated earlier many biochemists are researchers mainly.  You will also find that many biochemists will turn to academia along with writing.  Both the field of academia and the field of publishing your own literature are lucrative and you will find that both of these fields are much less stressful.  You will have much more flexible hours as a professor or a writer then you would if you worke in the other areas of science that would require you to work long hourse, some weekends and more.  Because of the research involved in this field you will find that many biochemists work long hours from early in the morning to late at night, and they can often be found staying late reseaching in labratories.  Generally they are compensated well, the starting salary for a biochemist is roughly around $60,00 dollars and some get paid as much as $160,00 or more!