Forum:How hard it is to get a bioinformatics degree in one country but find a career in another country?

Question

[dominic.dong]

Hi,

I am a wet-lab neuroscience undergraduate who is interested in switching to computational biology (so basically a complete newbie here). I just got a bioinformatics master's offer from ETH Zurich in Switzerland and I am seeking for advice to decide whether to take it or not. As a non-EU citizen from China, one of my concerns is that it will be very difficult for me to find a job there after graduation, due to their policies to hire Swiss or EU-citizens prior to people outside of these categories. Therefore, I am most likely going to start my career in another country, and up to this point I am interested in getting a job in industry over academia. Although nowadays most of the scientific communities are very international but job hunting in somewhere completely new seems daunting. So, my question is, how difficult it is to find a bioinformatic job in a country that I haven't been around (therefore little chance of knowing people and building a network that may help with job hunting) in the field of computational biology or it is rather an unnecessary concern? In this case, would my master's degree offer still be very valuable? Looking forward to your thoughts, thanks!

[Za]

My personal experiences says that don't worry at all and just carry on, if you seek, you will find job wherever you want...

[Alex Reynolds]

I know a post-doc who works for a very large and well-known pharma company in Basel, who is not a Swiss or EU citizen (to my knowledge — maybe her residency status is different now). She's smart and dedicated, and I suspect those qualities would open doors for you just as much as they have for her, whether in or outside of Switzerland.

Answer 1

[Devon Ryan]

If you're interested in going into industry then Switzerland isn't a bad place to be, though I suppose there's more in Basel than Zurich. While they don't have to jump through extra hoops to hire Swiss/EU citizens, proximity will give you a lot more contacts in the companies. That ends up being useful, since pharma companies receive so many applications that it's unlikely a knowledgeable person will even look at yours unless someone that already works at the company asks them to.

A degree from Switzerland (and ETH in particular) is generally fairly valuable, it'll be respected internationally more than anything from China. So unless you expect to move back to China long-term there's a benefit to growing a network in a country with a strong pharma industry.

[dominic.dong]

Thanks for your information!