 is a biochemistry degree worth it. That's what we're gonna be talking about today, but before we get into that, make sure to gently tap the like button in order to defeat the evil YouTube algorithm. On this channel, we talk about personal finance, college degrees, careers, and opportunities that are gonna lead you to success, and we also go over how you can avoid some of the common financial traps that so many people end up falling for. If that sounds like something that interests you and you haven't done it already, go ahead and hit that subscribe button and ring the notification bell so that you never miss out. So what is biochemistry? Simply put, biochemistry is the study of life on a molecular basis. And another way to put that is it's the study of chemistry, but specifically the chemistry that happens within living beings. Now this is a relatively popular major, around 8,800 people graduate with a degree every year. Now this is a relatively flexible degree, but a few career paths you might go down would be cancer researcher, forensic scientist, and biotechnologist. Now with a biochemistry degree, you would expect to make around $47,000 a year starting out at 93,000 in mid-career pay. Now you could compare this to a really high paying degree like petroleum engineering or a really low paying degree like recreational therapy. And you would see that it's well above the average, but it's definitely not as high as something like engineering. Now this of course is a science degree which is part of the STEM degrees, and all STEM degrees are amazing, right? Well, actually not so. Some of the STEM degrees specifically, quite a few of the science STEM degrees aren't that good. And I know I get a lot of interesting reactions whenever I say that, a lot of people are amazed. Now you might become a biochemist for instance, and they make around $94,000 a year, or you might get into a leadership position, become a natural sciences manager, and they make around $129,000, or you might go into a lower paying job like a chemist or material scientist, and they make around $78,000 a year. Now the great thing about all of those careers that I just mentioned is you don't necessarily have to get anything more than just a bachelor's level degree. This can be pretty rare when it comes to a lot of the science related degrees where a lot of the time you're gonna have to get a master's or a doctorate just to get your foot in the door to get an entry level job. So with this degree, there's a much better chance that you won't have to spend any more than four years of school to be able to get a job. Overall, this is definitely one of the better paying science degrees, so I'm gonna go ahead and give it an overall salary rating of eight out of 10. Next we're gonna talk about satisfaction and we're gonna start with meaning. And meaning is basically how much you think your career positively impacts the world. So people who graduated with a biochemistry degree showed a meaning score of about 59% according to pay scale and a really high meaning score is 90% and a really low one is 30%. So 59% is above average, that's pretty good. And this is relatively common with a lot of the science related degrees where people who graduate with a degree if they are actually able to get a job are relatively happy with their careers. Now when it comes to job satisfaction of a biochemistry career, for instance, its rating is around 70%, which again, the top level is about 90% and the bottom level is around 41%, so 70% is pretty good. I always like to mention the fact that sciences specifically biological sciences tend to be regretted. So they're the second most regretted major out of all of the different types of degrees. About 35% of the people who got a science degree regret their choice and the reason for that is because they have a very tough time finding a job with just a four year degree. Realistically, I think science degrees are better than a lot of the other degree choices, but I think people go into it with a perception that is just way off. They think they're gonna be able to get a job very easily and they find out the hard way. Sometimes it's like, you know, a few semesters before they graduate that they're not able to get a job. And so that makes it extremely disappointing just because their perception of what they thought was gonna happen and what actually happened were very different. Whereas if somebody goes into an art degree, for instance, they're probably somewhat aware of the fact that they're not gonna be able to get a job. And so they're not gonna be as surprised when they start applying and they don't hear anything back. Or at the very least, they know that it's gonna be very difficult for them to get a job. They might have to go off on their own and kind of start their own thing in order to make money. Now, I always like to mention this. Satisfaction in general is just extremely subjective. It's gonna be different for everybody. For some people, this might be amazing. For others, it might be awful. It's really hard for me to give something a satisfaction score just because it's so subjective. And a lot of the time, it won't be about the career itself. Sometimes it's about what industry you end up working in or even what business you end up working for. So there's a lot of different variables here, but overall, I'm gonna go ahead and give this one an eight out of 10 when it comes to satisfaction. Next, we're gonna go over demand. And I've talked about this before, how science related degrees are probably the worst out of all of the STEM type degrees. Out of the four STEM, you know, you got science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Science is definitely gonna be the weakest one out of that bunch. And a lot of people who get science degrees end up having to go back to school, getting a master's or a doctorate. But with biochemistry, you might actually have a chance of getting a job with just a bachelor's degree. In fact, you might have a really good chance. So if you wanted to become a biochemist, for instance, it's growing at around 4% over the next 10 years, which is average. Natural science manager is growing around 5%, which is slightly faster than average. And chemical and material scientists are growing at 5% as well. Now, I know these statistics are probably completely different now with the current event that's happening in the world, which won't be named. But in 2018, the average unemployment rate for a college degree was 2.9%. And biology related degrees had an unemployment rate of 2.4%, so it was lower than average. Now, if you look up biochemistry degree on monster.com or indeed.com, you'll see that it only has around 165 results that pop up. Meaning only 165 job listings had the keyword biochemistry degree in them. To compare that to another degree like computer science, for instance, which has over 140,000, or anthropology, which isn't very good and only has 829, that is really, really bad. However, this isn't a perfect test by any means, just because companies aren't specifically advertising, you know, marketing to people who have biochemistry degrees doesn't mean that they wouldn't necessarily hire someone who has the degree. It might have more to do with the fact that a biochemistry degree is more rare than a biology degree or a chemistry degree. And it kind of covers both subsections, so you could probably apply to just about any job in biology and chemistry, which makes it much more flexible than either one. So for those reasons, I'm gonna go ahead and give biochemistry a seven out of 10 when it comes to demand. Next, we're gonna talk about X factors and that's everything else that we haven't talked about yet. So when you look at census data, people up to this point anyways that have earned a college degree will make around $2.4 million throughout a lifetime. Those who get a biological science degree, which is what biochemistry would fall under, earn slightly less, around 2.3 million over an entire lifespan. However, interestingly enough, if they start working with computers, for instance, they'll make around $3 million. So one issue with some of these science degrees is they teach you a skill set that's just a little bit too narrow and it might be difficult for you to bring that skill set into another type of career. Whereas something like business, for instance, you could probably use your business skills to work in just about any industry or any company. However, I think that science teaches you some soft and hard skills that might not directly lead to you getting another job. However, indirectly, they might lead to you, you know, learning skills that will eventually pay off. This is why you see that it's relatively flexible when you see them going into different types of careers. Now, when you look at a skill index where software engineering has a score of 88 out of 100 and industrial sewing has a score of eight out of 100, you'll see that biochemistry comes in at 42 out of 100, which is pretty mid-range. It's like good, but not great. But the skills index is mostly a measure of how much companies are willing to pay for that specific skill right now. It's not necessarily how valuable a skill is if that makes any sense. Now, when it comes to the risk of automation or outsourcing science related degrees, science related careers, they're usually relatively safe. Biochemists, for instance, have a 3% chance of being automated, which is extremely low. Now, difficulty-wise, tab.com says that biochemistry is in the top 10 most difficult degrees. I'm a little bit skeptical there. I think they basically added that up by seeing how many people ended up dropping out. But just because a lot of people dropped out doesn't necessarily mean it's more difficult. There's a lot of other factors that can go into that. And I do think biochemistry is a relatively difficult degree, but it's not gonna be as hard as engineering or physics. But again, that's pretty subjective. For some people, engineering and physics might be a lot easier than biochem. But overall, when it comes to X factors, I'm gonna give this one a seven out of 10. So some of the pros here are the job satisfaction tends to be relatively good. There's a lot of different fields of specialization that you could potentially go down, which is rare for a science degree. And there's a good chance that you can get a job with just a four year degree. And the likelihood of automation is relatively low. Some of the cons here are that there's gonna be a lot of memorization, and that's probably why it ranks relatively high in difficulty. It's still not gonna be that easy to get a job. You're still gonna have to really try, make sure you do internships, make sure you network, et cetera. And there's honestly not a ton of demand. It's a flexible degree, but not a lot of people are out there just like looking around for people with biochemistry degrees. So the overall score here is gonna be 7.5 out of 10. That's pretty good, especially for a science related degree. This one can definitely work out with you. You wanna make sure that you do your homework. You've got a plan. You know exactly what types of careers you're looking at. It's always a good idea to reach out to people in those careers and ask them what their opinions are on them and what you should do in order to get into their position. It also might be a good idea to learn extra skills as well. We're talking like mathematics, programming, something along those lines. Maybe even consider minoring or double majoring. Also, depending on what career path you're trying to go for, you might wanna look at other degrees like maybe chemical engineering, for instance. There's gonna be a lot of overlap there where chemical engineering grads can do a lot of the same jobs that biochem grads can do and a little bit more. In fact, quite a bit more. And then if you wanna fast track your research, I've been working on an exciting project, a tool that will be linked down in the description below, which is my college degree ranker. It's in version 1.1 right now, but I'm gonna be updating it pretty soon. And I'm basically trying to take all of the best numbers out from all over the internet from the best sources that I've vetted myself, making sure to put them all together and then I'm giving them a ranking. This makes it extremely easy for you to look at all of the different important factors that go into choosing your degree. And you can see all of them right next to each other as well. I'm also gonna be adding some other stuff to the Patreon here pretty soon, like a stock portfolio and some exclusive content. If you haven't done it already, go ahead and gently tap the like button, hit the subscribe button, ring the notification bell, comment down below, any thoughts, comments, criticisms, et cetera, that you have on the video. And before you leave, after you've shared the video, forgot that one, don't leave. Check out my other videos right here. I made them just for you.