changing major from biochem to cogsci?

Oyama
Sat, 18 Jun 2011 23:06:39 +0000

Neither major pigeonholes you into anything that seems directly relevant to them.

At the job I just left as a financial consultant, there was a recent Philosophy grad with no background in business or finance. I have bio and engineering friends who are now in law school. I have math friends who are now in business/actuarial sciences.

The point is you’re oversimplifying your future prospects based on your major. Biochem jobs can be seen as fairly streamlined for jobs in labs, r&d, pharma, etc., but this doesn’t necessarily take you out of the running if you want to go into business.

CogSci is a lot more broad and there are many qualitatively different fields within it: cognitive psychology, neuroscience, human computer interaction, artificial intelligence, etc. Which specialization or topic you end up being most adept in will probably determine the most obvious career paths for you. Typically, though, all these topics do lead into jobs in labs and r&d in industry, too.

Have you taken any CogSci classes or taken a CogNeuro class before?