Home
The Department of Biomedicine

Career Day at BBB

Most Master's students are in a phase where future career and job opportunities are very much in focus. The possibilities are many, but where do you start? Who has the relevant positions, and what qualifications are valuable to potential employers? The Student Committee of Medical Biology arranged a Career Day at BBB to dig deeper into these questions.

Various institutions and businesses present themselves on Career Day.
Various institutions and businesses present themselves on Career Day.
Photo:
Jørgen Barth

Main content

Crowded
The main lobby of the ​​BB building is humming with conversation. There's a break in the Career Day program, and students are in active conversations with exhibitors on the numerous stands outside the auditoriums. Inside the conference room on the opposite side, the logistics are intense; this is a small command center for the event. Food and drink is carried out and empty trays, plates and cups are returned. Master student Lasse Vesta is one of six committee members organizing the Career Day. "The turnout has been fantastic; auditorium 4 was packed and the activity has been great. In addition, we have received positive feedback on the catering, which also helps morale", smiles Lasse. There is a lot of planning behind a day like this. "We have had ongoing contact with 9 different agencies and companies for a long time to make this happen, and there have been lots of meetings, mailing and telephones." In light of the pre-emptive efforts, seeing the popularity of the event carries extra satisfaction.

 

Better than before
One of the exhibitors, who also had a presentation during the program, is Therese Solstad Saunders from the Norwegian Medicines Agency (NMA). She thinks this kind of initiative is very laudable. "When I did my Master's, we had no events like this and end of our study period was characterized by a lot of uncertainty in relation to our future careers." She has received a lot of positive feedback on her presentation, which focused on the NMA's need for staff with solid and specialized knowledge and skills within biology and chemistry at her workplace. "Students taking professional studies such as medicine or law have obvious career paths ahead, and students on subjects such as economy are much better at involving future employers at an early stage." Saunders has a background from the Department of Biomedicine herself, most recently as a postdoctoral researcher affiliated with the PROBE platform. She thinks it is nice to be invited. "Many students wonder what the Norwegian Medicines Agency are actually working with, and it is important for us to emphasize that our tasks are many and varied, with opportunities for international careers."

 

Many interested parties
Therese Saunders is not the only one who seems pleased with the recruiting possibilities that the Career Day offers; representatives from such diverse institutions as PPU (teacher college), the Hormone Laboratory at Haukeland University Hospital, the Cancer Registry of Norway and the laboratory supplier VWR are all in place, sporting smiling faces and waving brochures in their hands. Lasse Vesta informs us that although the target audience is primarily Master's students, PhD candidates as well as postdoctoral fellows have joined the audience and are also stopping by the stands to discuss various career opportunitites with the exhibitors.

So the opportunities for interesting work after a Master's degree in Medical Biology may prove to be better and more diverse than one might think? It certainly appears that way.