What's a good career choice/path?

Hey Niners.

I'm at that stage in life when I have to start deciding what exactly it is that I want to do with my life.

Essentially, that translates to: what am I going to major in college and what types of programs will I enter into?

So, yes as a junior of highschool, I'm trying to figure out in what direction I should go to pursue my interests. I could use some advice from you experienced niners in this respect.

Basically, I'm interested in artificial intelligence.  I want to be able to ultimately create a virtual human that can be used in various scenarios such as in drug testing, psychiatry, etc.  But before I can do all that, I want to frame whatever this is (virtual human engine, virtual human server, blah) properly.  To do this, I realize that I must tackle the artificial intelligence from a biological, bottom-up approach; I need to be able to model each and every aspect of the human body to make the "artificial intelligence" possible.

I'm thinking majoring in computer science is a must for artificial intelligence and that a minor in business would help greatly.  But, I'm still a bit iffy about that decision.  There's also a B.S in Computational Biology that I can do, but I was unsure whether sich a program would offer me a high paying job to start out with.

Right now, I'm trying to find a balance between something that will offer good pay and something that will bring me closer to my dream.

Do you guys have any ideas?

Thanks!

oh oh ! i dont know how many more people think like this. coz this is exactly how i thought except that i never considered Biology. i finished Under graduation in Computer Science and started working now and as much as i like to work on AI , i hardly have any time for it and i feel i m missing the opportunity with all the processing and other advancements going ahead of me. So dont fall into the trap of something safe as temp measure and just jumpin for whatever u love. All the best mVPStar

I just had that same problem. You have an interesting idea (starting from the bio side) so I'd say to go for a biological science. You'll also need Computer Science knowledge so I'd say to do a double degree. Yes, it's possible!
Then, you should start your research as soon as possible. Maybe give yourself a 1 quarter transition period and then hit the journals and books, talk to your undergraduate research program department, and find faculty.

In fact, you can start researching now (although you probably won't have access to the journals via the Internet until you go to a University). Just go to PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed) and start plugging in keywords. PubMed indexed all the scientific journals related to medicine, which includes all chemistry and biology journals as well as quite a few others.

Thanks guys for replying!

You've reassured me that my dreams aren't insane.

zian wrote:

You have an interesting idea (starting from the bio side) so I'd say to go for a biological science. You'll also need Computer Science knowledge so I'd say to do a double degree. Yes, it's possible!
Then, you should start your research as soon as possible.

Would that not be too much at once, though?


I guess what I'm wondering so much about right now is, what exactly is the demand for someone who can model biological processes with code?  If I started out with bio and cs (essentially Computational Biology I would presume), would I be financially set for a while, say if my AI goal never could take off?

Learn japanese? Japan is going full force with AI and robots right now and I imagine they will be the pioneers once it all comes together. Finding a way to study in japan would probably help.

It depends. What are your grades like in high school? How did you do in APs? What Universities are you looking at? What was your most intensive year in high school like? How did you do during that year?

I'd ask you to join my research project! I'm being serious.

But seriously, does anyone else have thoughts on the last 2 questions. This is about where my knowledge of the biomedical industry ends.,

zian wrote:



It depends. What are your grades like in high school? How did you do in APs? What Universities are you looking at? What was your most intensive year in high school like? How did you do during that year?

I've mostly been a straight A student (4.1 cumulative GPA so far).  APs, haven't taken them yet, but I plan to do CS, Econ, and Calculus BC for APs. My most intensive year in high school is this year, and I'm doing better in this year than in all my other years. I was looking at Carnegie Mellon, John Hopkins, and Harvard.

In order to achieve something of this magnitude you will be working on a team for sure.  Whether that is a local team, or one distributed around the world is a different story.  Artificial Intelligence isn't so much a field on to itself, but rather a collection of fields working towards a goal.

I guess what I am saying is that you need to specialize.  What part of artificial intelligence attracts you the most?

Is it the mechanical parts?  Designing robot limbs, muscles, etc?  Is it designing micro computer hardware designed for specific tasks?

Or, are you interested in the software part of artificial intelligence?  More specifically machine learning, computer vision, etc?

Personally I work in the software portion, dealing heavily in machine learning and pattern recognition.  To work in this field you need a *very* solid strong background in both CS and mathematics.

So in sum you should study the field of AI.  Learn about all the different areas that are involved and pick one that most interests you.  Like I said, degrees (or minors) in math and cs/se are very important for machine learning or computer vision.  Each other area will follow a separate path.

Also, an undergraduate degree will only get so far.  Don't be afraid to make a choice like mathematics and then build on it for your masters and PhD.  I would actually argue against going for a double major because undergraduate degrees are so basic that you are wasting your time.  You should also want to learn on your own, because you will need to do a lot of it.  There are so many resources around for learning advanced subjects it is unbelieveable.  MIT Opencourseware, wikipedia, etc...

Lastly, it is important to study companies in your field.  Try to figure out where you might want to work.  You will only go as far as the people around you will allow

Good luck!

nightski wrote:

In order to achieve something of this magnitude you will be working on a team for sure.  Whether that is a local team, or one distributed around the world is a different story.  Artificial Intelligence isn't so much a field on to itself, but rather a collection of fields working towards a goal.

I guess what I am saying is that you need to specialize.  What part of artificial intelligence attracts you the most?

Is it the mechanical parts?  Designing robot limbs, muscles, etc?  Is it designing micro computer hardware designed for specific tasks?

Or, are you interested in the software part of artificial intelligence?  More specifically machine learning, computer vision, etc?

Personally I work in the software portion, dealing heavily in machine learning and pattern recognition.  To work in this field you need a *very* solid strong background in both CS and mathematics.

So in sum you should study the field of AI.  Learn about all the different areas that are involved and pick one that most interests you.  Like I said, degrees (or minors) in math and cs/se are very important for machine learning or computer vision.  Each other area will follow a separate path.

Also, an undergraduate degree will only get so far.  Don't be afraid to make a choice like mathematics and then build on it for your masters and PhD.  I would actually argue against going for a double major because undergraduate degrees are so basic that you are wasting your time.  You should also want to learn on your own, because you will need to do a lot of it.  There are so many resources around for learning advanced subjects it is unbelieveable.  MIT Opencourseware, wikipedia, etc...

Lastly, it is important to study companies in your field.  Try to figure out where you might want to work.  You will only go as far as the people around you will allow

Good luck!

QFT

It may be best for you to start looking at the various specialized fields and using that to decide on your major. You may want to get in touch with some faculty and academic advisors at JHU, Harvard, and CMU to get their opinions as well, especially when you have some idea on what fields you want to specialize in.

Regarding the prospect of grad school, it's certainly 1 approach but you have to figure out if you want to and can afford to spend 2-4 years more at a University (or even lifetime, if you become a professor!).

Good luck!

I'm going to be in the same situstion as you soon, but at the moment i'm gonna take Maths, further maths, physics, chemistry and possibly biology for my A-level.
If you choose to do something about computer(like Artifical Intelligence as you said) i think you should have a good mathematical base. Have you ever thought of science engineering?
Another point is, i don't know what US university like, but in England u not only need to have a good A-level result, u also need a good CV as well to go to uni like Oxford and Cambridge, I planning to do some charity work (RSPCA, animal welfare) and some other volunteer work as well.
The most important thing is once u make the choice of what major u doing, don't give up half way.
Ping Shen

Another excellent option to pair with CS is psychology.  Psychology would cover not only the biological behaviors like stimulus/response and neurons, but also the more cognitive aspects of the human mind like memory (Data Warehouse?) and dreams (Data Mining?).  I minored in PYSC and have never regretted it.