Sagarin wrote:
If you have any aptitude for stats and computer science, you might consider the rapidly burgeoning field of genomics/bioinformatics. You can go the route of I.P. lawyer, but generally you need to have a PhD to make headway there. An MBA from a good school might afford you the opportunity to become a biotech analyst, which sounds like it suits your personality. If you like people, become a doctor, though I think the P.A./N.P. route will be better under Obamacare- better hours, solid pay, not as much burueaucratic crap or liability. If you are a good bull$hitter, pharmaceutical or medical device sales are lucrative. If you care about kids, even just impacting two or three per class while you babysit the rest, get into teaching. Plenty of options. Biomedical engineering too, but you would need another degree and it's not easy.
Well, if the OP has any aptitude for computer science, why wouldn't he just get a degree in CS perhaps with emphasis on informatics?
Corporations simply don't want to pay for scientists and basic research. They largely don't want phsicists, chemists, and the like. They want mechanical engineers, chemical engineets, and the like--people that they see able to make direct contributions to the bottom line. Hate to say it, but that's the way it is, and you can see this if you go through any of the employment search engines. This is why we need the government (NSF, NIH, Nasa, DARPA, military research, national labs) to fund basic scientific research, because companies won't do so.
A couple of years ago, starting salaries for new grads in computer science with a BS was $70K.