Industrial employers place a premium on prior industrial experience, and often prefer an applicant who has worked somewhere else over a college graduate fresh out of school. Therefore, students should seek out cooperative education opportunities, internships, or other summer jobs in industry during college. Or, they can seek out a mentor in their academic department and carry out an undergraduate research project, or get a part-time job in a university research laboratory as an assistant. These kinds of experience add great value to a resume. Some companies will award a better starting salary to an applicant with better grades, and some will not even consider applicants who have less than a B average.
Good grades are important even for obtaining summer internships.
In general, people with a master's degree hold jobs similar to those held by people with bachelor's degrees, as described above. The great value of the M.S. degree is that it gives students much more hands-on laboratory experience and, through work on a thesis project, teaches them how scientific research is actually carried out. Also, someone with a B.S. degree that did not include much specific biotechnology training can acquire advanced skills in an M.S. degree program. Obtaining both degrees is also a way to combine two specialties, such as biology and business. This is the primary qualification for a scientific research career.