Public health microbiologist skills for your resume and career

I took a gap year after college. When I started undergrad I wanted to be a lawyer. I majored in philosophy (which, contrary to misconceptions, is the single best performing major for graduate school placement tests like the GRE or LSAT and have much higher-than-average employment rates and salaries after 10 years) to prepare me for law school. Then my dad got cancer and died after a terrible 6-month fight. In my last few conversations with him, he told me not to do what everyone else expects me to do and to instead create a life that is meaningful. I sent rejection letters back to the law schools that had accepted me (nearly giving my poor mother a heart-attack!) and then waited tables in D.C. for a year while I researched PhD programs in Philosophy and applied to schools that interested me. Seven years later I got the job that I have grown into over the last 20 years teaching philosophy at a regional state university. I would have made more money as a lawyer. I doubt I would have been as fulfilled. I would not have had the time to readjust my trajectory without that gap year.

So to answer your question, I would tell students to feel free to take a gap year if they are anything less than absolutely committed to clear path towards a life that holds meaning for them. If they take a gap year I would encourage them to do whatever they can to not incur pointless debt. I would then encourage them to look at a gap year not so much as a year to develop skills so much as a year to take stock of what they want to become. If that is to work in a particular industry, then find people 5 or 10 years ahead of you in that industry and ask them their advice. Finally, I think we, as a civilization, are returning to older ways of understanding ourselves. The idea that a person is just a vessel for marketable skills and that a human being's purpose is to sell themselves on a labor market is a very, very recent one. It is also unsustainable, both in terms of the environment and the fact that productivity has become detached from wages, so that now the overwhelming majority of people are working more but making less in terms of spending power. Younger people will have to live in a world that is witnessing the shortcomings of globalization's promise that never came to pass and an environment that is crumbling under the weight of a consumer-focused civilization. They will need to figure out new ways to live, not just fit themselves into a waning system. So they should use that gap year to figure out what kind of person they want to be and what kind of world they want to live in and find a way to make it come to pass.

Graduates will need a variety of technical skills. In biology, skills such as having lab experience and experience with statistical analyses and GIS are very valuable. If interested in education, being able to adapt and gain experience with online teaching will be important as well. Graduates will also need to communicate to employers that they can be independent and problem solve/critically think on their own, which also ties into work/volunteer experience that highlights your leadership skills.

For microbiologists it is important to have broad laboratory skills, microbiological technique of course, but also proficiency in biochemical and molecular assays. Knowledge in the use of relevant lab instrumentation, such as PCR. The ability to analyze and interpret data is a must, as are strong writing and presentation skills. Critical thinking and the ability to troubleshoot experimental methods as well as analytical instrumentation are important.

Understanding human diversity, effective communication (speaking and writing: the ability to convey complex ideas respectfully to a diverse audience) across differences, adept at working in groups, yet also independent thinkers.

Although I am not a medical microbiologist, there are foundational techniques in microbiology that are critically important right now as we face the COVID-19 pandemic. Basic skills like PCR, nucleic acid sequencing, aseptic technique, serological testing like ELISAs, and microscopy are essential for testing for and identifying pathogens like SARS-COV2. New innovations, CRISPR and LAMP-PCR, are rapidly changing the possible ways to diagnose pathogens. Milestone advances in deep sequencing, among other advances, have led to faster-than-ever vaccine development for emerging pathogens. As an instructor at a top-ranked microbiology program, we teach undergraduates how to use these tools.
Outside of medical microbiology, these tools are being used to understand climate change, solve problems in agriculture, develop renewable energy solutions, and describe a variety of soil, air, and host microbiomes that underpin healthy hosts and ecosystems.