Starting Salary of Biochemist in Malaysia

My job is known as Biochemist in Malaysian public hospital. I've been working in the industry since late 2009. When I reported duty on my first day, I was told that my monthly salary shall be RM2782.97.

A biochemistry course is a difficult one. Trust me. There are too many pathways to remember. And too many terms to understand. And with this recombinant technology and that enzymology, where got time to watch movies?

I went into Biochemistry course in UKM because my seniors told us that it's easy to get in. It wasn't even called Biochemistry at the time. The course is spelled as Molecular and Cellular Biology. Biochemistry is my major in Year 2. Sounds sophisticated, right. If you googled Biochemistry Job Prospect, this is what you see on the first search


"The career prospects and employment opportunities of biochemists have shown considerable improvement over the past years. Jobs are being offered by both government and private medical institutions and hospitals engaged in research activities related to various diseases and disorders like AIDS, cancer, mental disorders etc. The pharmaceutical industry where genetically engineered drugs are developed and manufactured also look forward to employing biochemists. Research related agricultural industries and institutions also absorb individuals with background in biochemistry." 

In Malaysia, don't talk about career prospect. Job prospects are hard enough to grab by. One can be best employed by the Ministry of Health, Malaysia as a Pegawai Sains (Kimia Hayat). Private medical laboatories hardly employ biochemists because profit is still much highly rated rather than the results' qualities. In my cohort, there were at least 100 of us. I knew none of them working in public hospitals. 

A quick check on the Net will reveal that there are at least 18 Malaysian institutions offering biochemistry degree course. A simple arithmetic works out approximately 1800 graduates in a year! Do I know what I was going to study when I enrolled into the course? No. 

Do you think these 1800 people know what they are studying? I haven't counted those who go overseas to study biochemistry.

Unless, you are very sure that you want to become a good scientist. And you have great depth of English language, please read my next post. Stay tuned. Else, don't bother to enrol into a biochemistry course.