Campus QA job or straight into an M.Sc? Our daughter has to decide before placements start

breezy_wave_780518 May 2026

Our molu is going into the final year of her B.Sc in chemistry. Placements start around August, and she has to tell the college by then whether she's sitting for them or preparing for M.Sc entrances instead. The seniors who got placed last year mostly went into QA and QC labs at pharma and food companies. Decent start, shift work for some. Her professors are pushing the M.Sc, her amma says job first and M.Sc later, and I keep changing my mind depending on who I talked to last :) Anyone whose son or daughter went one way or the other, or who works in these labs themselves?

3 comments

mint_pebble_828018 May 2026
what does she want to be doing at 30. a QC lab and R&D are quite different lives, and R&D mostly wants the masters
lotus_kite_48518 May 2026
I did B.Com and went straight into a job because we needed the money, and kept saying I'd do the M.Com 'next year'. Then marriage, then my daughter, now my bakery. It never happened. I'm not sad about it, but if your daughter wants the M.Sc at all, I'd say do it now while it's the only thing she has to think about.
- hazel_bottle_156319 May 2026
  agree with the now part but it's not the only route. plenty of people in my office went back for a part time masters in their 30s, it's hard but it happens. depends a lot on whether her field needs it to move up or just likes it
- breezy_wave_780519 May 2026
  Replying to @hazel_bottle_1563
  'Needs it or likes it' is a good way to put it. From what she says, R&D is where she wants to end up, which probably answers the question. I'll show her the thread tonight. She'll read it and then do exactly what she'd already decided, as usual :)
fennel_basket_915719 May 2026
I work in QA at a food plant, with an M.Sc. In our lab, freshers with only a B.Sc mostly join as trainee analysts and do a lot of routine testing, some of it on night shift. With the M.Sc you start a little higher and it's easier to move into method development later. Both are fine. But the shift part is real, especially later when you have a family. My husband and I work opposite shifts and it's a daily juggle.