Career Development
What can you do with this degree?
Learn Competitive Skills
UC San Diego’s Master’s degree in Clinical Research conveys a uniquely broad array of competitive skills in today’s workforce. The curriculum covers epidemiology, clinical trial design, health services research, professional development seminars, scientific writing, database management, advanced statistical methods, translational research, and more.
Private Sector Opportunity
A graduate from this program is well-equipped to be competitive for numerous private-sector positions requiring clinical research expertise, including Clinical Research Managers and Clinical Data Managers. For an individual with a master’s degree, the 2019 mean salary for these positions was about $97,000/year nationwide, with California’s average income appreciably higher than the national average. Furthermore, San Diego was recently ranked as having the #1 fastest income growth among all fifty largest metropolitan areas in the United States.
Academic Career Trajectory
UC San Diego has a uniquely robust environment for an academic career in clinical research. UC San Diego ranks fifth nationwide in sponsored research funding, with $1.126 billion in research funding. In addition, UC San Diego is among the top ten US institutions in funding from the National Institutes of Health, receiving over $180 million in 383 funding awards in 2018. Students in this degree program will learn from faculty who conduct groundbreaking, federally-funded research projects across various medical fields.
Career Milestones for Our Graduate Students
- Propose a clinically-meaningful research question
- Test a clinical hypothesis using rigorous statistical tests
- Collaborate with subject matter experts on a live clinical research project
- Conduct a PRISMA-compliant systematic review
- Deliver an oral presentation for your own research
- Prepare a poster presentation for your own research
- Generate a manuscript ready for submission to a peer-reviewed journal
…and others!
clre@ucsd.edu