Intern. Salary: Four university credits

You tell your parents that you're a "research assistant," but really you're an intern. Right now you mostly observe, fetch coffee, make phone calls, and crunch numbers. Maybe one day you'll get your eye on a microscope.

Biology Lab Technician. Salary: $40,000

Not the job you thought you'd have with an undergraduate degree in genetics and cell biology from Harvard University, but that master's won't pay for itself. Besides, the other lab technician is pretty cute...

Postdoctoral Fellow. Salary: $76,000

After receiving your doctorate in genetics and cellular biology, did you think you'd end up teaching and working a hundred hours a week for a five-figure sum? No. But getting to sign all your emails "Dr. So-and-So" is almost worth it.

Cellular Biologist. Salary: $80,000

Finally, you've left the university world and are now working full-time at an independent research lab in Boston. No more undergraduates to teach, and you recently received a huge grant from the National Institutes of Health. Wonder how long it'll take you to spend it.

Department Chair at UC Davis. Salary: $110,000

After twenty years of groundbreaking research, you have an exemplary, novella-length curriculum vitae. At UC Davis, you're busy implementing a revolutionary new ethics training, which is rumored to soon become the new national standard. And you're only working sixty hours a week; that's practically part-time. Woo-hoo.