I’m interested in majoring in chemistry-I realise that just a BS degree is not very useful- what are the job prospects for someone with a PhD in chemistry?? Where can I work? And is a PhD enough, or is more training required? Also (i know this is really stupid) but I LOVE working in a chem lab- mixing chemicals, and producing reactions- could someone tell me more about any jobs where I can do that? How about forensics/ toxicology? Analytical chem? What are the job prospects for each? Thanks!
I had a 30-year career as a BA chemist. I always was able to find full-time work (in analytical laboratories). In the San Francisco Bay Area I was even able to do research, designing sample preparation methods (although most laboratory jobs are just routine following of well-established methods). In my (Northern California) experience there are considerably less jobs for PhD chemists, although the jobs they get pay much better and naturally access research, teaching and chemical fields in addition to analytical.
To see where other people got to with just a bachelor’s degree in chemistry (and other relevant details) look at http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Degree=Bachelor_of_Science_%28BS_%2f_BSc%29%2c_Chemistry/Salary. To see where people got to starting with a bachelor’s in chemistry (and possibly adding degree(s) to it), go to the Students Review dot com site, adding “/contact_center.php3?searchpid=9” after “com”.
If you always want to be sure of a job in chemistry, get substantial experience (at least a few months) operating a GC/MS (gas chromatograph / mass spectrometer). HPLC experience is almost as good.
I was a lab chemist for 23 years, doing organic synthesis at a pharmaceutical company. While it lasted, it was seriously the best job in the world: I spent my days making new molecules for drug testing, working in a lab with great people making great money. It was intellectually stimulating and financially rewarding.
I had a Master’s degree, but many of my colleagues had a BS. They had no trouble finding jobs.
Unfortunately, the U.S. pharmaceutical industry has changed dramatically over the past thirty years. Between all the mergers and then outsourcing a lot of jobs to contract organizations in India and China, the demand for all kinds of pharma chemists (including analytical chemists) really contracted. It’s really tough to find a stable job at a large pharma company now; you can still find positions with biotechs and start-ups but you must be flexible and ready to move/change jobs often. (There’s a reason they’re called “start-ups.”)
I lost my job 8 years ago when my company closed a research site (3000 people lost their jobs overnight.) About half of my BS/MS friends found new chemistry jobs - the rest got out of chemistry all together. The ones that did find jobs are generally making less money now; the ones that did find pharma jobs (…still making good money…) have gone through several more waves of lay-offs and consolidations. Overall, the BS/MS people have found it easier to relocate and find new jobs than have the PhDs. I know a lot of very good PhD chemists - with degrees from Ivy League schools and postdocs with God - who are unemployed.
So, after reading my sad story, if you’re still interested in a chemistry career, my advice would be:
- Don’t get a PhD unless you really love what you’re doing. Don’t do it for the career opportunities.
- Get as much experience as possible - internships and even temp work are good. As @jjwinkle said - HPLC and GC/MS experience is useful for a wide variety of jobs
- As a BS chemist, you won’t be able to specialize (organic versus analytical versus inorganic) - so don’t pigeonhole yourself.
- Be flexible. You may be changing jobs frequently!
Good luck. Chemistry can be a lot of fun but it can also be heartbreaking…
I would classify the job prospects for chemistry at pretty much all levels as atrocious, no better than esoteric liberal arts majors.
At the BS/MS level (most companies treat the MS as a BS with 2 years experience or as worthless) you could get a bench lab job which are generally low paying dead end jobs. The profession is a staffing agency (Aerotek, Kelly etc) infested race to the bottom and often pays as little as $15 an hour no benefits nor paid time off and very unstable one phone call to the agency and you are on the street.
At the PhD level most jobs are better paying (other than adjunct professor community college etc) but there are much fewer of them and a lot of competition. Many PhD end up in post-doc purgatory.
In short do not get a science degree and try to enter the labor market. Either go to professional school like Med or choose a different major.
@scout59 : What you did is exactly what I want to do!! It must have been amazing 
But I guess I do have to face reality 
Even if I accepted everything else, I don’t thinking changing jobs (probably cities too?) would really suit me. So basically even if you’re very good, there’s no guarantee you’ll be employed? Just out of naive curiosity, how did the situation become like this? Is it because of the recession, or something else? Is there any hope that this will improve? At least in the next 10 years (i.e. after i graduate)? Thanks for ur advice though…I’'ll remember it if I still want to continue in chemistry.
@MSChemist81 : I’m assuming from ur username that you are speaking from experience? I am considering med school, or maybe bme (bio was also one of my interests but that situation seems far worse than chem, apparently)…The work that chemists usually do- working in pharma- discovering drugs etc- is it possible to do that from any other field- are there any other paths to it? For example, I know many doctors work in pharma companies but they don’t really do much basic research. Not to mention, its kind of taboo to go into medicine without wanting to see patients- at least that’s the idea I’ve got from most people ive talked to. So it would be really helpful if you could elucidate on this point.
Also-slightly off-topic- how feasible is it to double major in bme and chemistry?
I have recently thought about this a lot. I don’t solidly know, but there used to be, I feel, a greater belief in chemistry as a tool to make life easier, literally expressed in the slogan “Better Things for Better Living…Through Chemistry” that Dupont used 1935 - 1982. The idea of creating new chemicals for consumers seems to have since become unpopular.
In addition to that, there is increasing leanness of companies’ operations. A very big deal is “outsourcing a lot of jobs to contract organizations in India and China,” as scout59 said. The production of chemicals (like other manufacturing) has been largely shifted to countries where it is cheaper to make them. The manner of producing these chemicals is probably well established.
Jobs difficult to send overseas are analyses of food and environmental materials that have to be done quickly. However, I have seen increased use of people with negligible or no chemistry education doing the analytical testing in environmental labs. (You don’t really need to know much chemistry to do these procedurally fixed tests, and the lab owners were sure to find that out someday.) Still another thing is the drive to have as few full-time, permanent people as possible, because of the health insurance and other costs associated with them.
http://chemjobber.blogspot.com/2012/04/bls-historical-estimates-of-job-growth.html shows the decline in people employed as chemists from 96,000 to 82,200 during 1998-2010.
(I have many times cited Bureau of Labor Statistics projections of occupations’ job growth on these forums. However, I have come across signs that the BLS is sometimes quite off the mark. The table at the cited webpage is hard proof there’s reason to avoid depending on BLS predictions, because early in the period covered by the table it predicted large growth in chemist jobs in the US, but what happened is decline.)
There is nothing wrong with going into medicine and not wanting to deal with patients you can teach, do pathology, be an anaesthesiologist as people are easier to deal with when they are unconscious.
The only research route I feel comfortable endorsing is MD/PhD. That way if research doesn’t work out as a means to pay the bill which it doesn’t for a great many people you can still practice medicine.
@jjwinkle : I actually come from India, and while jobs in IT and other engineering sectors are booming (thus proving detrimental to the US) its not really the same case with pharma 
Pharma has never been, and will prob never be a big industry in India unless the rules change…the role that pharmacists play in the US simply put, don’t exist in India…so the only role that someone with a Pharm D has is that of research (or academics)…and so most go to the US for jobs, although that’s changing fast because of the situation in the US too. I’m def not an expert at this tho, so I may be wrong.
@MSChemist81 : I do still have four years before I finally decide, so let’s see. I’ve actually researched all the options that you’re talking about and asked around on sdn a bit, but most say that its not a good idea to waste so much money, time and energy on a mostly patient-centric profession when I have no intention of treating patients. Most were downright rude about it But I’m taking their advice with a pinch of salt so…maybe in the next 4 years, I’ll find out for myself whether I would really enjoy research or would be happier seeing patients. Its not that I have a serious problem with seeing patients or anything, from what I’ve seen so far, it just seems a bit mundane, and I’m not really a “people’s person” so I don’t know if I’ll be comfortable listening to people mostly complain, day in, day out. So I’ll see in the next 4 years
You may want to look into Chemical Engineering. Job prospect are very good, and as a student there are opportunities for internships during summers to help narrow down what you want to do when you graduate.
My mom is a chemical engineer,so I do know what it’s like It has very little chemistry, and mostly maths and physics…I am good at neither of them Some do work in biotech/pharma, but I really have no interest in the other fields they work in. Besides, as a major, its quite a hard one, and would probably squash any hopes of med school that I might have
Please, posters, state what part of the world you are in/will be working in in your first post, or even better, thread title. You will get non-relevant comments otherwise. Hopefully, some US readers got some use out of the comments.
Its ok, because I’m an US citizen, actually. And I plan on working in the US, so its all cool
The Onion ran a satire piece on Chem job prospects.
http://cenonion.blogspot.com/2014/12/chemistry-jobs-plentiful-and-well.html
You know your major has hit rock bottom when the Onion starts mocking it.