<p>I'm in my second year in CC with a 3.7 GPA, hoping to transfer to UCLA next year.<br>
My ultimate goal is to become a pharmacist.</p>
<p>I am very interested in mathematics, statistics, and chemistry. I had a wonderful chemistry teacher in my high school, so I have always wanted to major in chemistry. I get all the theoretical concepts and all but I am very lousy in doing the hands-on lab. I write pretty good lab reports if someone else gathers the data tho. :0 </p>
<p>So if I were to major in chemistry, will I be having a hard time at UCLA?
Should I just major in math? I do love to play with numbers..</p>
<p>Or... be a chem eng major where there is far less lab work while combining the the two things (chem & math) I love? </p>
<p>What would be the best major choice for me? :0</p>
<p>If you really do love chem and math…go with chemical engineering. But its a hard major. Very math and physics intensive (read: a lot more engineering than chemistry).</p>
<p>Math major is too narrow, and job opportunities are not that good in case you don’t get into a pharmacy program.</p>
<p>Agree analytical chemistry is more of a grad major, and it is ALL about being able to do your own labs with minimal error (and the lab reports become quite a bit of work when you start factoring a whole slew of possible errors).
I am a math/chem double major, I would say if you are just looking for a degree to get while you are attempting to get into Pharmacy school than math would be good especially if you like it, but as Mr. Bojangles said, job opportunities can be slim if you end up having to rely on just a math degree. On the other hand, a lot of chemistry is needed for pharmacy so it might be best to go with a chem degree so you have a strong background, but a lot of stuff is covered as a chem maj. (genchem, O chem, A chem, P chem, advanced inorganic chem) and you might not need it all and then you may get stuck in a class saying “I really hate this and I don’t even need it to be a pharmacist but I’m just going to stick it out in chemistry because I’m to far in to back out now” (read: all my chem friends that actually just want to be dentists.)
You definitely have to love both of them to major in them.
Math majors also get the added bonus of not having labs (I spend 10 hours a week in lab right now (just for class, not any research), really eats up your time). </p>
<p>I wouldn’t recommend Chem Eng if you are just wanting to be a pharmacist, but if you did major in it and decided not to be pharmacist you would have a pretty fullproof backup plan as chemical engineers get snatched up pretty quickly and make A LOT of money out of school (as I am dutifully reminded by mathematician friends, chemist friends, and my parents, they make a whole more than I’ll ever make)… but so do pharmacists, so you’re set either way on that one.</p>
<p>haha I would never major in something like Analytical Chemistry, not to mention it doesn’t exist as a major. It’s basically training for 4 years to get a boring and repetitive job.</p>