<p>I'm currently trying to get a physics internship over the summer. Right now, I'm working with a professor on proteins extractions, purifications and crystallizations. I wanted to do something that has to do with physics and chemistry only, but somehow wounded up doing biology stuff. I'm not fond of biology at all, especially bacteria. The processes all take so much waiting and it's super duper boring. I want to work with physics, chemistry and possible aerospace to help me decide my major and interest.</p>
<p>so has anyone worked in a physics/chemistry/aerospace lab before? (I'm not even sure the third one exists.) If so, what do you do in it?</p>
<p>I was a chem major in college. My independent study & associated internship was “The Applicability of Polarography and Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometry in Elemental Analysis of Europium and Ytterbium in Binary Hydride Compounds”.</p>
<p>Glad you asked?</p>
<p>It was actually pretty interesting. The professor I worked with was trying to figure out different ways to synthesize the binary hydrides, and my job was to figure out the best methods for determining the elemental analysis.</p>
<p>That was during undergrad. I really loved it.</p>
<p>Then I went to grad school for my PhD in chemistry, and I lasted one month. I hated it. But it was probably because I was in Texas and I’m a born-bred-raised Yankee. I took my first stipend check 30 days after I got there and drove back home as fast as I could. I got a speeding ticket in Virginia, and I considered it money well spent.</p>
<p>I would also appreciate advice about engineering majors like chem e, aerospace and mechanical engineering. Someone grad student told me that chem e is not chemistry whatsoever. He switched to chemistry major.</p>
<p>Also, he along with a few others complained that chem e was too much factory work. I DO NOT want to do that. I want to design and use my brain. Do something big. The lab I work in right now spends TONs of time just waiting around. The ultimate goal is to find out how to inhibit this specific protein and sell this information to drug companies… and that’s the entire project… I don’t want to the same things over and over. I’d rather do com sci…</p>
<p>You’re right, I didn’t hate chemistry, I hated where I was located. I was a fish out of water.</p>
<p>I came back to the northeast and found a fantastic job in a lab at a large aerospace manufacturing plant. Made great money, really enjoyed the work.</p>
<p>Switched to environmental chemistry several years later at a new place. And several years after that I got tired of dipping my hands in hazardous waste, so I learned a very important lesson: certain skills are transferable, and will enable you to start a new career.</p>
<p>My chem major and work experience gave me a great math background, and I was able to switch careers midstream, barely losing any salary. So there’s a good lesson to be learned from this.</p>