<p>I'm thinking about becoming a pharmacist or a chemist, but wanted to go into the research part of them. Which one is easier to get into research?</p>
<p>Chemist of course, since you’ll be doing research as part of your PhD. If you’re interested in research surrounding drugs, pharmacology may be more of what you’re looking for than pharmacy.</p>
<p>This may be helpful:</p>
<p>[PharmCAS</a> - Pharmacy vs. Pharmacology](<a href=“http://www.pharmcas.org/advisors/pharmacypharmacology.htm]PharmCAS”>http://www.pharmcas.org/advisors/pharmacypharmacology.htm)</p>
<p>I would advise against getting a strict chemistry degree or a Ph. D especially.</p>
<p>You spend 5-7 years earning 15k. You have a 50/50 chance of completing the Ph. D. (less in really bad program) Success has more to do if you find a PI who really cares about you and mentors you rather than the many jerks who just use grad students as cheap labor. When you graduate you will probably end up post doc’ing. From there you can either try for academia which there are very long odds or Industry which is a bit better. Most Ph. D’s encounter severe job issues. There is 1 opening for every 3 to 10 candidates. You are overqualified for research associate positions. Your chances of getting hired in an unrelated field are very low as they consider you 1. over-qualified 2. an academic who has no idea how the real world works. A lot of people have their careers dead end in their late 30’s and have to start over again. </p>
<p>There is a reason why native born Americans are a very small minority in most graduate programs in science. People get it. It is a bad deal.</p>
<p>Contrast that with a pharmacist who spends 4 years studying and earns nearly 6 figures right out of school and can live anywhere. The choice is a no-brainer.</p>
<p>just have to learn to market yourself with a chemistry degree. technical knowledge is necessary but not sufficient. a pharmD might limit you to just working as a pharmacist, but people with chemistry degrees recieve alot of transferable skills (this is where marketing yourself comes in; my boss has a Physical Chemistry PhD and he’s the general manager). This assumes you actually like chemistry though.</p>
<p><a href=“https://acscareers.■■■■■■■■■■■■■/2008/08/04/why-would-you-study-chemistry/[/url]”>https://acscareers.■■■■■■■■■■■■■/2008/08/04/why-would-you-study-chemistry/</a></p>
<p>Except employers don’t want transferable skills they want direct skills with experience. With a pharmacy degree you will have an almost guaranteed well paying job.</p>
<p>With a chemistry degree you can either be a tech for $15 an hour with a job search that will be H#ll on earth. I have an MSc. and am looking into getting an accounting degree or something else that will get me a job that pays 40k with benefits. Heck I even took the police exam because anything would be better than being a lab jerk.</p>
<p>I’d take ACS articles and data with a real grain of salt. They have an agenda of promoting people to get science degrees regardless of whether those people get good jobs or leave the field in disgust. As a result, a lot of their articles have more spin than a centrifuge and their salary data comes only from their very satisfied members (people who have likely managed to have a good job/career at least at the time they took the survey).</p>
<p>That sucks. What was your concentration in, and what thesis did you write?</p>
<p>My concentration was on protein biochemistry/molecular biology. My thesis was on membrane binding protein domains.</p>
<p>my udnerstanding of the field is that if you want to move into drug deve, studying orgo is the best. </p>
<p>and getting a phd does make you overqualified, but it’s not a bad thing. getting a college degree over-qualifies you to ask “would you like fries with that?” as a career. people with phds tend to be terrible at taking orders and doing the mindless stuff required of “normal” jobs. they want something exciting. and having gone through a phd, you do deserve better.</p>
<p>getting just a bs in chem does kind of limit you to be a lab tech/quality engr. basically, a lab b*tch. at my school, (supposedly one of the best in graduate orgo chem), ive not heard of anyone having trouble getting a job post graduation (who did the phd program). they dont make 6 figures, but they make a good middle class lifestyle.</p>
<p>sshoe was right- most native americans dont get phds anymore. if you want money, phds are terrible investments. but you shouldnt decide to get a phd just because of the money. (living is an issue, but like i said, most people tend to have middle;upper middle class lifestyles).
another fact: a large reason why immigrants came to get graduate degrees- the only way to get a visa into america.
and, for whatever reason, i’ve never seen people really get a master’s in science. most people i know who have masters in science did it because a. they dropped out of the phd program and got a consolation prize or b. they were changing fields and couldnt get into a phd program directly.
and really, most of a master’s degree is just coursework. at my school, the thesis aspect of a master’s degree is just whatever your phd proposal is.</p>
<p>Ouch. The biochemistry stuff doesn’t seem too employable right now. My boss did his PhD in physical chemistry, thesis was something to do with scanning tunneling microscopes and alloys, and ended up doing pretty well, managing lab drones like me and talking down to accountants and sales engineers.</p>
<p>There is great upheaval in the pharma industry and it seems unlikely to recover anytime soon. Most of their valuable patents are up and few new drugs are in the works. I was told protein therapeutics was a rising star, which is why I went in to protein biochemistry but so far it hasn’t been at all useful. </p>
<p>My bio chem seems somewhat helpful where I work in the food industry, but it is kind of a dead end and pays very badly. Also, they prefer food science majors for the flavorist and product development type role which are more desirable than the analytical roles. </p>
<p>I’m focusing on getting a Federal govt job, getting into regulatory affairs, and just getting a job outside of the field. I’ve been looking at business analyst and consulting roles that have been mentioned but those seem to be for computer science majors they typically have programming and modeling requirements.</p>
<p>Right now I am leaning towards getting an inexpensive Master of Science in Accounting and getting a CPA.</p>
<p>Here is an article I found interesting about chemists discussing career changes</p>
<p><a href=“http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2010/08/11/if_youre_not_a_chemist_what_next.php[/url]”>http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2010/08/11/if_youre_not_a_chemist_what_next.php</a></p>
<p>Think about work in small pharma; flavorist and formulations always need people… or at worst there’s always QC tech.</p>
<p>I don’t believe any of that bio stuff will ever have any results. That’s why I decided to dump my bio degree, none of the biological therapeutics will work, too much input for too little output. You hit it spot on: big pharma is sinking.</p>
<p>Consider finance. MS Financial Engineering/Financial Math seems quite marketable.</p>
<p>QC tech… blah you’d be better off working as a garbageman. They make ~70k. A QC tech makes ~$15 an hour without benefits around here.</p>
<p>I’ve also noticed the small companies are often the worst when it comes to pay. I interviewed with one a while back and they made me an offer 30% lower than I currently make (I was employed at the time and they knew my current salary). I had a hard time keeping a straight face and not cussing them out after 3 interviews.</p>
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<p>Would it be possible in a Biochemistry program to take electives to be qualified for flavorist and product development jobs? If so, what type of courses would that be? Would doing internship(s) in the food industry help a undergrad Biochem major? Thanks.</p>
<p>Well you need something on your resume that indicates an expertise relevant to the food industry or of course knowing someone/having someone that can pave your way can compensate. </p>
<p>Knowing the citric acid cycle and the structure of proteins is not that impressive for food formulations. You need to know how processing technology, the manufacturing processes work and which sugars, fats, proteins, preservatives, binders etc are blended to give food products the desired tastes/colors/smells/consistencies/textures. </p>
<p>I’d say an MS with research is the only way to do that. chem and biochem graduates are a dime a dozen.</p>
<p>Pharmacist is no cake walk either. I considered this, but after doing more research, the field of pharmacy is following the same path as law—that is there is a vast oversupply of graduates for the number of positions available. Soon PharmDs will be scrambling with 100s of thousands of dollars in debt and unable to find jobs just like tons and tons of newly minted JDs these days. You are playing with fire pursuing the PharmD because you are forced to take out massive amounts of loans with subsequent bleak outlooks on job prospects after you graduate. Walgreens, the biggest employer of PharmDs in this country, is starting to implement a program called POWER where customers can simply call in orders to a central location which will then ship the prescription to the store the next day for pick up. This way Walgreens can hire less PharmDs, which are expensive. New PharmD grads will have fierce competition not only from other new graduates, but also from all of the unemployed PharmDs that have experience. I wouldn’t gamble $120k in student loan debt for that. Even if you do get a job, many, many PharmDs get burnt out badly working in retail.</p>
<p>A PharmD is not only a debt risk, it is inflexible. With a PharmD you just know Pharmacy. That’s it. With a PhD in even Chemistry, as long as it has nothing to do with organic or biology, you’ll be learning alot of math. Physical Chemistry, Materials Science and Inorganic Chemistry will force you to wade through things like solid state physics, thermodynamics, stat mech, phase transformations, physical optics, electronics, quantum chemistry, programming, etc. which can all be applied to Finance. Once you join the global financial superhumans on Wall Street, you’ll become a living god.</p>