I’ve read that Biology and Chemistry (and biochemistry) majors are far too common with too little demand. I also noted that biomedical engineering is not very good for job prospects. I was considering chemical engineering but some schools I was interested do not offer it :/. Are there any good science majors for bachelor with good job prospects? I’ve read that mostly for the aforementioned majors, graduate school is recommended, but I would like to have the opportunity to consider getting a job after graduation. Thanks!
Applied math or statistics with appropriate electives, if you are interested in finance or actuarial work.
Given the title of the post, you are either not too keen on physics or were thinking that physics majors are unemployable. That is not the case physics majors are quite employable. You won’t always be working as a physicist but what you learn with the major is attractive to employers in many fields, including software, engineering, financial and so on.
Actually, I’m just more interested in biology and chemistry. I think physics is cool, but not some thing I’d do ( actually I c hear physics majors find employment more readily than chemistr and biologists) .
After thinking, I decided to do a double major of biology or chemistry with engineering or compsci. That way, I’ll have both of what I’d like
Reconsider chemical engineering and perhaps your list of schools of interest.
Biology and chemistry generally are not great at job prospects after graduation, so you need to consider the possibility of moving into an unrelated career direction (like your classmates in many of the humanities) if you major in these subjects.
It is not really hard to get work with a bachelor’s in chemistry, at least not in the region I’m familiar with (Northern California). My B.A. in chemistry has gotten me a lot of opportunities. But I will say this, because it’s really important: If you do want to work directly with samples (i.e. be a “bench” chemist), get hands-on experience with the sophisticated instruments that are used in industry a lot, i.e. GCMS, HPLC. Essentially all the bench jobs in my region for bachelor’s chemists are in analytical work, and the premium jobs for both prestige and money are the ones operating sophisticated instrumentation. Experience with these instruments is hard to get at most universities, but there are exceptions like the University of Wisconsin at Madison, which has about 15 instrumental courses that undergrads can take, so it pays to choose your university on the basis of actual courses offered. If you make sure you do a few such courses, you will have no trouble getting a job.
One sees a lot of people with chemistry bachelor’s degrees doing peripheral work as, e.g. project managers, quality assurance officers, laboratory document managers, technical salespeople, but this may be because they are at least as happy doing that as doing bench chemistry. And the work they do also is critically important. Bench chemistry is almost always routine/repetitive. In fact, I have worked in labs where a lot of the people doing manual bench chemistry have no degree at all (and doing the same work as someone who skipped college altogether can be somewhat exasperating). I think the boringness is more of a problem than whether you can get a job.
Science bachelor’s degrees with really great prospects for employment are clinical lab technology CLT) and, of course, nursing. There are colleges that offer bachelor’s in clinical lab technology and provide the practical experience in it for one to readily get a CLT license. I found universities offering it at mymajors.com.
@jjwinkle thanks for your insight! I did not consider the prospects of a CLT license/ technology classes. Those will definitely be nice classes to take, both for prospects and content