<p>Would be nice to have more than “decent” university (opinions of that obviously vary). Can you categorize by a range in the USNWR rankings? (say, top 10 university, in 10-20 range for 2010 rankings, etc.).</p>
<p>And… I think most people on this thread readily acknowledge that you won’t get a very good job with just an undergrad degree in the sciences. And… that is what you seem to have. It doesn’t mean students should not major in those subjects, but they obviously need to be aware of the need for additional education. I see nothing wrong with your path. A chem major, a few years of work experience, on to grad school in a related topic.</p>
<p>Top 75 according to USNWR, but school ranking doesn’t mean squat inindustry after you get work experience. I don’t even highlight much about my undergrad school anymore after all the work experience I’ve gotten. The best work I found after getting laid off-- temp and qc garbage. And PhDs have a hard time finding decent work these days that isn’t temp work also. You’d be surprised, the majority of scientists in the chemical and bilogical sciences in industry are BS/MS level, not phds. R and D is toast. The jobs aren’t coming back. In the 70s, 80s, and 90s BS/MS scientists could find decent work that pays a livable wage with benfits. No all that’s left are terrible temp jobs and mundane qc/analytical garbage. Even if you decide to go straight to grad school, you’ll be competing with 30 other phd applicants that have way more experience than you do for the position. At the rate I’m going, ill be lucky to be making $40k when I’m 40. If I would have known that, I wouldn’t have wasted my time on college getting a worthless science degree or wasted all that money on student loans and instead would have become an electrician making $70k after overtime and with no student loan debt. There’s nothing left for young scientists anymore just bottom of the barrell garbage. Not every person who goes into science wants a phd either.</p>
<p>The best part when I was looking for a new job after getting laid off was from a company offering a job for $10/hr. I guess that’s what a college degree in science plus 5 years experience gets you these days–$10/hr job offers.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Specifically what college(s) did you attend?
A pretty good state university for undergrad and grad</p></li>
<li><p>What was your major?
BSc. Biochem MSc. Chem studying proteins</p></li>
<li><p>What was your overall GPA and GPA within your major?
3.6</p></li>
<li><p>What year did you graduate (just trying to get a feeling for your ages)?
BSC 2003 MSC 2008</p></li>
<li><p>What research experiences did you have during summers before college/during college?
extensive research experience on proteins mol Biol, cell Bio microbio, analytical chem</p></li>
<li><p>What jobs have you held in your field since graduating?
Temp Chemist and temp Chemist II</p></li>
<li><p>Did you originally intend to go to med school? Did you actually apply to med schools – why or why not?
No I don’t like blood or the idea of working with flesh nor working with patients.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Grave, just a question. Why BME, instead of something related to chemistry like materials science or chemical engineering? BME is related to bio which is 10x worse than being related to chemistry.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Specifically what college(s) did you attend?
Top 50 public research university</p></li>
<li><p>What was your major?
BS Chem, Materials Science.</p></li>
<li><p>What was your overall GPA and GPA within your major?
3.3 Chem 3.7 Materials</p></li>
<li><p>What year did you graduate (just trying to get a feeling for your ages)?
Graduating 2012</p></li>
<li><p>What research experiences did you have during summers before college/during college?</p></li>
</ul>
<p>1 year in a neurobio lab. Horrible experience.
1 month so far in an polymer processing lab.</p>
<ul>
<li>What jobs have you held in your field since graduating?</li>
</ul>
<p>N/A not graduated. Held an internship as analytical intern at chemical company. Going to work felt extremely painful every morning.</p>
<ul>
<li>Did you originally intend to go to med school? Did you actually apply to med schools – why or why not?</li>
</ul>
<p>According to career surveys, it appears that, for job and career prospects:</p>
<p>Chemical Engineering > Materials Engineering >> Biology or Chemistry</p>
<p>Also, Physics >> Biology or Chemistry, although many Physics graduates get recruited into finance, computer software, etc. rather than physics jobs.</p>
<p>Well what am I supposed to do? The only other viable field for me would be engineering, which does have better job prospects than science. </p>
<p>-Can’t do mechanical without having to go back and start all over
-Can’t do electrical/computer without having to start over
-Can’t do chemical without basically starting all over again. Chemical engineering is also getting slammed right now and I don’t know if it’ll ever recover.</p>
<p>The only other viable field for someone with my background was BME. Specifically I thought I’d go into drug delivery and polymer nanoparticle platforms that can be used for drug delivery purposes as well as for medical imaging. The only field of engineering I could get into without having to start all over again was BME. You can also get biomaterials training in BME. </p>
<p>Hey, it could be another bust, who knows. I have no idea what I’m supposed to do though. I’m a creator and builder, I’m not going to go off and do finance, banking, medicine, law, pharmacy, etc. Yeah sure you can make a lot of money in those fields, but those fields don’t create real wealth. They only serve needs of people. The people that really create wealth and prosperity address the needs of nations as a whole through creation, innovation, and technology. The US clearly doesn’t value it anymore which is why you constantly see federal money for student loans and grants, NIH, etc being slashed even though they represent less than 3% of all government spending. Meanwhile the bloated ass Pentagon is allowed to waste $700 bn of our tax payer dollars every year on useless causes. Even if you wanted to start your own company here to create your own work it is very difficult. High start up costs because the government will do little to help you out. Tons of red tape. Inefficient government agencies that take forever to approve your ideas for the market because those agencies too are being chopped down through budget cuts and layoffs. The whole system here is a mess. That’s fine, I won’t play that game. After I’m out of grad school you won’t find me wasting time with a post doc so that some associate professor can just pump up his resume in order to gain tenure all while paying you $35k/ year in salary and no health care for your spouse. I’ll just move somewhere else where they are spending tremendous amounts of money actually building things, investing in ideas and their people, and creating high tech cutting edge jobs. This day in age, a good scientist has to think for themselves on a GLOBAL level, not just here. If no one wants to fairly employ your here, then it is time to move. And believe me there are countries out there that are dying to take in the best and brightest minds in the world and are backing up all of their talk with real dollars in spending on R and D.</p>
<p>Yup. That’s pretty much all that’s out there for chem grads. Horrible monotonous QC work or analytical work doing method development. </p>
<p>Why do you all think you see so many listings for work like this out there for chemists? Because the work is horrible and turnover is high, so companies constantly have to rehire people to do terrible low paying analytical work.</p>
<p>Don’t try to lump in engineers with the suffering scientists and imply that they’re even in the same category as you. Engineering continues to be in demand. If it weren’t, there wouldn’t be hordes of companies in my average state university’s career showcase every semester looking for engineers for well-paid internships and full-time jobs. This is not the case for science majors, but engineering remains a worthwhile degree.</p>
<p>I think one good thing about Chemistry major combined with some math (like a minor in Math in my case) is that it is quantitative enough to get you into interesting graduate programs. I’m looking to apply for M.S in either Applied Math or Statistics some years after having some job experience unrelated to Chemistry. I feel much more comfortable with math now and should’ve majored in Applied Math from the beginning. I’m graduating this May so I can’t really do that because I don’t want to stay a few more years at school because I’m so burned out XD. I’m taking this senior year Advanced Lab course, which I absolutely hate with several hours of lab about techniques I absolutely don’t care about lol. Ahh thank god it’s almost over!</p>