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Over the years our chemistry graduates have successfully entered careers in a wide range of professions. The graphic below shows just some of the professions that a degree in chemistry makes available.

Upon graduation, chemistry majors either get a job or go on for further schooling in a graduate professional school. A new B.S. chem graduate who wishes to start working usually starts out with a responsible professional level job in a technical area for a private company or government agency. Two to five years later the graduates usually have advanced in their careers and either get higher level positions in a technical area or they move into other areas such as management or marketing.

Students who choose to go on for more schooling have a wide range of professional schools to choose from. Of course they are qualified to enter masters or Ph.D. programs in chemistry graduate schools. They are also qualified to enter many other types of graduate schools. They are also business, engineering, medical, pharmacology, toxicology, computer science, materials science, biochemistry and more.

A student should know that students are paid to enter graduate programs in science, engineering and math. Yes that is correct, student don't pay tuition, but they are paid a salary to get their graduate degrees. These salaries typically also cover living expenses in the area of the country they are in.

JOBS IN THE CHEMICAL SECTOR AND GOVERNMENT

Chemical Industry

A degree in chemistry opens the doors for many career areas. Many people think that a chemist is only asked to work in a lab with test tubes and make or analyze new chemicals. This view is far from the truth. The range of jobs for a chemist is vast. After all the chemical industry in developed countries is typically the 3rd or 4th largest industrial sector. Companies ask chemists to manage, market, develop budgets and deal with legal, environmental, health/safety issues along with run manufacturing operations, develop new processes, make new materials, computer simulations and analyze existing materials.

The different industries within the chemical industry include pharmaceuticals, polymers/plastics, electro-plating, metallurgy, base industrial materials, materials science, testing, glass, electronics, agrochemicals, colorants and petroleum.

Government

The government (federal, state and local) have all kinds of different jobs for people with a chemistry degrees. The government needs scientists for their labs (eg. Los Alamos and more), writers to update and write regulations, people to interact with industry and the public regarding environmental and health/safety, people to approve new regulations, people to review patents, technical lawyers, managers of technical departments and more.

Future Jobs

Who knows what the future will bring? No one knows for sure, but it is certain that people with chemistry degree will be moving into the jobs of the future. This is because chemistry plays a critical role in the advancement of many fields and technologies. The fast growing field of nano technology is based on being able to synthesize the nano particles that are made up from 50 to 200 atoms. Genetic engineering and bio-chemistry are examples of applied chemistry. A partial list of other medicine, fuel cells (batteries), advanced fiber optics for communications, environmental science, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, metallurgy, patent law, forensics, ceramics and teaching science. People with chemistry degrees will be needed in these fields and technologies as they advance into the future.

OTHER CAREER AREAS