Careers in Chemistry

Level of Education	Starting Salary	Years of College
B.S. in Chemistry	$45,000 – 50,000 per year	4
M.S. in Chemistry	$55,000 – 65,000 per year	4+2
PhD. in Chemistry	$65,000 – 95,000 per year	4+5
B.S. Chemistry + M.D.	$100,00 – 300,000 per year	4+4
B.S. Chemistry + J.D.	$40,000 – 125,000 per year	4+3
B.S. Materials Science	$45,000 – 50,000 per year	5
M.S. Materials Science	$55,000 – 65,000 per year	5+1
Ph.D. Materials Science	$65,000 – 95,000 per year	4+5
B.S. Chemical Engineering	$50,000 – 55,000 per year	5
M.S. Chemical Engineering	$60,000 – 70,000 per year	5+1
Ph.D. Chemical Engineering	$80,000 – 100,000 per year	4+5

College Chemistry Classes

Freshman Year General Chemistry

Sophomore Year Organic Chemistry

Junior Year Physical Chemistry and Biochemistry or Analytical Chemistry

Senior Year Special Topics in Chemistry, Drug Design, Genetics, Research,

Protein Crystallography, Polymers, Materials Science

Pre-med, pre-pharmacy, pre-veterinary, and pre-dental students must take general chemistry and organic chemistry. Most of them choose to take biochemistry because it will help them out a lot when they take the MCAT and when they become doctors.

Organic Chemists

In industry, organic chemists make new chemicals that have never been made before. They also try to find cheaper or safer ways to make large amounts of super expensive chemicals. Most organic chemists work in the pharmaceutical industry. Some work in the semiconductor industry or petroleum industry. Physical organic chemists try to figure out how chemical reactions work.

Biochemists

Most biochemists work in the pharmaceutical industry. Some of them express and purify huge amounts of proteins, others study the effects that new drug candidates have on cells or animals. Many other biochemists work in healthcare. Perhaps the fastest growing industry in California is the biopharmaceutical industry. Biopharmaceuticals are drugs made from biological materials like protein, DNA, RNA, and lipids.

Analytical Chemists

Lots of analytical chemists do quality control work. This means that they use a bunch of fancy instruments like HPLC and GC-MS to make sure that the chemicals their company produces are pure. If a batch of drugs or food has something poisonous in it, the quality control chemist will make sure it is destroyed so that nobody will get poisoned or buy an ineffective product.

Materials Scientists

The core concept of materials science is understanding how the structure of a material controls its properties. Most materials science people work in the semiconductor or defense industry, but recently a lot of pharmaceutical companies want to hire them to make materials for drug delivery. Computer chips contain lots of really fancy materials that must be processed by special methods like chemical vapor deposition, etching, and lithography. You will learn about this when we watch the documentary Silicon Run.

A materials scientist might do the following.

• Discover new materials. Metals for knives, Plastic for car parts, Semiconductors for computer chips, Liposomes for gene therapy, Composites for fighter planes.
• Figure out how to process materials, this means heat treating them, squishing them, polishing them, and doing other things to make them work better.

Chemical Engineers

Chemical engineers usually

• Do process control, which means writing the computer programs that keep a chemical reactor running.
• They design chemical reactors.
• Find ways to scale up reactions, that means they figure out the cheapest way to make a lot of something.

Patent Lawyers

Intellectual property law is about protecting the rights of inventors, scientists, and artists. Patent lawyers file a report with the federal government explaining that their client was the first person to invent a new product or method for doing something. If someone else tries to steal their idea, the patent lawyer will sue them. If someone wants to buy their idea, the patent lawyer will write a licensing contract. To become a patent lawyer, you must earn a science or engineering degree, then go to law school. At the moment, it is very easy to find a job if you are a good patent lawyer. Many experienced patent lawyers make 300 dollars an hour.