The Chemportal

The central point of this article is to emphasize that academia-your school- is not going to endow you with the skillsets that are deemed by the industry to be fundamental.  If academia were the least bit aware of what students would need when going out into the job field and was concerned about it, there would be a standard year to year training for all in the areas of 

Analytical Instrumentation and Organic synthesis.  These two skillsets are fundamental in the Georgia industry.

Academia trains you for graduate school.  Both Academia and Industry have their own standards of what is fundamental and both are oblivious to each other’s fundamentals.  Many new graduates in Georgia , and perhaps the US , won’t be able to obtain jobs at the chemist level because they don’t have a good deal of experience with either of these skills, and most of the scarce amount of entry level positions that arise are going to be filled by graduates from Asia e.g. India , who have had a lot of experience working with them at their country and who are compensated at an entry level salary when the employer offers citizenship assistance.  The few internships that are available at the universities are filled quickly.  Those positions which actually do help one develop industry skills are scarce.  Those who don’t get internships and gain valuable and extensive experience with these two skills won’t get jobs here in Georgia as chemists. 

If the positions at your school are filled up for these types of internships then find another major.

It is then a wonder on why academia has an public image as being connected to the industry.  Hmm … maybe it’s because

PEOPLE GET DEGREES TO GET BETTER JOBS 

… People expect degrees to enhance their job placement in the industry i.e. higher wages. Yes chemistry academia is one of those sectors where there are no established programs that train individuals for the skillset that they need to find a job as a chemist.  An certificate of training as an electrician means that person is prepared to be employed as an electrician.  Why isn’t this the case with chemistry?  Every single person who has a degree in chemistry should have some basic skillsets that are fundamental to the industry and should be employable right away as a chemist.

Perhaps this is the case only in Georgia.

When I graduated with my BS Chemistry degree, I expected that there would be some level of connectness between academia and the industry,  90 percent of the theories that I learned were dispensible for employment. Now I’m not certain on why I was schooled on all of these theories.  I’m still good with them however no one seems to care.  Thus it’s academia with theories, theories, theories yet industry has no respect whatsoever for these theories; in fact the less theory the better, the standard format for understanding industry is simply - what works and what does not.   The simpler the better.

There are some other routes.  One can get far in industry with good method development skills.  No chemical theory needed here, just what works and what doesn’t.  It can all be discovered in the literature and if you have the reading comprehension score on the MCAT of a medical student you can succeed in finding useful information.  And then with some distinguished awards one can move up to management and onward upwards.  If you are a recent graduate who is not equipped with the industry skills and you have not had an opportunity to impress anyone with your good method development skills then you are most likely going to work your way up as a technician or at the best a research associate.  With experience in the latter one can also move up to becoming an entry level chemist; this is the route that I have taken to become a process chemist.  Frankly, I would rather be something else as there are more interesting positions available elsewhere ; this position does not involve a lot of the chemical theories that I’ve spent a considerable amount of my life (4 years) learning to obtain a 3.8 gpa.  In case some of you don’t know ,  process chemists don’t deal a lot of theory, much time is spent skimming the literature of research done by other people and testing the experiments all for a minor enhacement to a  product  e.g. covalently attaching additives to surfaces .  

My advice to all who still wish to pursue a bachelors in chemistry is to form connections, good connections.  Your gpa in chemical theory i.e. your degree , won’t mean anything unless you plan to pursue a masters degree.  Don’t study to get an A, a C is just fine unless one plans to attend graduate school. 

As for me, my plans are to hopefully land the lucrative position of working at local universities to add some analytical instrumentation experience to my resume, that is, if they are going to hire me, even for $ 8.00 an hour.