hondo Posted June 10, 2009 Share Posted June 10, 2009 after reading a lot of post, some of you guys must either have a major or PhD in chemistry or work in the chemical industry I never really got my hands around chemistry in college, to me it was boring but having an interest in pyrotechnics I have learned a lot, maybe if the professor would have discussed the use of chemicals in fireworks I would have listened a lot more Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ventsi Posted June 10, 2009 Share Posted June 10, 2009 Sooo.. useless post much?Try posting this in the random thread . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mumbles Posted June 10, 2009 Share Posted June 10, 2009 I'm glad you're leading by proper example of useful posting. Personally, I'm working on all three of the above options. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arthur Posted June 10, 2009 Share Posted June 10, 2009 Chemistry is too big a subject to know about all of it, but some of the better pyro books will target your knowledge into the pyro area. You probably couldn't see a use for the chemstry in class, but now you have a use for it learn and understand all you can. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarbelly Posted July 27, 2009 Share Posted July 27, 2009 High school student thinking about a future in chemistry atm. Mumbles, what kind of chemistry are you most interested in? Organic, inorganic, physical, or some other type? I'm trying to decide if chemistry is still what I want to do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a_bab Posted July 27, 2009 Share Posted July 27, 2009 Chemistry may not be what you are after since you are not keen about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarbelly Posted July 27, 2009 Share Posted July 27, 2009 yeah maybe... I've been really into chemistry since around 7th grade, and its only been since this summer that I'm not so sure. I'm working in a lab where they synthesize peptide like compounds. I'm just trying to decide whether or not this is just not my type of chemistry, or if chemistry is not my type of science... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mumbles Posted July 27, 2009 Share Posted July 27, 2009 My field of interest is inorganic. Nice colors, interesting chemistry, and you kind of get a mix of all of the other fields. I get to do some organic synththesis, analytical techniques, kinetics on occasion. My research happens to have some biological implications, so you can tie it in too. It's really hard to know where your heart lies until you get to college. You're going to need to take general chemistry for most majors anyway. Don't let it fool you into thinking that it is what chemistry is like. I might be biased, but I wish more people could take an inorganic course. I feel it is the best representation of what chemistry is really like. I'm sure it depends where you go to college. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swede Posted July 27, 2009 Share Posted July 27, 2009 My favorite was organic, because I found the labs to be especially interesting. Organic has a huge influence in two major areas (among others) of modern life... pharmaceuticals, and polymers. The fact that you can literally construct complex molecules from precursors is pretty cool. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of the products is also interesting. I will never forget the first time I ran a Gas Chromatograph and learned how it works. Then, NMR. These were ancient instruments by today's standards. I'm sure the technology is phenominal. The other branches of chemistry I didn't care for as much. Physical Chemistry especially I disliked. The higher the math required, the less I liked it. If you are interested in filthy lucre (aren't we all) - Chemical Engineering should be a strong consideration. Lab vs. Industrial are different beasts. I get the feeling there is far more demand for engineers than researchers. But the thought of designing industrial-scaled processes for useful products is exciting to me. I got my BS degree and there it halted, no graduate degree, because I never used it. I went into the military. In retrospect it was a lot of freaking work when compared to some fluffy BA degree, so if anyone goes for it, be sure it's what you want to do professionally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarbelly Posted July 28, 2009 Share Posted July 28, 2009 Cool thank you both for your advice. I have considered chemical engineering, and I think I will probably give that more thought. I guess I'll just need to do my research beforehand. At the moment I'm not very interested in biological systems, but I wouldn't be very surprised if that changed in the next 5-10 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mumbles Posted July 28, 2009 Share Posted July 28, 2009 You should probably be aware that Chemical Engineering is more engineering and less chemistry. If you're looking into science you may be disappointed. You might want to consider a double major (not that hard), so you have a very wide range of oportunities. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TYRONEEZEKIEL Posted July 28, 2009 Share Posted July 28, 2009 I am also having the same problem. It has been my dream ever since i was a toddler to be in science. It wasnt until i was about 8 did I want to be a chemist for sure! I love lab work and all. But i hear chemical engineering is the way to go. What exactly is a chemical engineer? From what I've gathered, they take work from a chemist and problem solve to find polymers etc... that best fit their task. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mumbles Posted July 28, 2009 Share Posted July 28, 2009 They take work from a chemist, and figure out how to do it on a large scale, at a minimum cost. No research, or any new discoveries as far as most people tell me. It seems more of a material engineering major to me. Heat transfer, flow rates, cooling, permissable emissions of EPA regulated by-products, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flying fish Posted July 28, 2009 Share Posted July 28, 2009 I was extremely interested in Chemistry in high school, but decided to go into the neighboring field of physics due to an interest in optics... Even recently I've considered going into chemistry, but now that I'm in Organic 1...and the first test is named the "fear of god" test, and I've been given a very harsh introduction to reaction mechanisms... I realize just how over my head it would be to cross fields like that. Sure it could be done, but I'd be starting from the ground up. I'm equally interested in photonics and integrated optics, so I think I will probably stick with that field...since I've already worked in the field for several years and I know fair bit about it (at least for an undergrad) and enjoy it quite a bit. The real question is whether I can handle the constant tweaking! You see, in an optics lab, 5% of the work is applying interesting theory, and 95% of it is tweaking and aligning optics, which is rediculously tedious. But now I'm straying from the topic. Actually I don't know what the point of my post was. Hehe...just venting my quarter-life crisis, LOL! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarbelly Posted July 29, 2009 Share Posted July 29, 2009 You should probably be aware that Chemical Engineering is more engineering and less chemistry. If you're looking into science you may be disappointed. You might want to consider a double major (not that hard), so you have a very wide range of oportunities.Yeah, I've heard as much. I've talked with chemists and chemical engineers and the chemists have told me that its not even remotely chemistry, while the CHEM. E's tell me similar things, but from what they've told me it sounds pretty attractive. I even sat in on a chemical engineering lecture at MIT where they were talking about flow rates and such. It seemed fairly interesting to me. I've also heard that it's easier to switch out of engineering than into it, so if I'm unsure, then I should apply for engineering. Any thoughts on that? Not that money matters all that much, but I've also heard it pays more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mumbles Posted July 29, 2009 Share Posted July 29, 2009 It does, at least at first. It evens out after a few years though. There is little pay increase with masters and PhD in Chem E, while there is a solid 10-15 grand a level increase from chemistry. That doesn't much matter to me though. There is a significantly more amount of work for a Chem E, just FYI, and most only do engineering for 5 or 10 years, and then do management after they burn themselves out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarbelly Posted July 29, 2009 Share Posted July 29, 2009 Hmmm... That is very interesting. How did you decide what you wanted to do?I couldn't imagine ever being a manager... but i guess its mostly not really management in the conventional sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrin0630 Posted July 29, 2009 Share Posted July 29, 2009 Hmmm... That is very interesting. How did you decide what you wanted to do?I couldn't imagine ever being a manager... but i guess its mostly not really management in the conventional sense. Management certainly is not for everybody because the focus shifts from applying knowledge and technical skills to people. You have to really enjoy leading and motivatiing people to be successful. However, in may cases, expecially in the area of technology (which I am in) management is where the REAL money is. I decided to go to school for engineering because I love to know how things work. Drove my dad absolutely nuts when I was a kid because I took everything apart. Good luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mumbles Posted July 29, 2009 Share Posted July 29, 2009 Management is management whether you're making glue or selling silverware. Sure there is a bit different knowledge set required for a technical job. Many of the upper management at the company I work at are mechanical engineers. I work at a pharmaceutical research company. With a science or engineering degree, you really gain problem solving skills in addition to technical skills. Well, I've known I wanted to be a chemist for a very long time. I got lucky. Now, what I want to do with said degree is a completely different situation. I have about 2 months to decide between a job, chemistry grad school, pharmaceutical sciences, or pharmacy school. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarbelly Posted July 30, 2009 Share Posted July 30, 2009 And is chemistry everything its cracked up to be in your opinion? I'm just worried I guess that I will be stuck with a position in a biological or pharmaceutical area, which at the moment is not what I desire. I realize that there are many more options for chemists than just that, i guess its just that my dad works in that area and all his friends do too, so I see a very pharmaceutically biased side of science.Wow. Well good luck with that decision. I'm sure either way will turn out good for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mumbles Posted July 30, 2009 Share Posted July 30, 2009 I was honestly suprised at how many options there were. I am mainly interested in pharmaceutical stuff so that is where I have primarily been looking, but there is a lot of other stuff. Theres a software company around here that hires chemistry majors as "problem solvers". It's a medical based software company, but they look for the attention to detail and critical thinking skills more than anything. I might be biased, but just take a few classes in each field you might be interested in. Chemistry, physics, biology, etc. The intro classes will cover a lot, and you might find something there you're interested in. There are usually more advanced classes on those specific topics so you can see if thats what you really enjoy. Whatever you find you like, there is always a career. Well, unless you like philosophy, and then you're screwed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarbelly Posted July 30, 2009 Share Posted July 30, 2009 Well, unless you like philosophy, and then you're screwed. Haha seriously. Alright. Well thanks for your help. I guess I'll just not stress out too much about it. That method usually works for me; don't do it and a little magical fairy will get it done for you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flying fish Posted August 2, 2009 Share Posted August 2, 2009 That's funny because philosophy factories are popping up all over the place around here... By the way, I took a course in philosophy and it almost made me want to kill myself. I think I skipped like 60% of the classes. Aristotle was about the most interesting of all of them, and even he was boring as sterilized dirt to read. Then I stopped reading the "assigned readings" when I found that the professor would still give me a decent grade for papers that were well written, but had little to do with the readings . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swede Posted August 4, 2009 Share Posted August 4, 2009 Philosophy sucks. What it always seemed to boil down to... "Hey kids! Let's play, 'Guess what the teacher wants to hear!' " By definition, there is no right answer in philosophy, the argument simply has to be cogent and sensible. If my philosophy was X and my teacher's was Y, I pretended to be Y to get a good grade. Give me a course where there's one, and only one, right answer. Science, Math, engineering. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarbelly Posted August 5, 2009 Share Posted August 5, 2009 Yeah thats what's so great. A crooked teacher would have to try really hard to grade you down in the sciences if you got the correct answer. In the humanities, it's arbitrary, and the professor's can do whatever the hell they want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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