<p>You’re going to need to get a PhD if you don’t want to end up doing someone elses bullcrap work. There are exceptions to what I’m about to say, but you must remember they are exceptions</p>
<p>BS graduates work as lab technicians…almost always.</p>
<p>Wherever you end up working, you’re most likely going to be in a team under a principal investigator or team leader. Now lets say your team is trying to find a new drug that will fight drug resistant bacteria…the person with the BS will be synthesizing all of the theoretical compounds, doing the majority of the actual laboratory work. The person with the MS will take all of the synthesized compounds and subsequently test them all on the bacteria…still a lot of work. The person with the PhD interprets the data and organizes it for future publications/research projects…not that much work and they get paid the most.</p>
<p>If you like doing the grunt work for less than 40k a year, then stick with the BS…but if you actually want to delve into novel research & development you should go straight from a BS to graduate school and get your PhD. Going to work for a few years is only for people who actually can’t get into grad school at the time or don’t know how much it sucks to just have a bachelors in chemistry.</p>