Chemistry/materials science questions

phospholipase
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 15:56:34 +0000

@beerays Personally, I took the research/grad school route. I was very successful obtaining summer research programs and a research job after graduation. I spent a year doing that and will go to grad school next year. Many of my friends went directly to pharmacy school. I know some people who got jobs in biotech companies. However, I think it really depends on how well you do while at UCLA (taking advantage of research opportunities and getting good grades and recommendations), because I also know some people who struggled a year finding a job. In general, a chemistry degree will get you jobs as research technicians at universities or companies. The good about this is that there are many universities/institutes/companies (provided you live in a research hub, or are willing to relocate). The bad is that many people would also be looking at these jobs, including biology majors, chemical engineers. I don’t mean to deter you from chemistry or the school, but this is what the job climate is like regardless of where you go. I felt like a UCLA education prepared me, whether it was knowing how to navigate post-grad plans or what to expect in the job climate. I joined the chem club that had many presentations, seminars, and informal meetings with professors/biotech recruiters/grad students, so I think that prepared me to know what to expect. I also joined a lab that highlighted what grad school is like. Things can be very unpredictable sometimes, though. I have a friend who graduated in biology after starting in biochemistry, but she worked at the Anderson school of management her whole time at UCLA, and now she’s working full time there.

The classes were fine. I had a number of quality professors. The thing about competitiveness is that it depends on how much you’re willing to work, and how much you care relative to your classmates. It’ll be true for any university and any class. I was at the top of my chem classes and I enjoyed them, so I didn’t feel like it was terribly competitive. I imagine you would get a very different answer from someone who didn’t love chemistry, but decided to do it just “because” or took the classes for degree or pre-med requirements. Your first few quarters of chemistry classes will have 300+ students in the lectures, so yes you’re competing with hundred of other students to get the top grades. In your junior/senior year, you’ll be in classes with numbers closer to 40-100. There will always be at least one pre-med kid in your class, but the good thing for you is that they’ll be concentrated in the chemistry for life science majors classes, while you’ll be in the 20 series taking the real chemistry classes. However, the biochemistry majors will be in many of your classes in the first two years, so many pre-meds will be there. The pre-meds will try very hard to get the top grades, but in my experience most people in my classes were very nice. I’ve never heard of cut-throat behavior or sabotage. Most of us wanted to help each other and survive in the classes (particularly the oragnic chem labs).