What chemistry grads do in Academia

flemmyd
Sun, 24 Apr 2011 08:42:06 +0000

$11x40=$440 per week x 52=$23k per year assuming no health care costs and taxes are taken out. Yeah that’s borderline poverty.



Something that seems to be missing from the discussion is whether any of these chem B.S. do anything to earn more then any other high-school drop out job.

I knew several people that worked at Dow chemical before coming to graduate school. One of the things they pointed out was the lab monkeys didn’t have/need any type of college education-- and why would you? A lot of the work was cheap labor. Follow directions and mix/collect/isolate chemicals as told by instructions. Computers recorded all the data and it some paper pushed upstairs put it into an excel chart. It was the lab manager (who had a PhD) who made any decisions.
Of course, these lab monkeys all got their B.S. funded by the company when they realized they a. could get more money and b. if they ever lost their job, they’d have to compete with recent college grads and would be screwed!
But not one of them did their job better. And how would knowing the vibrational modes of ethane be useful? they never did any analysis. that all went upstairs.

And also, what kind of job do you expect in science without a PhD? The whole purpose of a PhD is that they can do original research and lead teams/etc. If all you have is a BS/MS, why would any company give you any authority? Did you think running an HPLC was going to become magically entertaining after the 5000x time?
The only place I could see this is a smaller startup where the B.S. could showcase their independence and thinking skills.