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This is a burning question at this time of year with UCAS applications just around the corner, you are having to select what you are going to do for the next three years and potentially the rest of your life. I hold a chemistry degree and am still using it on a daily basis, but is chemistry a good degree to have?
What does a chemistry degree offer?
You get your money’s worth
Unlike many other degree options, you will have around 20 contact hours a week. A combination of lectures, seminars, workshops and labs, chemistry is among the top degrees for contact hours, similar to medicine, dentistry and veterinary. Contact hours don’t include the time you should be spending doing independent study whether that be in the library or at home. Studying chemistry you will find you are in university far more than some of your peers in halls. The benefit of this is you will find you make friends with people on your course relatively quickly as you spend so much time together, and there’s nothing that helps to forge a relationship than an unexpected experiment explosion.
You get practical experience
There is a lot of focus on the practical element of chemistry at university and you will learn skills that surpass those at A-level or IB chemistry. Don’t panic if you are worried about your practical abilities from school, due to the mixed experience of students, you re-learn all the skills again. In most universities for your first year you spend 1 day a week in the lab doing practical chemistry, by your 3rd or 4th year, you might spend most of your time in the lab occasionally nipping out to a lecture or seminar. You will get an overview of all practical areas, gradually becoming more proficient in one research area, therefore you may find analytical chemistry – coding far more to your taste than organic chemistry – making things.
Options for further development
There are many different variants of chemistry degrees, I had friends who completed a Bsc remaining at university the entire time, those that chose an Erasmus at universities in different countries and I was fortunate to have a placement year with GlaxoSmithKline, where I gained real-world experience as an industrial placement student. This can give you more scope and experience and is a fantastic way to break up your degree. Chemistry also offers an option to gain an MChem, an undergraduate master's degree which is completed in 4 years, regardless of if you take a placement year or not.
Dissertation
No matter the degree, most are expected to write a dissertation (10-12,000 word essay) at the end. This is also true of chemistry, however, unlike other degrees, your dissertation will be focused on your lab-based research. For some you may be making compounds that have never been made before, researching treatments for medical diseases, proposing new chemical reactions or identifying the crystal patterns of different compounds. Your choice in research is driven by your interests and you will be working as part of a team, collaborating together to achieve a similar goal. Your dissertation is a great opportunity to highlight the progress you have made toward your research area, and identify areas for further research, for some, they will continue this research well into their post-grad.
Why do people pick to study chemistry?
I enjoy it!
Whilst you shouldn’t base your degree choice on other people, it can be comforting to know you have similar reasons for selecting your degree. In a small survey conducted by The Chemistry Program 75% of those that answered, picked to study chemistry because it was their favourite subject in school. This is certainly a brilliant reason to pick any subject, as it will help to keep you driven when you might be at risk of losing interest.
I want a good job
The other 25% selected chemistry for the post-degree career prospects. Now anyone who says they’ve studied chemistry will usually be met with the response, you’re clever aren’t you? Whilst this isn’t necessarily the case, it can look good on paper when in a job interview.....well maybe not if you're going for a role as a creative theatre director, but I’ve never applied for that kind of role so I wouldn't know. Research chemistry is an obvious route to take with a chemistry degree, but there are plenty of other careers out there where chemistry is a brilliant degree to have including; environmental scientist, forensics, teaching, food science and patent law. The skills you acquire throughout your degree will also be useful in "unrelated" fields particularly roles with an analytical focus such as business analysts, financial auditing or data scientist to name a couple. RSC have created some brilliant videos and resources to explore a future in chemistry which I would highly recommend you have a look at to gain more insight into a chemistry related careers.
Taking chemistry certainly does not guarantee you a job at the end, however, this is also true with the majority of degrees. You may decide at the end, that chemistry isn't the field you want to stay in, but you will have learnt skills, throughout this degree that you will never forget and continue to use, even if you don't always see it.
It's all up to you!
No-one can tell you what to study at university, you will be studying the subject you choose for at least 3 years if not longer, so it’s important to make a decision based on what you want and what you will enjoy. If you’re not sure about what to do next, speak to your chemistry teacher, someone who knows you well or if you'd like to ask me a question, I'd be more than happy to try and answer it, just click the link below.
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