Chemistry Major?

Daric

Ok, this is going to sound dumb, but it's my first year of college next year and I'm a little clueless about what I should do. As of right now, I'm a chemistry major. Except, I'm not sure what I can do with that.

I picked my major based on what I was good at in high school. I made mediocre grades all throughout school except in Chemistry, where I got straight 100's for all the six weeks.

What I really want to do in life is work in special effects for movies or work for Industrial Light and Magic or another similar company.

I guess what I'm asking is, what can I do later in life by majoring in chemistry? Should I switch majors? I'm relatively skilled in Photoshop and I know Maya. Where should I go from here.

Any help at all is appreciated.

D B

Switch majors. Don't pick a major just because you think you were good at it in highschool and would be an easy degree for you. Go to college to learn something new, for you.

Sometimes, we are too good at things that are completely useless to us.




p.s., is your sig animated? The light seems to get brighter and brighter.

Daric

D B wrote: »

Switch majors. Don't pick a major just because you think you were good at it in highschool and would be an easy degree for you. Go to college to learn something new, for you.

Sometimes, we are too good at things that are completely useless to us.




p.s., is your sig animated? The light seems to get brighter and brighter.

If I was to switch Majors, what would I switch to. I'm interested in history, but not really good with names and dates. I mean, I just don't know what I should do. If it helps any, I'm going to the University of Houston next year.

Also, no my sig is not animated. I think the guassian blur gives it the effect that makes it look like it's animated.

The Black Hunter

I think you should go with Chemistry, you are good at it and it would make a great fallback plan.

Other than that, do Media and maybe Art.

Daric

Yeah, I'm not really too sure how college works. Even if I'm taking a chemistry major, I can still take media and art classes right? Because I'm also good at that.

But what else can I do with a chemistry major other than pharmeceuticals?

Chief1138

Maybe it works differently where you'red headed, but to me it sounds like it's way too early to be thinking about a definite major. Most people where I go don't decide for sure until the end of their freshman or sophmore years...you've still got plenty of time to decide because chances are you'll probably spend most of your first year and a half or so finishing the core requirements for your college.

Tomanta

It is not unusual for a freshman/sophomore to switch their majors a time or two (or three). Choose your major based on two things:

1) What you enjoy. For many careers, major matters little compared to degree.
2) What you want to do. Special effects? I'm thinking some sort of engineering, with a good background in physics/engineering, but do some research on your own. ILM? 3d graphics (physics might help here, too). The good news here is that an actual media/arts degree is probably not necessary - just a really, really good portfolio.

As for possible careers in whatever field you choose, either the advisor for the department or the school's career counseling department should be able to help you out with that. Also, most major fields of study have professional associations with websites that list many of the careers you can go into.

EggyToast

I would not use chemistry or any of the hard sciences as a "fall back major" unless you actually care about the field. Hard sciences lead to pretty much no jobs unless you're looking to get a PhD, which are far longer than other PhD programs as they involve benchwork.

If you were good at it and you liked doing experiments and understanding science, then that would be a different story. But it sounds like you're only doing it because you got good grades in it. I would talk to a few different professors at your university, or wait until you transfer to Houston, and see what classes you should be taking for computer based design or graphics.

Ardor

Yeah, I'm not really too sure how college works. Even if I'm taking a chemistry major, I can still take media and art classes right? Because I'm also good at that.

But what else can I do with a chemistry major other than pharmeceuticals?

I'd suggest either finding an internship at a private company or maybe some state/federal agency that uses people with your backgrounds to see what you could really do with the major after school ends. I graduated a few years ago with a chemistry degree and I work in the compliance and registrations field (Regulatory) since they tend to look for people with science backgrounds. I suggest this because many people may enjoy the major, but find out the jobs you get aren't very (or at all) similar to it.

Doing research for your school is fun, but I've found not many people get to do something like that, or at least not to the large range of things I did. You could work on being some type of formulation chemist in any chemical company from doing polymer work with a 3M to working with technologies in the cleaning industry with a P&G etc.

Typically though, and this is fully my opinion, the chemistry I think would be fun and rewarding to do as a career would involve a masters degree or PH.D. That would allow you much more freedom to create your own projects, technologies, etc that you would pass down to the other chemists that would work for you.

I think it might help if you would let us know what you think your goals/expectations are for this college degree, regardless of what it is you end up majoring in. Are you interesting in making a lot of money? Are you interested in enjoying what you do? Did you want more options for relevant higher education options in the future? Not all of those go hand in hand all the time. I also ask this because I personally enjoy my job a lot, but there are many other options I could find that would make me more money in comparison, I just don't know how much I'd enjoy it.

Per your questions about whether you can take other courses. I think I was required to take 60-70% of my total credits in chemistry to get the degree, so I could choose the remaining credits as whatever I wanted. I ended up with a math minor since the degree dictated the need for 20 credits of math, when 24 were necessary for thr minor (4 credits per course).

Buddy Lee

You can always start off college as "undeclared." Your first year of school will be close to all generals regardless of your major, so that will give you plenty of time to think about and do research for different careers.

As a student with an undeclared major, your academic advisor will help you out with the career research. Also, my college has career counseling, which was great for me. I took what is called the "Strong Interest Inventory," a very common and very reputable questionairre that takes your interests and compares it to the interests of professionals in a wide variety of fields.

So, in conclusion, there's nothing wrong with starting college without declaring a major. It may actually end up being more beneficial to you.

carbon13

As a student almost at the end of a Masters degree in chemistry and not knowing much about the US system I'd have to say choose something you enjoy. Really, chemistry is a very intense subject, but in the UK there are plenty of good jobs around. With a chemistry degree you can do a metric fuck-ton of jobs. Lab-work, research, analytical etc, not just pharma- work.

mrcheesypants

http://www.uh.edu/academics/corecurriculum/

by the looks of it chemistry is on the core curriculum as it is with most colleges. Just take a course in each of the areas you think you want to major in. You'll be lucky if you can fit them into your freshman schedule.