Is chemistry a good/employable major in 2025

[Anonymous]

It's all going to be replaced by AI. It will just be lab techs running the experiments, then data fed to AI for analysis.

Study English or history instead.

[Anonymous]

Kid can probably get a lab/research job but probably won’t pay well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's all going to be replaced by AI. It will just be lab techs running the experiments, then data fed to AI for analysis.

Study English or history instead.

And who’s gonna do methodology and design? Currently AI’s data analysis skills are pretty poor, so I’m not sure why that’s the part of the process you think is being automated. The masters students are being ridden of, because we no longer need a team of computation junkies to simulate- you can just ask ai to code, and, if you have a decent background in the language, you can scrutinize from there.

[Anonymous]

What about physics? Seemed to be having a moment for rising freshman's cohort - he knows 4 kids going in as physics majors (obv they could change their minds). Not engineering, "regular" physics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What about physics? Seemed to be having a moment for rising freshman's cohort - he knows 4 kids going in as physics majors (obv they could change their minds). Not engineering, "regular" physics.

That’s my undergraduate degree and DD’s. If you want a job out of college, you need to double major or be one hell of a persuader. It’s a great degree but you don’t really learn any useful skills for industry with a physics major, and you need to spend extra time (which you won’t have much of) learning to code, practicing/learning for finance interviews, or generally studying other topics to get a job.

DD did it, but with what she does and knows now, she would’ve just gotten the CS degree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's all going to be replaced by AI. It will just be lab techs running the experiments, then data fed to AI for analysis.

Study English or history instead.

Why? A great deal of English and history work (digesting documents and spitting out current references summaries) is ALREADY being replaced by AI. LLMs can't yet do the shape rotation required for serious organic chemistry. Why should an ambitious child jump from a platform which might be burning in the future to one that is already burning down? Your comment is incoherent and could have been posted in a thread for any major. Log off.

[Anonymous]

I was a chemistry major and no. Best you can do out of college is a low paid bench chemist job. We were a small major and most of my fellow chem majors ended up either in law or med school.

Unless your kid wants to be an academic, I'd recommend doing engineering overall chem. Chem E of course but also Materials Science shares a lot of the same kind of thinking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about physics? Seemed to be having a moment for rising freshman's cohort - he knows 4 kids going in as physics majors (obv they could change their minds). Not engineering, "regular" physics.

That’s my undergraduate degree and DD’s. If you want a job out of college, you need to double major or be one hell of a persuader. It’s a great degree but you don’t really learn any useful skills for industry with a physics major, and you need to spend extra time (which you won’t have much of) learning to code, practicing/learning for finance interviews, or generally studying other topics to get a job.

DD did it, but with what she does and knows now, she would’ve just gotten the CS degree.

Funny you say that - I thought it was really hard now to get a job with a CS degree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about physics? Seemed to be having a moment for rising freshman's cohort - he knows 4 kids going in as physics majors (obv they could change their minds). Not engineering, "regular" physics.

That’s my undergraduate degree and DD’s. If you want a job out of college, you need to double major or be one hell of a persuader. It’s a great degree but you don’t really learn any useful skills for industry with a physics major, and you need to spend extra time (which you won’t have much of) learning to code, practicing/learning for finance interviews, or generally studying other topics to get a job.

DD did it, but with what she does and knows now, she would’ve just gotten the CS degree.

Funny you say that - I thought it was really hard now to get a job with a CS degree.

Not if you take the right classes. It’s a lot easier to get a software engineering job if you have cs coursework than a physics degree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ChemE vs Chem is pretty close. ChemE requires, ochem, pchem, biochem. Then take polymer engineering, computational chemistry. Lots of electives you can take in chemistry or related subjects. Even plasma and nuclear engineering. Material science and even EE take solid state chemistry classes.

ChemE is nothing like Chemistry. Why are you misinforming op?

You're right. ChemE has broad career options in many different engineering fields.. Chem majors with just undergrad degrees end up working in labs.

[Anonymous]

It doesn’t depend on what your child thinks they want to do. In the purest sense, engineering is applied science to solve problems. Science is discovery. If they truly love science discovery but also want more professional prospects, they will want to plan on grad school with a chem degree and most likely a phD. If the goal is to have more prospects professionally with just a BS, go for the engineering degree. Can still take many chemistry classes and even double major in some programs (though that would probably be pointless unless just happened organically).

I’m many years out of school but at my first employer (large Fortune 100). ChemE BS came in at a higher level and salary than Chemistry BS and automatically on the managerial track. A BS in a pure science had a more difficult time shifting to the managerial track without a graduate degree. It was objectively a bit strange, but you would have experienced lab techs reporting to newly minted engineers. It was what it was, but 4 years spent on somewhat similar degrees can lead to very different professional prospects.

Sometimes there is what you want to do and there is what will provide the most flexibility and options. They may not coincide.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC is a rising 2nd year ChemE major and currently doing summer research/internship on electrochemical batteries. I’d suggest to major in engineering that has lots of chemistry … material science, ChemE, bioE,

So clueless. Engineering is totally different than Chem. Just because you see "Chem" in front, that doesn't mean Chem and ChemE are close.

Pharmaceuticals
OP again. DC is not particularly interested in engineering (went to a well regarded summer pre college program and did not enjoy it) but eats up chemistry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ChemE vs Chem is pretty close. ChemE requires, ochem, pchem, biochem. Then take polymer engineering, computational chemistry. Lots of electives you can take in chemistry or related subjects. Even plasma and nuclear engineering. Material science and even EE take solid state chemistry classes.

ChemE is nothing like Chemistry. Why are you misinforming op?

You're right. ChemE has broad career options in many different engineering fields.. Chem majors with just undergrad degrees end up working in labs.

That’s a great start. They’re very different majors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ChemE vs Chem is pretty close. ChemE requires, ochem, pchem, biochem. Then take polymer engineering, computational chemistry. Lots of electives you can take in chemistry or related subjects. Even plasma and nuclear engineering. Material science and even EE take solid state chemistry classes.

ChemE is nothing like Chemistry. Why are you misinforming op?

You're right. ChemE has broad career options in many different engineering fields.. Chem majors with just undergrad degrees end up working in labs.

I'll also note bench chemistry is physically unpleasant because of the work conditions. The posture and work conditions lead to back and neck pain.

[Anonymous]

Industrial chemistry still has jobs but do you want to work in and around petrochemicals?