I don’t imagine they do w/o a p.h.d. for medicinal chemistry, or how feasible it is. Thinking about life as a grunt chemist for some billionaire doesn’t seem rewarding.

I’m asking OOT because:

- I don’t have other resources
- School counselors haven’t been useful
- People are inordinately positive (in general) about pursuing dreams
- E-mailing random professionals for vague answers seems lame
- There’s a better chance for discussion here than SMP due to the dim question

Peace out.

Straight chemist or chemical engineer?

Do it and work for stable income while you experiment and invent something at home. Cash in on inventing the next Flex Seal or something.

it worked out pretty well for walter white.

better living through chemist-ery

You should try to have some sort of laboratory mishap that exposes you to a mysterious substance and turns you into a superhero.

I have three cousins who are PhD chemists. One Berkeley, one MIT fwiw.

They are all retirement age but they did alright.

Two ended up in government work. One at Oak Ridge, one at Sandia.

The bio guy was in corporate and he made the most, but of course got ****ed in the end. The government guys are probably going to have better benefits.

Posting to subscribe in epic bread .

I went through undergrad with 3 chemistry majors:

One went to dentistry school and now makes piles and deeply enjoys helping people for a living.

Another got a masters in chemical engineering and works for a nice company. Basically gets paid 6 figures to do mass transfer problems all day. His job bores the hell out of him but he works alongside other smart, well put together people so it's not too bad.

The other is getting a PhD and seems to live a really boring life (always studying, never creating, never smiling).

The first two were exceptional students.

Do you mean Pharmacist (known in British English as a Chemist) or more of chemical engineering/chemical lab person as most of the USA#1 answers assume?

ive heard that they mix well with others

No, they live better.

Didn't work out too well for Michael Borovetz though.

Honestly, sometimes the market is better for guys without Ph.Ds. You can fall into the trap of being overqualified for steady laboratory grunt work. I would say don't be shy about asking random people in the field what they think. If they blow you off, okay nothing lost.

My flatmates sister did very nicely for herself with a PHD that looked at catalysts. Not surprising as it has a lot of practical applications. If you make a chemical reaction a fraction of a percent more efficient you're going to make your employer a lot of money.

Ask wookie

Bench science would be much better than processing piss tests

For such a challenging degree to attain there is a lot of competition for PhD chemistry work, at least in pharma and drug development. I know a lot of PhD chemists who ended up either getting an MBA and moving into management, or getting a law degree and doing patent work in the same pharma space.

And in pharma it's hard to get anywhere with less than a PhD.

Living chemically is the best revenge.

My dad is a chemist. We lived comfortably growing up.

From my experience with them (my dad/co workers I knew) they are workaholics. My dad "retired", got a package, and that lasted 1.5 weeks til he decided to get another job. He's financially set but will work til he physically can't anymore.

One of my cousins got annoyed that he ended up hustling funding instead of doing science. Government obv

I'm a PhD medicinal chemist in the pharma industry.

The most direct answer to the thread title is yes, it pays fine for both the PhD level and BS/MS level. I'd expect something like $100k and $75k starting, respectively. Without a PhD, you'll find a glass ceiling around the scientist level.

Your job security and pay heavily depend on your location - jobs are concentrated in four areas, Boston, New Jersey, San Francisco, and San Diego; smaller/growing areas are Seattle and Denver. There are a few places like Abbvie in Chicago and Eli Lilly in Indianapolis but those aren't hubs, they're one-offs.

Even at the highest levels, the salaries plus bonuses aren't gold-digger good. CFOs and CEOs get paid way more than CSOs. So if you're interested in getting rich, you should go MBA or JD after getting a technical degree (BS or PhD is fine for MBA, PhD/JDs are really sweet). Your primary motivation should be the desire to help people if you want long term motivation.

Your primary competition, at any educational level, is outsourcing. Indian chemists are about half the cost and Chinese about 3/4.

I have several millionaire chemists in my family. They didn't learn about sharing, though.

with a bachelor's degree, you can get work in someone's lab for an hourly rate depending on who and where but probably less than $15/hr. with a master's degree you can actually do chemistry for a big corporation in team situations or teach the basics of it to kids by yourself. with a phd you actually get to make decisions about where you do research and how to approach problems and delegate the most tedious work to lower chemists who you're the boss of

if you don't want to pursue chemistry beyond a bachelor's degree you can roll it into a law degree or, god forbid, a business degree

My college girlfriend majored in biochemistry and got a job in a hospital lab after graduation. Paid 45-50k. Another guy i know is a chemist for our local garbage company. I'd imagine those types of jobs exist everywhere. So unlike most bachelor's degrees you will be employable.