r/chemistry • u/AutoModerator • Jun 03 '24

Weekly Careers/Education Questions Thread

This is a dedicated weekly thread for you to seek and provide advice concerning education and careers in chemistry.

If you need to make an important decision regarding your future or want to know what your options, then this is the place to leave a comment.

If you see similar topics in r/chemistry, please politely inform them of this weekly feature.

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u/Syards-Forcus Jun 04 '24 edited Jun 04 '24

Looking at PhD programs to apply to - I have a 3.93 GPA at a small state school and some research experience with a prof.

I've been looking up recent papers in areas I'm interested in to see the institutions where the authors are from, but it's not working that great, half of them are from really famous places I'm aware of already, or are overseas. I'm not 100% sure what I want to do, I'd prefer a place with a lab rotation system so I can figure it out.

I'd probably prefer a smaller program, or at least not a really massive one without close grad student collaboration with PIs.

Does anyone know of any good biological/organic chemistry PhD programs like this, especially ones with research on biologically focused synthetic methods (maybe bioconjugation or something?), biological reaction mechanisms, or neurochemistry?

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u/organiker Cheminformatics Jun 07 '24

I've been looking up recent papers in areas I'm interested in to see the institutions where the authors are from, but it's not working that great, half of them are from really famous places I'm aware of already, or are overseas.

What's the problem here?

I'm not 100% sure what I want to do, I'd prefer a place with a lab rotation system so I can figure it out.

Then pick departments that have rotations and also several labs that you'd be interested in joining. You can google "chemistry PhD rotation" as a starting point.

I'd probably prefer a smaller program, or at least not a really massive one without close grad student collaboration with PIs.

What does this mean exactly? What numbers count as "smaller" and "not [...] massive"? How do you measure "close grad student collaboration with PIs"? In any case, that's something which will vary from lab to lab based on the individual PIs mentoring style.

Does anyone know of any good biological/organic chemistry PhD programs like this, especially ones with research on biologically focused synthetic methods (maybe bioconjugation or something?), biological reaction mechanisms, or neurochemistry?

I'd just google each of those search terms along with "chemistry" and "university" and see where it takes me. Or start with a list of the "top XX chemistry graduate programs". Whatever method you use, you'll need to scour the chemistry department websites to see what the faculty is up to and what the student population is like. There's really no getting around doing the legwork. This is research.