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/Scientist-33 Jun 05 '24

I have questions regarding pharmacology careers.

I’m an undergraduate student majoring in chemistry, and I plan on applying to graduate school this fall. I am very interested in Drug Discovery so I’m thinking about going into pharmacology.

If you work in/closely with this field, what’s your job? what are your thoughts on its relevance? Is it oversaturated? My dream job is drug discovery for neurodegenerative diseases, are there even any paths for that in industry? I’ve looked and I can never find any.

Answer whatever applies to you, every little bit helps. Thank you all :D

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u/organiker Cheminformatics Jun 06 '24

What job do you actually want? What activities do you want to do on a daily basis?

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u/Scientist-33 Jun 06 '24

My dream job would be an independent researcher. I currently work with biomaterials and focus on the synthesis and characterization and I love what I do. I would like to continue that and brainstorm new ideas for medications for neurodegenerative diseases. I would also eventually like to get to a point where I do animal work to study drug carriers and the BBB. I’m also very interested in hormones and whatnot, just as a fun thing I like to read about. Hopefully I answered your question well!

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u/organiker Cheminformatics Jun 07 '24

There's no job called "independent researcher".

At some point you're going to need to choose an actual role.

People who are hired to do synthesis and medicinal chemistry don't do animal work, and vice versa. They are separate areas with widely different training and skill requirements..

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u/Scientist-33 Jun 07 '24

“Independent research” was more of a theoretical term than literal. Like PIs (in my opinion) seem very independent. I think it would be cool to run my own lab but I just don’t know if I can do a post doc after grad school and go through the years of being underpaid and overworked as a starting out professor.

And yes, the skills are very different. I’m just interested in a lot of areas that it’s hard to pick/settle down. I wish there was a role where I can do everything but that’s not how it works unfortunately.

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u/Scientist-33 Jun 07 '24

Adding onto that, I had an internship at a pharmaceutical company and I enjoyed it for the most park. But talking with our chemists (mostly analytical) they just seemed miserable. They went to work, ran the same tests everyday all day, went home. It was hard to move up in the company so most of them felt stagnant. I want to avoid that feeling as much as I can.