[Editor’s note: over the next few months we will feature guest bloggers from a range of backgrounds and hopefully some of these posts will turn into regular series… first up is Mushy, a former chemist who has left it all behind for the bright lights of the City!]
Posted on behalf of Mushy:
My name is Mushy, and I am a recovering chemist – it’s been over 6 years since I ran my last chromatography column. I have been asked to write on the Sceptical Chymist every now and then to give the views of an ex-chemist.
After completing a PhD in supramolecular chemistry in the US, and following a rather meandering job path, the undisputed highlight of which was months of unemployment, I now work in IT in the City of London.
After finishing Uni, I was certain that I didn’t want to work in chemistry. I had something of a long job search, most of which was spent mired in a Catch-22 where I was not qualified for the jobs which I wanted, and the only jobs for which I was qualified, I didn’t want. In spite of a few negative experiences with – sour grapes notwithstanding – short-sighted companies which only wanted people with very specific degrees, nothing could be further from the truth. The skills I learned as a chemist – the methodical approach, the empiricism, the confidence, the flawless proff-reading – have served me well in an industry in which I had no experience at the outset.
I suppose that that’s where I’ll start summing up my inaugural post.
At work, I’ve never been asked to explain a [4+2] cycloaddition. The astrophysicists have never been asked their opinions on the Hubble constant. The chemical engineers have never become embroiled in heated debates about theoretical plates. The molecular biologists have never orated on the pros and cons of gel electrophoresis. The people who studied golf course management – well – they didn’t get the job. What we all do use every day of our working lives, though, is the thought process that got us into science in the first place, and the excitement of finding out new facts and methods. That’s the most transferable of all skills.
the flawless proff-reading
Nicely done… And welcome to the blog!
Ah “Mushy”, the fountain of all career advice – especially when drinking on oversized beds…
I’ve just finished my thesis (no viva yet) and I’m working for a big pharma and I’m looking to get out of the industry all together. Thank you for the hope that there is life outside the lab!
I’m Dangerous Bill, and I too am a recovering chemist, but I escaped by retiring. I’ve spent my career in Government work (Canada and the USA), small business, and academia.
I had the advantage of getting into chemistry when people still were not ashamed to call themselves chemists. Sure, we were regarded as boring, and guardians of arcane knowledge that no one else really cared about, unless it exploded or would get you high, but there were lots of day to day satisfactions in the lab: when a cal curve came out linear, when a method for an extremely rare isotope was finally complete, when a student suddenly realized what ‘entropy’ meant.
These days, chemists have to hide behind names like ‘nanotechnology’, ‘supramolecular chemistry’, ‘forensic technologist’, anything but chemist. Which tells me that natural evolution is taking place, and chemistry is over. It’s being superceded by the technologies that were its former grandchildren.
The final shock came when the chem engineers in my analytical class complained that there was no need to study ‘this stuff’, that they’d never use it. I sought out an elderly professor of engineering who, to my surprise, agreed with that opinion.
Now I have my little company where I make instruments for testing and calibrating gas sensors, and look back fondly on my forty years of lab work, but I’m glad I’m not starting out today.
Did you need to go all the way to Ph.D. for that? I think a lot of people get that critical thinking by end of high school. Tag on a generalist bachelors of any sort involving math/science/engineering and then some work experience. What does the Ph.D. do?