What is this cruel joke?
"Don't major in something stupid like art, or history, or gender studies! Don't be a starving artist! Major in STEM!" they said.
I love chemistry, I used to play with chemistry sets as a kid. So I major in chemistry and make straight A's. Now I'm in sophomore year, finding out that chemistry is like the gender studies of STEM, despite being one of the hardest majors. Having a BS in chemistry doesn't make you any more successful than Chris Chan. Internships are hard to find, and research is competitive because of all the Asian/Indian biochem pre-meds, so grad school might not be easy to get into. After graduating college with a BS in chemistry, you are lucky if you can get a job at mcdonalds. Maybe you can try using your chemistry knowledge for entrepreneurship, e.g. manufacturing fragrances, if you can get enough money to pay for an industrial space so that chemical suppliers will ship to you. But it's still bleak, because 1) big companies like Dow chemical already make everything like shampoos, plastics, etc, and 2) consumers these days are chemophobic and will only buy your fragrance stuff if it's 100% natural.
"Don't major in something stupid like art, or history, or gender studies! Don't be a starving artist! Major in STEM!" they said.
I love chemistry, I used to play with chemistry sets as a kid. So I major in chemistry and make straight A's. Now I'm in sophomore year, finding out that chemistry is like the gender studies of STEM, despite being one of the hardest majors. Having a BS in chemistry doesn't make you any more successful than Chris Chan. Internships are hard to find, and research is competitive because of all the Asian/Indian biochem pre-meds, so grad school might not be easy to get into. After graduating college with a BS in chemistry, you are lucky if you can get a job at mcdonalds. Maybe you can try using your chemistry knowledge for entrepreneurship, e.g. manufacturing fragrances, if you can get enough money to pay for an industrial space so that chemical suppliers will ship to you. But it's still bleak, because 1) big companies like Dow chemical already make everything like shampoos, plastics, etc, and 2) consumers these days are chemophobic and will only buy your fragrance stuff if it's 100% natural.
