Chemistry has had a major impact in the world. This paper examines the importance of chemistry, and the jobs that a person that has a chemistry major can be able to perform.
Chemistry has shaped the past of human beings. In fact, it has helped people to understand what air is, the general understanding about atoms as well as an understanding of how matter changes. It is imperative to understand that without chemistry, modern medicine would not have been achieved and diseases would be running riot by the 17th century, the modern chemistry had started to take shape, the average life expectancy of a person was about 35 years (Holtz, 2011). However, chemical advancements have changed all that and it has provided the basis and foundation for medicine to come and tackle most medieval afflictions such as measles, polio, tetanus and bubonic plague. In fact, if chemistry did not exist penicillin would never have existed and minor grazes and cuts as well as low grade viruses could progress into serious illness and blood poisoning.
In the world before modern chemistry, humans had very limited methods when it came to the preservation of food. Clean drinking water was a thing that extremely hard to come by given the occurrence of different deadly waterborne diseases such as dysentery, cholera and typhoid. However, chemistry has been able to help the world understand more about the composition of food and generally what is good and bad for human beings. It has been able to show how the food that exists in the shelves can be prolonged and how the human body can be nourished in order to prevent it from diseases such as rickets and scurvy. It has enabled the human population to be more aware of the nutrients that they are mission out on and the different vitamins and minerals that exist in capsule form that bring about good health.
In fact, chemistry has been recently referred to as a central science because of its role as well as influence on all other sciences. It often involves the study of basic units of matter and without this knowledge the other sciences such a biology and physics would not be successful. It plays an important role in almost each and every aspect of the human life. It has allowed other sciences to blossom as well as expand in terms of collective knowledge. People have been able to better understand even the tiniest components of the human body and they can be able to predict with a high level of accuracy the composition of planets that exist miles away. From travel to and from space to the concept of drinking milk, chemistry can be said to have played a massive role in the improvement of people’s lives. In a world without chemistry, the world would still be in the dark ages.
A chemistry major can be able to help change the perceptions of different people in the world by bettering their lives. Just as chemistry has made major changes to the society from the 17th century, a person with a major in Chemistry has the opportunity to go out into the world and completely change in a better way and make living easier for the people that reside in it (Holtz, 2011). There are numerous projects that a person that has a chemistry major can dwell in that can ultimately shape the world and the way people see it. Chemistry majors learn to think creatively, troubleshoot different complex problems, perform several detailed analyses as well as make several decisions that are based on research. It is of the essence to understand that these skills are extremely valuable when it comes to the workplace and they have application in virtually every field. This paper is going to examine what person with chemistry majors can do in life and how they can be able to better the world.
In the United States alone, only about 25% of the students who major in chemistry often work as chemists. Chemists in many cases develop products that people can be able to rely on each and every day. In fact, without chemists, it would be extremely difficult to have clean water as well as medicines as shown above. Some of the fabrics that people wear in this century would not have existed without chemists. Therefore, by a person that has done a chemistry major deciding to work as a chemist, it means that a person can have an impact on the lives of many people throughout the world (Pimentel & Conrood, 1987). This is in terms of improving their general living conditions and ensuring that they have better and quality lifestyles. The chemist position often spans in many different industries and those who work as chemists can be able to employ the different skill sets that they learned when they were in undergraduate in their day to day operations. Entry level chemistry jobs can be seen as a working as a member of a team in order to hypothesize and draw conclusions. The chemists in many situations can be able to collaborate with people that specialize in different science related field. The chemists at a time can be able to compute power that is available in order to power certain analyses.
The second job that most persons with chemistry majors often work in is being a lab technicians. The position is a lab technician is often seen as a stepping stone for better employment opportunities by many chemistry major students. The position as a lab technician further develops the critical aspects of several skills such as observation, attention and general accurateness. While one might not be coming up with his or her own experiments, lab technician positions can be described as catalysts that help the chemistry major students further their career ambitions. Further, it is an important career choice because it often provides a great hand on exposure in order for the chemistry major student to further hone their skills.
However, not all graduates that have a chemistry major go on to work as chemists. While most of them can be said to work closely to fields that are related to chemistry, most of them often take on a different and completely path. In fact, sales and teaching positions are among the most common career choices for the people that pursue a career in unrelated fields. Persons with chemistry majors are known to have very strong research skills and can work as patent lawyers, and general researchers.
In fact, it has been determined that despite several misguided perceptions regarding chemistry being intractable, dangerous and difficult, chemistry is an important discipline that affects the different aspects of the human’s lives. It has been estimated that in fact, over 96% of all the manufactured goods in the world are often touched by chemistry (Phifer, 2009). This shows that people with chemistry majors indeed have a lot to work on when it comes to different industries. Biology and evolution often function as chemistry.
In fact, having a chemistry major is important in the job market because one has numerous options to choose from. Each and every person in the society understands that chemistry is extremely relevant in our lives and it addresses different fundamental questions regarding the nature of the matter. For example, if one is to consider two substances such as a pencil and a diamond ring. The lead that exists in the pencil is known as graphite and it comes from carbon, it is often soft and easily breakable (Rowh, 2006). However, on the other hand, diamond is the hardest material. These two substances both consist of carbon. Chemistry plays a crucial role as it shows people the arrangement of carbon atoms that make these two similar items behave in different and radical way.
In the year 2013, companies in the United States alone invested around $57 billion dollars into research and development. In fact, in the United States there are about 85,000 jobs that involve Chemistry direct and another 785, 0000 that exist in related fields. Therefore, it can be seen that for a person with a chemistry major this is an extremely large area of one to find a job. In the year 2013, the unemployment rate for chemists was half that of the general population and the median salary for chemists often stands at around $93,000 per year. The field of chemistry often offers products that are influential and practical in that they are able to fulfill the consumer’s needs and wants.
People that have the advantage of majoring in chemistry have an added advantage when it comes to critical reasoning, complete data analysis and the scientific interpretation skills. This therefore, gives persons that have majored in chemistry lots of alternate careers for them (ACS Presidential Task force, 2011). There are careers in consulting which help others to solve problems that are related with chemical research. There also exists several government positions in chemistry which either involve doing labor work or influencing the science policy. Technology transfer and determination of patent laws offer rewarding careers to the persons that have majored in chemistry and want to turn research into products that are cutting edge. Science writing can also be described as an option that often bridges the gap that exists between highly technical scientific data as well as information that is accessible and persuasive to different audiences.
The majority of the effort that is performed in chemistry major is research and the methodical scientific process. In most cases, the principal aim of the different trials and labs is for the potential chemist to make accurate observations in the world, craft and research to test the theories that one has and also to hypothesize theories and prove them (ACS Presidential Task force, 2011). These experiments that are performed are often exact and skillful. They therefore, require that the students have great degree of creativeness as well as ingenuity in order to conceptualize the theories. This in turn often necessitates inordinate consideration to detail on the part of the student. The experiments that are done in the laboratories are often followed by process on critical thinking and analysis that are used to draw evocative deductions from the statistics that is collected during and after the experiment. Therefore, there are several skills that students that have majored in chemistry possess that are integral to the way business can be done. In this method, students of chemistry can be able to express and inscribe effectively and efficiently. They are able to learn critical thinking and have the aptitude to manufacture their different findings into spoken and written word. This can be described as an enormously wanted skills for the people that have chemistry majors.
The difficulties that are often resolved by chemistry scholars often requires a deep operational information of different and diverse scientific conceptions from simple algebra to several introductory topic such as the balancing of equations and multifaceted calculus ideologies (Rowh, 2006). Mathematics is often an obligatory skill that one needs in a bid to graduate with a chemistry major and this is especially important for people that wish to change and get on to either medicinal or graduate school. These skills are essential in that they can help one to turnaround their curriculum vitae and help them get a job as a biochemical engineer or even a doctor. In the contemporary world today, chemistry and computation can be said to be intermingled in an increased way. In fact, this is evident from the typing of reports from the laboratory to the modeling of different outcomes hypothetically, and creative graphic illustrations of data. Chemistry students often have to be acquainted with PCs in a range of several related software tools (Ball, 2006). In finality, chemistry major graduates can be able to work in teams because of the cultivation culture that is imposed on the when they are in schools where they have to depend on each other when they are carrying out experiments. They can therefore be able to pool in together their abilities and work as a member of a large multi-faceted team.
In conclusion, chemistry can be said to be all around us and the quality of life is said to be intimately linked to the different development materials as well as the biological processes. A major in chemistry often gives a person a unique insight into different areas that are central to geology, materials science, environmental science as well as branches of engineering. In fact, chemistry degree can be able to lead to several career paths in professions such as agriculture, chemical engineering, law, forensic science and biochemistry (Rowh, 2006). Most of the graduates often either decide to continue with their education and in most cases most of the graduates attend medical school. Some of the skills that people that have include numerical ability, analytical skills, problem-solving and written as well as oral communication. These are skills that are often highly valued by potential employers. Further, the practical skills that the chemistry major student has developed from the lab often come in handy in employment. In addition, the persons often gain excellent teamwork and time management skills that come from planning and the carrying out of different experiments plus several expertise in IT. Some of the expertise in IT includes the processing of data and the use of computer software models.
References
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