CHEMISTRY: Things You should Know

Chemists use this knowledge to learn the composition and properties of unfamiliar substances, as well as to reproduce and synthesize large quantities of useful naturally occurring substances and create new artificial substances and useful processes. Chemists may specialize in any number of subdisciplines of chemistry. Materials scientists and metallurgists share much of the same education and skills with chemists. The work of chemists is often related to the work of chemical engineers, who are primarily concerned with the proper design, construction and evaluation of the most cost-effective large-scale chemical plants and work closely with industrial chemists on the development of new processes and methods for the commercial-scale manufacture of chemicals and related products.

CAREERS IN CHEMISTRY
The chemical, petrochemical, pharmaceutical, food processing, breweries, and other industries are areas where most chemists usually seek for employment after completing their studies. There are wide varieties of careers for chemists there, including working in the business side of the firm, such as sales and customer support departments. Here are some of them.

Research and Development Chemist: Research and development chemists help their companies to research and discover ways to improve on their products so as to provide more and better value for the customer and thereby remain competitive in the market. They also discover new marketable products which brings more revenue to their companies.
Quality Control Chemist: Quality control chemists in the industry help to check that the quality of their company’s products is up to the desired standard before they are released into the market.
Production Chemist: Production chemists are responsible for translating the new products developed by the research chemists into something that can be mass produced by a manufacturing process. In performing their job, production chemists work closely with plant engineers in coming up with the right design of plant equipment to use for better productivity and costs. Production chemists supervise production and make sure production process complies with environmental protection policies. They also check quality control.
Food Chemist: In the food processing industry, food chemists use their knowledge of chemistry to create foods with desirable qualities, such as better taste, longer shelf life, improved nutrition, healthy and safe to consume.
Chemical Sales Career: Chemists can pursue sales careers in the chemical industry. Chemical manufacturing companies need people with chemistry background to sell their products directly to target customers. Chemists are able to work with customers and to determine the type of products that would best enable the customer to realize their goal.

Biotechnology: Chemistry and biochemistry graduates are qualified to pursue further training and career in biotechnology if they so desired. Also, chemists can build careers in forensic science and work with local, state, or national forensic science laboratories. This is because forensic science is based mainly on analytical chemistry and biochemistry.
Toxicology: This is an area interested chemists can get further training and build a career. Toxicologists study toxic substances to find out how they produce their effects and so create solutions for dealing with them. Some industries, including manufacturers of therapeutic drugs, cosmetics, food additives, and agriculture chemicals are often required by federal laws to perform thorough testing on their products before they are released into the market.
Environmental Science: This is an area open to chemistry graduates to make a career. This is because chemistry is central to the study of the environment. As environmental scientists, you can work in the industries, with government, not-for-profit organizations, and in the colleges.
Dietary Science: With chemistry background, you can build a career in dietary science after taking some courses to properly integrate you into the profession. Dietary science is the study of how what we eat affects our health and well being.
Career in the Medical Professions: If you are interested in pursuing medical careers such as being a medical doctor, pharmacist, dentist, veterinarian, and nursing, your degree in chemistry can qualify you to be admitted into the training program for the particular course.

Medical Laboratory: Chemistry background can enable you to work as laboratory technician in medical offices and hospitals. Medical lab technicians analyze patient samples for doctors to be able to effectively diagnose diseases. They may also be required to prepare drugs and other materials used in treating patients.
Museums: A background in chemistry combined with training in information technology can qualify you to work in museums. Your work may involve researching and producing materials for exhibits, making presentations, and procuring materials for the museum.
Patent Agency: A degree in chemistry can enable you to work as a patent agent with the federal government. The job involves analyzing patent applications to confirm if they are actually novel and worthy to be awarded a patent. The analytical skill which you gain from studying chemistry makes you suitable for the job.
Patent Law: You can become a patent lawyer after your chemistry degree by going to law school. The job of patent lawyers include helping scientists to prepare patents that are legally enforceable; helping their clients or employers to ensure that their patents rights are not infringed on; and going after those who infringe on their clients or employers patents.