Upon graduation, chemistry majors typically find employment in chemical, pharmaceutical, consumer product, or biomedical industries, or they continue their education in graduate science programs, medical school, dental school, or pharmacy school. To be prepared for these endeavors, chemistry majors should:
- comprehend current models of structure and bonding, for organic molecules, inorganic compounds, and materials;
- understand how fundamental physical theories relate to chemical processes;
- know how to describe chemical transformations in terms of reaction mechanisms, and to understand connections between mechanisms, reaction rates, and product distributions;
- be competent in using mathematics to solve problems in chemistry;
- be able to work quantitatively in a laboratory setting, using modern instrumentation to conduct and understand measurements using techniques such as nuclear magnetic resonance, infrared, and UV-visible spectroscopies, mass spectrometry, and electrochemistry; and
- be proficient in analyzing and interpreting experimental data.
Graduates should also be competent in certain generic skills to function effectively as professional chemists. Specifically, these are problem-solving skills, chemical literature skills, laboratory safety skills, team skills, and ethics. Detailed descriptions of these skills can be found in a document prepared by the American Chemical Society's Committee on Professional Training: Development of Student Skills.
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