[md1327]

Hey guys and gals. I'm a software developer who's somewhat bored at work and am evaluating my opportunities for graduate school and continuing my education in the field of Chemistry. Here's a little bit of background info and my situation:

I have a BS in Applied Mathematics / Computer Science and took Chem I & II (Fundamentals) while at the university. Recently my fiance (a biochemist) and I worked together on a few console applications (in .NET) related to balancing chemical equations and predicting chemical products from the reactions which worked out somewhat well. Our little project stimulated my interest in chemistry and I began to remember how much I actually enjoyed the labs for my Chem classes.

So now I want to go to school and study chemistry. My dilemma is that I want to get a masters (or dare I say PhD) but lack the necessary prerequisites. So I had a few questions for the online chemist community:

1) I will obviously have to meet the necessary prerequisites, but should I go ahead and get a BS in chemistry as well?

2) Is undergraduate research guaranteed to most Bachelors level students?

3) Will a background in software / math help me in this process, or does this hold you back when being considered for graduate school?

4) What is job / professorship opportunities like for recent grads from chemistry programs?

5) Synthetic organic chemistry and analytic chemistry sound very intriguing to me. Are these feasible fields to get into?

[Doc Oc]

My brutally honest opinion:

You won't be able to get into any worthwhile graduate programs with your background (avoid University of Phoenix and other for-profit programs as an alternative, they will not help you down the road).  Your best course of action would be to get a Bachelor's degree.  Again, avoid for-profit programs.

I'm skipping your other questions and getting to the important one, which is job prospects.  Employment for chemists across the board is very bad.  My specialty is synthetic organic, and the market for us is god-awful.  Analytical is supposed to be better, but I've heard some negative stuff there too (hard to get full-time employment, lots of temporary/contract positions).  It's great that you had fun doing chemistry with your fiance, but I don't find this to be a good career switch, especially considering how much you'd have to do to be eligible for employment as a chemist.

[fledarmus]

Software development is not an unreasonable start for certain chemistry-related careers these days. Developing analytical instrumentation and integrating it into existing lab management and document management software systems, molecular modeling, in silico biological system modeling, and various forms of bioengineering and chemical engineering are places where chemistry, math, and software come together, sometimes with disastrous results.

Since you already have a BS and some idea of what you are interested in, you might not need a BS in chemistry to get into grad school. What you will need is a few semesters of advanced chemistry courses, a graduate degree program that matches your needs, and a sympathetic research advisor that likes the idea of working across traditional boundaries. Find the type of research you are interested in, talk to the professor and show what you have to offer. You might be able to put together an advanced computer science/computational or analytical chemistry interdisciplinary MS or PhD. Your fiance may be able to help connect you with a professor that could support you as a research assistant while you were getting in the undergraduate hours you would need to apply to the grad school, and help support your application.

[md1327]

Thanks guys for the advice. I have been doing some reading about careers as a chemist and it doesn't sound as booming as one would imagine, which is my biggest reservation. I plan on meeting with an academic advisor at U oh Houston later this week and she'll probably help clarify a few things.