 Is a chemistry major or chemistry degree worth it? That's what we're going to be talking about today, but before we get into that, make sure to gently tap the like button in order to defeat the evil YouTube algorithm. On this channel, we talk about personal finance, college degrees, careers, and opportunities that are going to lead you to success. And we also go over how you can avoid some of the common financial traps that so many people fall for. If that sounds like something that interests you, and you haven't done it already, go ahead and hit that subscribe button and ring the notification bell so that you never miss out. So let's get into it. Let's talk about a chemistry degree. The first thing we want to talk about is what is it? So chemistry is the scientific study of substances, including their properties and interactions. Now, most of us take at least one chemistry class in middle school or high school, and about 14,000 people graduate with a bachelor's degree in chemistry every year. Now, some of the skills that you would learn if you got a chemistry degree would be combining and categorizing chemical compounds, learning how to dispose of and handle chemicals properly, using the scientific method, understanding and collecting data, and then interpreting that data, and then, of course, using specific instruments in the chemistry field. Now, as always, we're going to go over four different categories that I think are the most important ones when you're looking into these degrees. The first one we're going to talk about, and of course, this is a personal finance channel, so a lot of people are interested in it, is salary. Now, according to pay scale, you would expect to make around $49,000 a year in your first five years after graduating, and then 10 years and after, also known as mid-career pay, you'd be making around $93,000 a year. So one career path you might go down is becoming a chemist, and they make around $78,000 a year. Now, if you look at the U.S. census, the average college degree graduate is going to make around $2.4 million throughout their entire lifetime, and the average graduate with a physical science degree, which would be what chemistry falls under, makes around $2.6 million, so it's above average. With that being said, it will vary quite a bit, depending on what career path that you go down. For instance, if you go into education, you'll likely only make around $1.8 million over a lifetime. Overall, when it comes to salary, this is going to be decent, but not amazing. I'm going to give this a score of seven. Next on the list, we're going to be talking about satisfaction, and I always like to break this down into two separate categories that I think are both very important. The first category is going to be what's known as meaning, and that is how much you think your career positively impacts the world. The second category is going to be job satisfaction, which is purely how much do you enjoy your job? So for instance, you might get a job watching YouTube videos all day, and that might be extremely enjoyable, but you might think, especially after a few years, that it's not very meaningful. You're not really positively impacting the world. Whereas you might get a job as a teacher that might not be as enjoyable, you might not make very much money, but you know that it's going to be relatively meaningful. So when it comes to meaning, a chemistry degree has a score of about 55%, meaning 55% of people who responded to this, thought that their career significantly positively impacted the world. 55% is going to be above average, although it's not that far above average, it's going to be better than normal. One career path you might go down is becoming a material scientist, and they have a meaning score of around 62%, and a job satisfaction score of around 67%, aka 67% of people were very happy with their job. Both of those, again, are going to be a little bit above average, and so overall, this one has an above average job satisfaction. Now, this one is extremely subjective. For one person, it might be amazing, and for another person, it might be a nightmare. Some people really like doing work in a lab, and some people absolutely hate doing that kind of work. So it's always important that you know exactly what you're getting yourself into, and you research and plan ahead. But with that being said, science degrees in general, you do kind of notice a trend of people being relatively happy with their job if they're able to actually get a job. Now, it can be somewhat difficult for you to get a job with just a chemistry degree, just a bachelor's degree, but it's not as hard as some of the other science-related degrees. So as long as you like chemistry, which you probably shouldn't major in it if you don't like it, and you are able to get a job, you're probably going to be relatively happy with what you do. However, physical sciences are the second most regretted type of degree, with about 35% of people getting these degrees regretting them. And the reason for this is because it's very hard for them to find a job without some kind of advanced degree or license. So this is a really big issue. A lot of the time, people will think that they can get a job with just a chemistry degree right after graduating, and then they find out that they have to go back to school and get a master's or something along those lines just to be able to get an entry-level job. And this catches a lot of people off guard because, hey, it's a STEM degree, right? The S in STEM stands for science. Well, unfortunately, not all STEM degrees are created equally, and some of the physical science degrees, in fact, most of them, you are going to have a tough time getting a job if you don't plan ahead and make sure you really do your due diligence. But with that being said, if you are able to get a job, I'm going to go ahead and give this one a 7.5 out of 10 for satisfaction. Next, let's talk about probably the most important thing of all, which is going to be demand. So going back to becoming a chemist again on BLS, they show that the job outlook for the next 10 years is about 5%, which is faster than average, meaning over the next 10 years, there's going to be 4,300 new jobs that are created. That is a little bit alarming considering there's 14,000 chemistry graduates every year. Seems like there's more chemistry graduates than there are jobs. However, there are other types of careers that you can get into. For instance, you could become a food scientist and they have about 6% growth, meaning over the next 10 years, there's going to be another 2,000 jobs. And physical science careers in general are growing at about 5%, which is above average. Now, one test that I like to do is see how many times the keyword chemistry degree is mentioned on monster.com and their job listings. And if you search that on monster.com, you'll see that chemistry degree pops up about 13,000 times. Now, an example of a really good degree would be computer science, which pops up 141,000 times. And an example of a pretty bad degree when it comes to demand would be anthropology, which only pops up around 829 times. So chemistry is somewhere in the middle there. It's on the lower side a little bit, but it's still not horrible. But again, because of the fact that a lot of the time, people will end up having to go back to school and getting a master's or getting some other type of advanced professional degree. To me, the demand isn't all that good. It's also not horrible, but it's just not that great either. I'm gonna go ahead and give this one a score of 6.5 out of 10. It can really work out for you if you do your due diligence and you research ahead, probably do some internships and do some networking. This can definitely work out for you, but if you're just somebody who wants to get a degree and kind of just get a job without doing all that extra stuff, you might have a bad time with this one. Next on the list, we're gonna talk about X factors. And this can be anywhere from how easily automated a job is to how flexible it is to the skills that you learn and how those skills will equate to other types of careers out there. Now, when it comes to flexibility, you can definitely say that some of the things you learn with a chemistry degree are going to be relatively valuable. However, most of the knowledge you learn is going to be somewhat specialized to a specific field, which is chemistry, and it's not gonna be as easy to translate that knowledge into other types of careers like it would be with a business degree, for instance. So chemistry isn't gonna be the most flexible degree and you kind of see this with a lot of the science-related degrees, unfortunately. Now, when you look up chemistry as a skill on Zipper Cruder's Skill Index, it does come up as a 57 out of 100, which is pretty decent. This means that businesses value chemistry as a skill. And I think businesses also have a little bit of respect for chemistry just because it is one of the harder majors. In fact, in the study that I use a lot on this channel, chemistry did come up as being the third most difficult major. And I think it's not. I think it's maybe in the top 10 or 15, but it's definitely one of the more difficult ones. So that shows that you are somebody who knows how to do their chores. A lot of businesses have the hiring philosophy of they just want to hire the smartest people and then they can train them to do other things later on. Now, according to WillRobotsTakeMyJob.com, chemists have about a 10% chance of being automated and I tend to agree with that. In fact, I think it would probably be less than 10%. And when it comes to being outsourced, if you're a scientist or a chemist, a lot of the work you're gonna be doing is going to be relatively hands-on. And so you probably wouldn't be able to outsource that to a different country very easily. So I do think that this is a degree and a skill set and a career path that is relatively future-proof. But I think the big thing here that's a huge downside is the fact that a lot of people won't be able to get a job with just a bachelor's level degree. To me, this is a huge red flag and I always recommend on this channel making sure that you secure the bag, so to speak, in undergrad. And by that, I mean with a bachelor level degree with a four-year degree, you should be able to get a job. Now, if you get to that point where you have the degree and then you decide to go back because you want to, that's a completely different discussion. The big difference there is you decided to rather than you had to. A lot of people find themselves in the situation where they can't find a job with just a bachelor's degree and so they go back to school, spend tons of time and tons of money getting a master's or a doctorate. This actually happened to a really close friend of mine when she got her biology degree. She ended up having to go back and get a doctorate just to be able to find a good job. It's also not one of those degrees where it would be extremely easy for you to switch career paths. So for that reason, when it comes to X factor score, unfortunately science related degrees tend to have lower X factor scores and this one scores 6.5 out of 10. So some of the pros here, the first pro is that out of the science related degrees, you're more likely to be able to get a job with a chemistry degree than a lot of the other ones. That's not really saying much though because a lot of these science related degrees, it's very difficult to get a job. Another pro here is that it's relatively well paying for a science degree and you might not have to get a master's or a doctorate in order to get a job as long as you plan ahead. And then another pro is that you probably won't have to worry about automation. Cons here are that it's not very flexible. There's a very good chance that you'll have to go to grad school in order to get your first job and the demand is okay, but not amazing. Overall, I'm going to give this one a score of 6.875 out of 10. This is one of those degrees where if you plan ahead and you know exactly what you're getting yourself into, it can really work out for you. But if you don't plan ahead, it can be one of those degrees that really disappoints you. In doing research on this one, I saw tons and tons of posts on Reddit about people who got a chemistry degree and they weren't able to get a job with it. And this is very common when you look into these science-related degrees in general. Chemistry degree is actually better than a lot of them, but it's still one where you have to look out for it. With that being said, this is all subjective. For one person, this might be the perfect degree, 10 out of 10. For another person, this might be one out of 10. So I urge you to always do your own research. With that being said, if you want help researching, you can definitely check out this channel. I'm also making a Patreon down below where I rank all of the degrees. I'm going to be updating this every few months and trying to make it as accurate as possible. My goal is to make it the most accurate degree ranker in the world. If you haven't done it already, go ahead and tap the like button in order to defeat the Evil YouTube algorithm. Hit the subscribe button, ring the notification bell, comment down below any thoughts, comments, criticisms, etc. that you have on the video. Share the video, do all the stuff. Check out my other videos right here. I made just for you.