UC San Diego Tops List of Big Producers of Chemistry Graduates

By Sherry Seethaler | Oct. 1, 2007

Undergraduate students working in UCSD's state-of-the-art advanced organic synthesis laboratory. Photo credit: Carolyn Ebrahimi

UC San Diego is one of only five schools to make the top 25 lists of U.S. producers of chemistry bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D. graduates. It also had the highest overall number of graduates of the schools that made the top 25 lists at all three degree levels.

According to the latest annual compilation of graduates, published in the August 20 issue of Chemical and Engineering News, UCSD produced 140 graduates with chemistry bachelor’s degrees, 31 with chemistry master’s degrees and 28 Ph.D.’s in chemistry in the 2005-2006 academic year, the latest for which data are available. UCSD is consistently one of the largest producers of chemistry graduates.

UCSD was also second in the nation in the production of graduates with American Chemical Society-certified bachelor’s degrees.  Ninety of UCSD’s newly-minted bachelor’s chemists followed an ACS-certified course of study. The University of Texas, Austin is the largest producer of ACS-certified bachelor’s degrees, with 151 certified graduates.

“ACS sets guidelines for departments that certify their graduates,” explained Barbara Sawrey, UCSD’s associate vice chancellor for undergraduate education and former vice chair for education in the department of chemistry and biochemistry.  “An employer or graduate program can be assured that a certified major has both breadth and depth of knowledge. They have taken courses in all of the subdisciplines, and they have had a very strong laboratory component to their education.”

“An employer
or graduate program can
be assured that a certified major has both breadth and depth of knowledge.”

Students in ACS-certified programs take courses in analytical chemistry, inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, calculus-based physical chemistry and biochemistry, and receive a minimum of 500 hours of laboratory instruction, including 300 hours at the upper-division level. According to the ACS, graduate school admission committees are impressed by the strong preparation required for an ACS-certified degree, and potential employers recognize that graduates with certified degrees are better prepared for technical employment. They also say that employers often offer higher salaries to graduates with certified degrees than to their non-certified classmates.   

“When I graduated from college, I went to work in industry,” said Sawrey. “As I recall, there were a number of applicants for the position I sought, but because I had an ACS-certified bachelor's degree and had undergraduate research experience, I got the job.”

“Because of all the laboratory courses, it is much more expensive to graduate students with ACS-certified degrees,” said Mark Thiemens, dean of UCSD’s Division of Physical Sciences and a chemist himself.  “But we are committed to providing laboratory and research experiences because they are absolutely critical in training the next generation of chemists, whether they plan to go into industry or academia.”

UCSD’s rapidly growing department of chemistry and biochemistry has 1,000 majors in nine undergraduate degree programs, more than 200 students in three graduate programs and enrollments of over 20,000.  All degree programs offer research experience. About two-thirds of chemistry undergraduates pursue graduate or professional degrees and one-third take positions in industry after they graduate, many at local pharmaceutical or biotechnology companies.