3 ms·

In the US, chemistry is a very saturated field. There are nearly twice as many graduates as job openings each year. Starting pay averages are on par with a groc

In the US, chemistry is a very saturated field. There are nearly twice as many graduates as job openings each year. Starting pay averages are on par with a grocery store cashier.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
eru 3y ago
Interesting. And https://www.acs.org/education/policies/acs-approval-program/data-reports.html https://www.acs.org/education/policies/acs-approval-program/... also says that chemistry has about equal numbers of men and women graduating. Other stem fields that pay more, tend to have more men. (I will not speculate about causes. I'm only noticing a correlation.)
- trimethylpurine 3y ago
  Sure, I suppose you might say that if a field is welcoming to more workers then it's more likely to become saturated. I'm not sure if that's where you're going but, it makes some sense. That said, I think it's more likely that loan incentives for STEM majors have steered too many people into job skills that aren't in demand because education and education policy both lag far behind industry. Policy making is almost always slower than economic flux by an exponential margin. That's why capitalism works for decades and centuries longer than other more policy dependent economic systems. Oh well... The beauty of life is you can change your mind and make a career in anything you can figure out. Well, unless you are already carrying $50k in student debt that can't be dismissed through bankruptcy, like many chem grads are in the US. We can thank the government for helping us decide on a STEM degree. Some will argue that we signed up for it, so we should have to pay it. But, that makes no sense. The FTC is there to protect consumers who get sold on bad loans and false claims of benefits. Who is protecting students? I think that's the bigger issue, if we're talking about chemistry in the US.

3 ms·

In the US, chemistry is a very saturated field. There are nearly twice as many graduates as job openings each year. Starting pay averages are on par with a groc

by trimethylpurine 3y ago

In the US, chemistry is a very saturated field. There are nearly twice as many graduates as job openings each year. Starting pay averages are on par with a grocery store cashier.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
eru 3y ago
Interesting. And https://www.acs.org/education/policies/acs-approval-program/data-reports.html https://www.acs.org/education/policies/acs-approval-program/... also says that chemistry has about equal numbers of men and women graduating. Other stem fields that pay more, tend to have more men. (I will not speculate about causes. I'm only noticing a correlation.)
- trimethylpurine 3y ago
  Sure, I suppose you might say that if a field is welcoming to more workers then it's more likely to become saturated. I'm not sure if that's where you're going but, it makes some sense. That said, I think it's more likely that loan incentives for STEM majors have steered too many people into job skills that aren't in demand because education and education policy both lag far behind industry. Policy making is almost always slower than economic flux by an exponential margin. That's why capitalism works for decades and centuries longer than other more policy dependent economic systems. Oh well... The beauty of life is you can change your mind and make a career in anything you can figure out. Well, unless you are already carrying $50k in student debt that can't be dismissed through bankruptcy, like many chem grads are in the US. We can thank the government for helping us decide on a STEM degree. Some will argue that we signed up for it, so we should have to pay it. But, that makes no sense. The FTC is there to protect consumers who get sold on bad loans and false claims of benefits. Who is protecting students? I think that's the bigger issue, if we're talking about chemistry in the US.