It is time to have a frank talk about the fundamental merits of the college chemistry curriculum. This plan of study has remained substantially unchanged for decades (see comment by bchem). Certainly minor changes occur through nudges and bumps here and there pertaining to details. But in the last generation has there been a dialog or debate on the fundamental assumptions of the common curriculum? And I refer specifically to the ACS certified curriculum, which has been the gold standard across the country. Major changes that I have been witness to mainly accomodate an increased emphasis on biochemistry or new computerized instrumentation.
The undergraduate chemistry curriculum is a very logical and thorough survey of the three pillars of chemistry- Theory, synthesis, and analysis. This covers the fields of inorganic, organic, physical, analytical, and biochemistry. Along the way we teach a few other areas of specialty by way of electives.
The current program of chemical pedagogy is certainly true to itself. There is genuine concern and care to avoid dilution of the content and over-inflation of grades, generally. The core domains of the subject are sorted out and given special consideration. Much work has been done to spark interest in the field and textbooks seem to be written quite well as a rule. Resources like J. Chem. Ed. are a continuous stream of clever tools and tricks to make the subject more plain.
Our colleges and universities have been quite good at churning out chemical scholarship. And students are given scholarly exposure in their learning program. Not surprisingly, scholars are very good at producing more scholars.
But has the academy been keeping up with the role of chemistry in the world? Just look around. How many CEO’s and upper executives in the top 100 chemical companies are chemists? I have not seen this statistic tabulated. But I am confident that relatively few chemists populate those ranks. Those that do often arise through marketing or finance channels.
But why should they? The field of chemistry attracts people interested in science, not business. Chemical educators have a responsibility to educate chemical scientists with a minimum proficiency in the field. That requires a minimum number of semester hours of coursework within a 4 year period. There is only so much a department can do and so much a student can absorb.
Yet, the purpose of a college education is to prepare a student for a productive life. A learning program that is internally consistent but blind to the needs of the external world is a fantasy. Have we come to value programmatic tidiness more than practicality?
Chemistry is a highly practical field. It involves problem solving and production. Chemists make stuff. Chemists solve problems. Chemists are specialists in the transformation of matter. But chemists do not operate in a vacuum. They do their work for organizations, and there is the rub.
By training, chemists are woefully prepared to function outside the laboratory. And as a direct result, chemists are poorly prepared to leave the lab and function elsewhere in the organization. Traditionally, education in the organizational arts has been considered on-the-job training. In a sense this is not unreasonable. How can educators anticipate the needs of a student 5 years into the future?
What is under appreciated by educators and students alike are the many opportunities that will follow for a chemist in industry. Many if not most chemists will come to a fork in the road in their careers. Will they stay in the lab or will they go to the business side? Usually, the path to greater opportunity in a business organization is the business side. Technical sales, customer service, marketing, procurement, management, etc.
I am not proposing that chemistry faculty teach coursework that cover such material. I am trying to suggest, however, that chemistry departments take a closer look at what an industrial career really looks like and try to anticipate a few needs that will arise as a result of this career path. Advisors can talk to students about the possibility of a business minor. An accounting or marketing class could be very helpful for a student who is uncertain about his/her career path. These are painless actions that can be of great use to a graduate.
But there is more than the passive approach of suggesting alternatives to undergrads. There is a more active approach that would definitely serve the needs of students and society alike.
Elective coursework covering intellectual property and patents, business law, the regulatory world (TSCA, EPA, OSHA, CERCLA, REACH, etc.), industrial hygiene, and perhaps most importantly an introduction to chemical engineering. This last item I cannot overemphasize. Chemical engineering includes the basics of unit operations, process economics, thermodynamics, and controls. I would offer that the whole package could be called Industrial Chemistry.
There are junior college programs for chemical operators that do provide exposure to some engineering concepts. But this isn’t necessarily for management track graduates.
I would offer that the department with an industrial chemistry program would be very successful in job placement as well as attracting new majors. Comments?
Lamentations on Chemistry 
Gaussling,
A few schools have had chemistry business or industrial chemistry options in their degree programs for many years, although in my experience most students in these programs are interested in going into sales and marketing or chemical engineering.
ACS has recently created a new set of guidelines for certified degree programs that allows for more flexibility in the curriculum. (You can get a copy at http://portal.acs.org:80/portal/fileFetch/C/WPCP_008491/pdf/WPCP_008491.pdf) These new guidelines should allow for the flexibility to do the type of things you refer to.
The difficulty for departments in offering classes in “Elective coursework covering intellectual property and patents, business law, the regulatory world (TSCA, EPA, OSHA, CERCLA, REACH, etc.), industrial hygiene, and perhaps most importantly an introduction to chemical engineering.” comes in not having faculty proficient in teaching many of these courses. This should not keep us from solving the problem, but it becomes the barrier that allows those not interested in change to stop the discussion.
Another barrier is the emphasis on training students for graduate school. The emphasis on academic research and graduate school cause many academics to look down their noses at “subjects not needed for graduate school”.
As a proponent of training students for careers in chemistry I support your comments, but if industry want’s better trained chemists, they need to speak up loudly and with financial support. Pressure from funding agencies, state legislators, and donors are necessary to move colleges toward the goal you seek.
Anyway, that’s my opinion.
The goal of a BS/Chem degree is to winnow out and create technically competent, functional chemists. Competence should extend beyond the first day hired. A 180-credit BS degree is at least 60 irrelevant credits. Universities Officially want “well-rounded” individuals (grant-unfundable academic departments). Swap 15 credits of German (who cannot read Angew. Chem. Int. Ed.?) for 15 credits of business. Interpretive Dance is out. Students deserve a chance to pay back $80K in student loans.
How many carpenters , electricians, plumbers, masons… spend one third their their training debating whether Hester Prynne got her Scarlet A because it was the highest grade awarded?
Hi bchem, Thanks for the update and your comments. New coursework in chemistry will require an alteration in faculty hiring practices. My point, perhaps poorly made, is that a reexamination of the college chemistry curriculum should force us to look at the backdrop of our industrial culture a bit more closely. Whose needs are really served by the shape and content of the present curriculum? As organizations become ever more lean, the expectation of multidiscliplinary job descriptions grows. Suddenly a BS/MS/ or PhD in chemistry isn’t enough. To rise to the upper levels of a corporation, an aptitude for management is needed. The chemical industry needs chemists who understand business. The converse is less desirable.
Uncle Al, I agree that winnowing is part of the process. Universities have been trying to filter out “technocrats” from their stream of graduates. That is a battle that others will have to fight. I’ve picked another hill to die on.
KILL THE BIOCHEMISTRY REQUIREMENT! Or at least allow students to substitute in an advanced course from another chemistry discipline. The class I had to take was a thoroughly useless experience, the material was aimed at the pre-meds, and it left me with an intense loathing for the subject. Plus, it delayed my graduation! If I’d been able to substitute any one of the many chem electives I took (and actually enjoyed and learned from), I would have been able to save a semester’s worth of tuition. I refuse to touch biochemistry (or bio-ANYTHING, for that matter) again. Leave it for the future doctors.
You don’t have any strong opinions on this, do you? \;-)
Uncle Al suffered 5 credits of Moo U Biochem at 0800 hrs in Michigan winter. There was payback! Fella couldn’t get a phosphatase assay to work. He needed an answer in the worst way possible – Uncle Al’s way: “Don’t use phosphate pH buffer.”
Biochemists do jobs no organiker would do. TA pre-meds then think differently about MDs, starting with absolute distrust. Brimonidine tartrate is **light-sensitive** topical glaucoma pharma. Think about it.
I know that many students who take Biochem want to be doctors and that’s mainly the demographic that Biochem courses aim to teach. Yet I think taking Biochem out of the standard college chem curriculum would be doing a great disservice to the students. How will they understand how enzymes work, how cells build proteins from amino acids, and so many other fundamental lessons of chemistry without a solid Biochem course?
Hi Uncle Al- That’s too funny! Well, pre-meds are certainly “driven”. My big problem with medical people is the “Always certain, but frequently wrong” form of hubris.
Hi asad- I don’t think that biochemistry is in danger of being excluded from the curriculum. Chemists succumb to trendiness like everyone else. The 80’s and 90’s saw an intense escalation of funds and interest in biochem and medicinal chem and its many forms. Biochem drives a vast industrial effort now. What I hope for is a melding of chemistry and chemical engineering. Engineering is an important field and to keep chemists ignorant of it is a shame.
The US education methodology of producing well rounded individuals has been denounced, renounced and embalmed by the free market. There is no corporate ladder for a chemist, there is no longer a future.
First of all, there has been a serious decline in the number of chemist jobs in this country. Of the remaining positions there is a “spot market” functional aspect which demands excellence in a narrow area. As soon as that function is no longer required the individual is disposed of. Hence we import vast numbers of foreigners on visas to fill the revolving door positions. This has the added benefit of employing individuals with no understanding of their rights or worker safety or anything else distinctly american.
It seems older individuals (maybe Paleolithic even?) have not even the slightest comprehension of the evil fog which has settled over this country. It is spewed out by Academia (which requires justification for their preposterous job security) and US industry (which would use a pressurized cow-knocker on every ex-employee if it could).
Anyone foolish enough to get a degree in chemistry is walking out on a plank over a mote of lava.
gaussling–is it that readily apparent? 😉
asad123–I worked for a year in a molecular biology lab, and a year in one that studied protein (un)folding–so I was inclined to like the subject. I’d place a large bet that a lot of biochem classes out there are similar to the one I took, too. When taught badly, it’s miserable. When taught well…oh, wait, I’M NEVER TAKING IT AGAIN SO I’LL NEVER KNOW! Seriously, I’m screening grad schools based on whether they require it.
I’d also argue that those aren’t fundamental lessons of chemistry. They sound an awful lot like biology, with the possible exception of enzyme catalysis…and with a little finagling, something similar could probably be worked into an inorg class.
I’m not arguing that it should be dropped entirely. There are a lot of chemists who would be well-served by taking it. Some of them are even doing cool materials research. I’d be much happier if we had the option to pick a concentration as undergrads, though. The ACS-approved biochem concentration at my school seemed to leave out a lot of organic & p-chem classes–at least offer another degree track that doesn’t require learning biocrap! I would have KILLED to take EE, ChemE, materials engineering or solid state physics classes instead…and they actually would have been useful.
Hi Frendo- It sounds like you have had some bitter experience in chemistry. Actually, so have I. Drunken-psychopathic-asshole department chairmen in academics and greedy, reptilian, and scheming MBA’s in business have blown major holes near the waterline of my career. But persistance is the key.
As for the fog of my “advanced” years (I’m 50), there may be a small bit of truth in that. This blog is the only stick I have to swing, and I’m swingin’ it, baby.
gaussling- new to your blog and I read/responded to your next post on ChemE in Chemistry Departments echoing much that is in this entry before I saw it- very good stuff. Definite that academics these days are self perpetuating.
I am not sure what the best curriculum design would be: substituting Art, History and English courses with more science/engineering/business offers might make more technically sound or provide business awareness suitable for industry but also tends to create more limited “view of life” which may not be so good either. Changes that provide real world exposure would be valuable. How many people in college truly know what the want to do as a career so seeing many areas is good and additional exposure in courses/departments to industrial applications could not only help guide but also allow quicker start.
I think the teacher has much to do with getting most out of courses so would need proficient ones. I liked biochem a lot (mostly due to prof) and was meaning full in med chem. P-chem (at least thermodynamics portion) was bad (again prof) although had to learn later when I got into process world.
I happen to be 50 also and sounds like we have experienced similar MBA “leadership”.
Hi CMC- I enjoyed the comments. I am uneasy with purely technical training in the BA/BS tack. I think that a liberal arts education will have a place in our culture for a long time. For instance, my psych 101 class covered Piaget’s theory of child development which turned out to be useful for me later.
My main concern is how to halt the trend of deindustrialization in the US. The economic smoke and mirror routine with the service economy and the information economy was a self-serving pageant of half truths and delerium.
Hey Gaussling:
I’ve been trying to let this one get ripe before I pick it, but I’ll throw it out a little green.
I think you have previously argued for eliminating small scale reactions – with good reason, too few BS chemists have never made a gram of something, much less a kg. I used to love it when Fred Karol would stick it to some university prof – like the one at Chicago you like so much – have you ever made a ton of PE?
I also appreciate some deserved skepticism about green chemistry.
I feel as though this is another well deserved arrow – the people introducing each new crop of chemists need to be concerned with more than publishing, grants and tenure! Especially when the lab tech I just hired can’t keep a lab book, much less interpret all the data that these instruments spew at him.
But, what drives the poor demented Organic lecturer? No doubt to a large extent his major client – the premed and bio or health science major. So lets be fair – some comments about modern US chemistry stem from the silent giant at back of the room who will never become a chemist.
So, what to teach in a class. I’ve lost sleep and enjoyed many a drink mulling that one over. Are you familiar with Alfred North Whitehead? I quote from his essay “The rhythm of education” -Whatever be the detail with which you cram your student, the chance of his meeting in after-life exactly that detail is infinitesimal; and if he does meet it he will probably have forgotten what you taught him about it. The really useful training yields a comprehension of a few general principles with a thorough grounding in the way they apply to a variety of concrete details….
Education must include a broad array of things – a general knowledge that stems from introduction to many different areas and depth of knowledge in ones field of choice.
Unfortunately – what we call knowledge seems to be expanding at a rate much greater than what most students can take in.
I’ll end with a quote from my favorite middle school teacher – “I don’t know what you will need to know. But I know you will need to be able to teach yourself. That is what I will teach you”
peace
Oh. yeah. Feel free to edit it so it makes sense.
maybe genie got it right-
I have it on good authority that my very best teacher referred very often to lines from Wordsworth (e.g., “fair seedtime had my soul”) and taught from conviction that teaching meant planting seeds — and accepting that one might not witness the later fruitful stages.
Is there a danger in being too prescriptive in science education? Wouldn’t Hesther Prins have a better notion of how to deal with the tyranny of MBA’s than folks exclusively educated in name reactions? Not to disparage name reactions since they’re very different in their essence from p-chem requiring experts with very different skill sets…
Isn’t the ability to think broadly and therby adapt the largest goal of any effective education?
Interesting series of posts here, Gaussling.
I did my BSc in Canada and a PhD in the USA, which allowed me to see both sides of the coin at the undergrad level. The Canadian model is more along the lines of the British system, with a heavier emphasis on labs (classes all morning, labs all afternoon) and on analytical chemistry than what I saw as a TA for bachelors-level chemistry in the USA. On a related note, my experience as a first-year grad student in the USA was that many of my peers knew way more organic chemistry than me, but that their analytical chemistry knowledge and practical lab experience dried up at what I would call a third-year undergrad level.
In most Canadian schools, Biochemistry is in its own department (separate from Chemistry) associated with medical schools (along with anatomy, microbiology, immunology, etc. they are undergrad science programs that are run through the Faculty of Medicine rather than the Faculty of Science). Despite a lot of interest in biochem, I chose Chemistry over Biochemistry mostly because of the student body (Chemistry = smaller, more collegial, more interested faculty; Biochemistry = larger, more med-keeners, faculty are disconnected from student body). The Canadian system doesn’t force Chemistry undegrads to take biochemistry, but some basic biology is required. I chose to take physiology and some advanced bio-organic classes out of interest.
My issue with teaching things like regulatory principles, IP, etc. to undergrads is that they are so completely theoretical when you’re not actively involved with them. I agree that they’re good things to know, but I think they’re best learned when they’re needed.
“My issue with teaching things like regulatory principles, IP, etc. to undergrads is that they are so completely theoretical when you’re not actively involved with them. I agree that they’re good things to know, but I think they’re best learned when they’re needed.”
Jordan, I understand your point and agree with it to some extent, but the goal I am driving at is to generate a specific career track towards industry and to encourage demand and add value to a graduate from this program. A BS graduate with at least some exposure to business/regulations/IP/economics in addition to chemistry is a whole new breed of cat.
If chemistry students are uninterested in such things, fine. The can go on the lab track. The track I am proposing is more business oriented and is meant for chemists to compete better with engineers for entry to the upper levels of management.
Because of the highly focussed nature of the present chemistry curriculum, chemists face a bit of a glass ceiling in the business environment. A minor in chemical business could well change that for a BS grad.
Hi Genie,
Thanks for the comments. I appreciate your plight and I hope that as a profession that we can modernize a bit to fill the needs of the field and the individuals. And I wouldn’t dream of editing your words.
Jordan made an interesting comment. He said that in Canadian schools, Biochemistry is a separate department. Maybe that is what US schools need to do. The pre-med track has become the tail wagging the dog.
Whatever it is we do in organic coursework, we have to keep driving home the message on mechanisms. The ability to think mechanistically is the true power you get from a year of organic chemistry. Mechanistic formalisms make chemistry useful in preparing new things.
wanderer states “Isn’t the ability to think broadly and thereby adapt the largest goal of any effective education?” I think this is true and would suggest schools (K-12, undergrad) currently do not practice this much, at least not till PhD level (if then). So much is regurgitation of facts or watered down concepts that kids are not challenged. It seems rare to find teachers these days willing to teach tools required to do critical thinking. Sometimes there are profs in college and certainly a good PhD advisor will encourage this but often too late to impact greatly (applies to science and non-science). Gov. Arnold has a good line in Kindergarten Cop regarding when you need to educate kids correctly.
My undergrad, at State Univ in US, was similar to Jordan’s description with heavy emphasis on labs. There where only 3-8 BS Chemists per class (2x BA mostly pre-med) and we had double labs vs regular students taught by prof not TA. I too was surprized at the lack of practical skills of most fellow students when I got to grad school. Many had not done undergrad research which is also wise if thinking of grad school.
As above mentioned (Reg, IP, Business) most things learned best by doing and I don’t know if you need full courses or if you could combine different areas to provide at least basic exposure in order for people to be aware connections to other fields. I had a semester of Economics which was a waste but one elective ChemE course had some costing/financial evaluation modeling which was valuable later.
Hi CMC- Wanderers sentiment about thinking broadly is one of the key ideas behind the liberal arts philosophy. That is, students specialize in a major, but they should have broad exposure to the other domains of learning as well. The theory goes that the encounter with diverse student peer groups and exposure to other forms of analysis can broaden a student’s experience. Motherhood and apple pie.
My argument is limited to the chemical-industrial career track. If chemists want greater career opportunities, then the college curriculum has to change a bit. For chemists to advance out of the lab, they need skills that can mesh with HR’s job descriptions. For chemists to transition out of chemistry later in their careers, they need to be able to produce resumes that show something beyond the simple desire to change.
Sorry for being late to the party. Many suggestions have been good here. I think chemists, especially bachelors chemists, have already been heading in this direction even though school have not adopted it. Many of the salesman, marketing managers, and supply chain people that I’ve met have gone the mba route after being a lab chemist. Nevertheless, I agree that there’s much room for reform in the undergraduate area. On a radical level, I think what we really need is a survey of what actual chemists in industry work on and then a remapping of the curriculum to fit that. Although I have no hard data, I think there would be a changes. For example, I think the divisions into inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, physical chemistry, and analytical chemistry are too historical and lead to too perceived walls between the different areas. Furthermore, I think it’s very sad that polymer education is so lacking given the industrial applications. Also, do we really need all the emphasis on quantum chemistry at the undergraduate level given how few quantum specialists are really needed. And finally, has general chemistry really been doing chemistry education any good? Thanks for everyone’s suggestions.