Chemistry (Minor)

The Chemistry minor consists of a minimum of twenty-two (22) semester hours in Chemistry courses.

A chemistry minor develops each students’ practical and conceptual knowledge in ways that could lead to a variety of career paths, including: manufacturing, forensics, pharmaceuticals, government agencies, food industry, or health care.

Degree Courses

Accounting
Information Systems
Statistics
Business Law & Ethics
Management
Marketing

Chemistry Options

Students with a chemistry minor who decide to pursue a graduate degree in chemistry could apply for a Master’s degree (M.S.) or Doctorate (Ph.D.). Below you will find a list of transferable skills students develop in chemistry and a selection of careers in which chemistry skills are utilized.

Transferable Skills

• Access and assess appropriate scientific literature.

• Develop hypotheses and propose appropriate experiments to test them.

• Use data bases and informatics tools.

• Design and conduct experiments and to record/archive the data appropriately.

• Use appropriate data analysis and interpret the results of experiments.

• Present the overall goals and detailed results of experiments in a variety of formats to a variety of audiences.

• Work safely, both alone and in an effective team.

• Summarize and convey information orally, visually, and in writing.

• Recognize and understand the ethical issues involved in both the conduct of research and in the dimensions of research.

• Awareness of the major issues at the forefront of the science.

• Ability to assess primary papers critically.

• Good “quantitative” skills such as the ability to accurately and reproducibly prepare reagents for experiments.

• Ability to dissect a problem into its key features.

• Ability to design experiments and understand the limitations of the experimental approach.

• Ability to interpret experimental data and identify consistent and inconsistent components.

• Ability to design follow-up experiments.

• Ability to work safely and effectively in a laboratory.

• Awareness of the available resources and how to use them.

• Ability to use computers as information and research tools.

• Ability to collaborate with other researchers

• Ability to use oral, written and visual presentations to present their work to both a science literate and a science non-literate audience.

• Ability to think in an integrated manner and look at problems from different perspectives.

• Awareness of the ethical issues in the life sciences.

• Given an experimental data set, be able to use appropriate quantitative models to assess error and glean scientific meaning.

• Given current knowledge (or data), create a testable hypothesis and design and execute an appropriately controlled experiment.

• Given a hypothesis, be able to evaluate the strengths and limitations of various experimental approaches.

• Given a body of experimental data, be able to communicate the results in visual, written, and verbal formats.

• Given a body of experimental data, be able to find relevant information from prior scholarship.

• Purify compounds via Column Chromatography

• Analyze the purity of a compound, using Thin Layer Chromatography

• Perform titration to determine the concentration of a compound in solution

• Isolation and Purification of Products

Chemical synthesis, analysis, and problem-solving

• Ethical conduct and laboratory practices

• Ability to utilize and interpret data from the following instruments:

Fourier Transform Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectrometer (FT-NMR)
Ultraviolet-Visible (UV-Vis)
Infrared (IR) Spectrometers
Gas Chromatograph – Mass Spectrometer (GC-MS)
High Performance Liquid Chromatographs (HPLC)

• Column Chromatography

• Thin Layer Chromatography

• Titration

• Isolation and Purification of Products

Careers

Agricultural scientist
Air quality engineer
Analytical chemist
Art conservator
Biotechnologist
Chemical engineer
Chemical health & safety officer
Cheminformatics professional
Chemistry professor
Clinical biochemist
Consumer products technician
Discovery chemist (pharmaceutical industry)
Dye, pigment, or ink developer/researcher
Environmental consultant
Environmental lawyer
Flavourist
Forensic scientist
Formulation chemist
Fragrance evaluator
Geochemist
Hazardous waste management
Healthcare scientist
High school science teacher
Industrial hygienist
Laboratory technician
Material scientist
Nanotechnologist
Pharmaceutical chemist
Pharmacist
Pharmacologist
Physician assistant
Process chemist (pharmaceutical industry)
Public health professional
Quality control chemist
Registered nurse
Regulatory affairs (pharmaceutical industry)
Science writer
Sports scientist
Toxicologist
Veterinarian
Water quality assessor
X-ray crystallographer