From PhD to MS in Chemistry, now entering the work force.

 Hello guys: 

         Is been a while since I have been here. Mainly, because I was busy trying to finished all of the experiments for my master thesis. So flash news, I decided to graduate with a masters in Chemistry instead of continuing with a PhD, at least for right now, and yei I just submitted my work yesterday. So hopefully my work will be available in Google Scholar soon. For those interested my thesis title is: "Evaluation of cytotoxicity of amphiphilic Janus nanoparticles in an immune cell model".  

       So why did I choose to go for a masters instead of going for a PhD? Well, throughout my undergraduate career and the two years I have been in graduate school I didn't have the opportunity to intern at any chemical company. Because of this reason, last year I felt that I lacked field experience, I really was wondering where I would end up. Also, I really wanted to help directly in the chemical industry, especially with the current climate. So I decided to explore my options.

While in school is difficult to understand what actually chemist do if you don't actually see it. For example, an alumni comes to campus and they talk to you about the company and how good they are. Yet I don't think any student realizes how different things are in industry versus being in school. And I think that is where the disconnect from school and industry comes in. You might wonder:

How does working in industry actually looks like?

How are you expected to act?

How would your schedule look like? 

How is the work divided? 

What are your daily tasks? 

 

I can tell you now that I am working at Baxter pharmaceuticals here in Bloomington. That all of the previous questions are very different from where I was in school to now. 

First, there are many jobs that necessarily does not require you to use your technical knowledge. Yet it might help to have some of the skills. I think the best skills I gained from being in graduate school is how to organize my thoughts, how to organize a project, how to write technically, how to do presentations, and how to read. All the skills not related to chemistry directly, yet skills that help you become one. 

Second, in industry, like any job, there are schedules, teams, and meetings, lots of meetings. I think throughout my training I have at least five meetings in the morning to make sure that there is proper communication in all of the subjects. We have teams that work around the clock, and if someone does not get the job done, then it is passed down to the next shift. This is definitely something I am still getting used to. Specially because in graduate school if you owned your project, you dealt with it until the end. Yes you asked your lab mates about certain hurdle in your experiment, yet you were responsible for completing the work. Lastly, in industry schedules are sacred. There might be times where you stayed a little extra, yet your employer wants you to go home on time. There are schedules and datelines also for completing task, which happen more often than in school. Yes you might have a dateline in the Math test coming up, yet when the dateline is to get a shipment of COVID vaccine out in schedule, the Math test seems insignificant.

Third, in school we are seen as students, and our demeanor is geared towards this persona. Yet in industry, you are expected to act as a professional and to conduct yourself in a professional manner. What do I mean? Well, maybe the Sponge Bob Square pants t-shirt you thought it was cool to wear to lab activities now it might be considered unprofessional. The clothes you wear, your hair, the jewelry, makeup, and nails, needs to be appropriated for the work place. For example, in my work place because of the federal regulations that we are under, it is unsafe to ware certain clothes to work or make up, since it might get into the medications that we are producing. Thus, I leave my dress up activities for the weekend when I can enjoy them. Dress for success, to aim for the job you want, cliché, but true.  

So finally, how working in industry looks like? For me at least right now it is a learning curve. I started working as a Quality Associate in the Quality Assurance Line Operations QALO department at Baxter, and so far, I have been going through constant amounts of training. I had to read a lot of the regulations from how to respond to certain accidents, to how operators (plant workers) perform their job, to how equipment works and malfunctions, all to ensure quality is maintained through the manufacturing process. I have been slowly gaining confidence in how to correct operators to do a better job, per the regulations, and slowly learning how to write reports for quality deviations. I give you an example, since it is hard to picture a day in the life of a QALO associate.

My day starts at 6:30 am with a meeting with all of the different department managers, then the QALO department has their shift change meeting, I get about 15 minutes in between to read my emails in the morning and socialize with my third shift coworkers. Next, the third shift coworkers will tell us all of their ongoing project, issues, how the manufacturing line is going, who got kudos, and what department throughout the plant we supervised. A project might consist of writing a quality deviation report on an issue with the products, with all of the important information and it is spread out through the team members to be fair in the amount of work being passed down. For example, if the plant losses power due to weather conditions this might be a quality deviation if the product is impacted. In this instance we have to be really detailed, and logical about our writing to make sure the information is communicated properly and to prevent it from happening again. Things that are out of human control, or mistakes usually causes deviations, that’s why we have steps and oversight from QALO to prevent it.

My day continues with oversight of the production’s lines from formulation, to where the vials are obtained and placed in trays for distribution, to where all of the equipment is cleaned. In QALO we make sure that all of the documentation is correct, the process is followed, and that operators and personnel are acting safely to ensure the goodness of the product. I can tell you for sure that there is a lot of documentations, and steps that need to be followed, and more than one person revises the tasks conducted, to reduce errors. In QALO we also have to responsibility to stop the manufacturing line if quality deviations occur that might be impactful to the products, such as the COVID vaccines. We take our job seriously to make sure no contamination or outside particulates are introduced in the containers. In my oversights, sometimes I will have to talk to different types of people, for which learning how to communicate with different audiences both verbally and written is important. The same type of tone I would use with an operator would be different from a manager, and so on. So, in this I can say that school did help a little from talking to different audiences. Lastly, my day ends with reading, more training, and other meetings to communicate our finding and ongoing issues to the next shift.

Finally, the take home massage. Education is important because is helps you grow, and some jobs might not even look at your resume if you don’t have a degree. Yet I can certainly say if you can write, communicate at all levels, read, and absorb information fast, and act professional (aka. dress, and learn as much as you can about the job your are going to be doing even if you are somewhat wrong) no matter what degree you have, you might get hired. I can tell you most jobs don’t care about GPA, but about how reliable you can be in all aspects. Some of my coworkers for example had Psychology bachelors’ degrees, yet they are great at their jobs because they know how to do the things I just mentioned. 

So don’t be discourage, and think out of your box. Maybe a Chemistry degree was cool and fun, and you learned a lot, but what can you actually do with it? There are many jobs that don’t require you to be working in the lab doing research, but are as equally important and can help you grow within an industry. If you start to learn there are other positions with more specific skills that will help you advance. Also, graduating with a MS. Chemistry will give me the time to explore other job positions and I might even help me qualify for the same job that a PhD graduate can get, so hey, thumbs up me. Anyhow, hope this help some of you that are wondering if this PhD is for me. You can always go back and do it, but if you are unsure because you don’t have the correct experience make sure you get it first. Thanks for reading,

ChattyPhD