EMPLOYMENT OUTLOOK
AS MUCH AS PROFESSORS motivate
their students to pursue degrees in chemistry, however, some are apprehensive about the state of the job market throughout the U.S., and especially in Puerto Rico. One concern is that many chemistry and pharma firms could leave the island as a result of the 2010 passage of Puerto Rico’s Act 154, which imposes an excise tax on multinational manufacturers with operations on the island. However, Antonio L. Medina Comas, executive director of the Puerto Rico Industrial Development Co., says the tax has not had a significant impact on the island’s industrial base. Through a variety of efforts, he says, “we have been able to retain those companies affected by the tax.” For her part, Rivera-Meléndez has no regrets about her decision to continue her chemistry education, she says, adding that “you can work chemistry into any industrial, governmental, scientific, or educational field.” For now, “I will consider my options and not be too concerned about the poor state of the economy and the job market,” she says. “Things will get better.” As professors in Puerto Rico, RamírezSoto adds, “we have the privilege to work with students who know they will benefit from higher education.” Earning an undergraduate degree in chemistry “is not easy,” she says, but with mentoring and support, “most are able to achieve that goal.” ◾
HONG KONG’S EDUCATION OVERHAUL Reforms to undergraduate curriculum aim to push the country toward INNOVATION by unleashing students’ creativity LINDA WANG, C&EN WASHINGTON
AS FAR AS educational reforms go, Hong
CityU is trying to stimulate more creKong’s most recent experiment may be ativity among its students through its new among the most ambitious. During the Discovery-enriched Curriculum, which 2012–13 academic year, the former British encourages undergraduates in all majors colony converted all eight of its publicly to make at least one new discovery during funded universities from a British-style, their time at the university. three-year undergraduate curriculum to a “We want our students to graduate havmore international four-year curriculum ing explored the unknown, having been able used by countries such as the U.S. to create something original, and having the These changes follow 2009 reforms to self-confidence that accompanies that kind the secondary school curriculum. The duration of high school was shortened to three years from four, and the emphasis on testing as the primary measure of academic success was shifted to a more holistic approach to education that aims to give students a more meaningful academic experience. Hong Kong’s government hopes that by revamping the undergraduate system to focus less on test scores and more on rewarding students for their creativity, the country will not only cultivate future leadof process so that they are in INSPIRED First-year undergraduate students ers but also position itself a position to make important in the Addicted to as a global force in science contributions throughout their Discovery summer and technology innovation. program at CityU are professional careers,” says ArWhat this transition means thur B. Ellis, provost of CityU. encouraged to explore their childhood questions. “We expect that many of these for chemistry departments at Hong Kong institutions is students will become leaders in that they now have a unique their fields for that reason.” opportunity to reinvent their curricula and Early indications are that this approach is introduce new and innovative approaches changing students’ attitudes toward learnto teaching and motivating their students. ing. Ada Lau, who is entering her second “In Asia, the creativity is there, it’s just year and majoring in chemistry at CityU, not being unleashed in the very examispent the summer conducting research with nation-oriented system,” says Shuk-han teammates in CityU’s new Addicted to DisCheng, a professor of biology and chemiscovery program, which is geared toward untry at City University of Hong Kong. “The dergraduates with an interest in science and students understand now that when they engineering. The program gives first-year get to the university, they will be rewarded students hands-on research experience that for taking risks.” focuses on one of their childhood. EVA LOI I-HA
2002 and a postdoctoral NIH fellowship appointment at Ohio State University under Bern Kohler, he began his dream career as an assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland in 2007. Rivera-Meléndez also drew conclusions about her career aspirations as a result of her undergraduate research experiences. Under the tutelage of UPR Río Piedras chemistry professor Carlos Cabrera, she conducted research in electrochemistry and fell in love with the process. With Cabrera’s encouragement, she applied to and was accepted to the NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates program. She spent a summer doing research at the University of Pennsylvania, and then at Cornell, where she first met Abruña, her current adviser. Through these experiences, she says, “I realized that solving current scientific problems and answering questions that have never been answered before are the most interesting things I can do in a future career.”
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degree in analytical and testing sciences. Ricky Wong, head of the university’s chemistry department, says the new degree is geared toward students who want a career in Hong Kong’s booming analytical sciences industry. “Hong Kong doesn’t have a big chemical industry,” he says. “One of the chemical-related industries is the analytical testing industry. In this part of the world, food safety is a serious issue.”
ian Yam, a chemistry and energy professor, says HKU has one of the most internationally diverse student bodies in the region, so having a more international curriculum will promote even more exchanges with countries such as the U.S. and China. Shing Bong (Terry) Lou, an undergraduate chemistry major at HKU, will spend the upcoming academic year as a visiting student at Cambridge University. He H KBU
Yun Lam, an associate biology and chemistry professor who directs the program, says that in the past, undergraduate research was typically done in the final year of college. Now, under the Discovery-enriched Curriculum, the university encourages students to start doing research immediately. “We want them to have their first taste of discovery their first year,” Lam says. In addition, by exploring one of their childhood questions, students are more likely to find their research engaging. Lau says her initial idea for a research project was to look for anticancer properties in snake venom. Despite the potential risks involved, the university supported her. “If the school banned my idea immediately, it would be like banning my curiosity,” she says. Because of practical issues such as time and cost, Lau instead decided to focus her research on the anticancer properties of foods. She has already found promising leads in natural products such as aloe vera. “We want to tell students that making a discovery is something everybody can do every day,” Lam says. “We want people like Ada Lau to be addicted to making discoveries.” THE CONVERSION to a four-year curricu-
lum has also led to new programs at Hong Kong University of Science & Technology. Zhenyang Lin, who heads the university’s chemistry department, says the university needs to adapt to keep up with the changing needs of the world, where students need to be more interdisciplinary. The chemistry department has expanded its offerings for students interested in the chemical sciences, adding a number of new courses in areas such as materials and energy, and separations science. In the past, students could major only in chemistry, but now they can concentrate in areas such as materials chemistry or environmental chemistry. The university has also created double-degree programs. Lin hopes the expansion of options available to chemistry students will translate into more job opportunities for them when they graduate. Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) is also focusing on career development and increasing job prospects for its students. During the past academic year, the chemistry department created a new bachelor’s
The new major is a hit with ENGAGED Undergraduate hadn’t planned on studying students in a materials students. Tin Yan Ha, who abroad initially, but because science course talk with is entering her second year HKU encourages students to their instructor at Hong at HKBU and is an analytical participate in international Kong Baptist University. and testing sciences major, experiences, and under the says she applied to the unifour-year curriculum he will versity specifically because of still be able to graduate on this new program. She intends to pursue a time, Lou decided to take the plunge. “This career in food and analytical testing. is a great opportunity to challenge myself,” At Hong Kong Polytechnic University, he says. the chemistry department is pouring more Although each university is taking a difresources into undergraduate research. The ferent approach to implementing the reuniversity has even hired teams of specialforms, what’s common among all of the uniists to help its undergraduates find opporversities is that undergraduates now have tunities to engage in independent research an additional year to take courses that interboth within the university and outside it. est them. Furthermore, under the threeWing-tak Wong, who heads the department year curriculum, students had to choose of applied biology and chemical technology, their major at the outset and had little room says he believes this investment will lead to for other courses; they can now wait until greater research productivity by the school. their second year to declare a major. The University of Hong Kong (HKU) “We don’t want to confine them. We want sees the transition to a four-year curto let them choose and think about what riculum as a boon for its international they like,” says Lin of Hong Kong University exchange programs with other countries of Science & Technology. “It’s giving them that also use the four-year curriculum. Vivmore flexibility.”
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“We will have more enthusiastic students if they really want to major in chemistry,” Yam says. Many of the universities have created new courses to appeal to a range of interests. CityU, for example, now offers roughly 200 electives from which first-year students can choose. These electives are interdisciplinary and include topics such as “Science in Chinese Kung Fu,” “Poetry and Science,” and “The Biochemistry of Attraction.” The transition, which took more than five years of planning and preparation, was not without its challenges. Because undergraduates now start college a year earlier than before, they have had fewer courses in fundamental subjects such as chemistry and mathematics. To bridge the gap, chemistry departments have had to create new general chemistry courses for first-year students in the new four-year curriculum. THE ADDITIONAL COURSES and students
put an enormous strain on Hong Kong universities’ faculty and resources: The 2012–13 academic year involved a double cohort in which the final group of three-year students entering each university overlapped with the first group of four-year students. At Hong Kong Polytechnic University, for example, the general chemistry lecture, which previously had a maximum of 100 students, last year had more than 300 students. Many of the universities have had to hire new faculty to handle the additional workload. Yam acknowledges that it’s been a tremendous amount of work for faculty, but “everyone is happy to do it because we want to be part of this transition to help shape the future of Hong Kong and to remain globally competitive.” And the investment does seem to be paying off. “When I first came to CityU three years ago, one of the concerns I heard expressed fairly often from faculty was that they wished students would ask more questions and be more engaged in the material, and that’s happening now,” Ellis says. “Because we’re encouraging this kind of creativity, imagination, and asking of questions, it’s really changing the way the campus operates.” “The students are really enjoying firstyear chemistry lessons now because it’s not about passing exams, it’s about how exciting chemistry as a scholarly subject can be,” says Cheng. When these students “move up the career ladder and become more influential in society, you can foresee that they will be changing where Hong Kong is going.” ◾
CANADA’S MASTER APPEAL Canadian chemistry master’s programs include extensive
RESEARCH EXPERIENCE, and U.S. companies have taken notice LINDA WANG, C&EN WASHINGTON
WITH AN OVERSUPPLY of Ph.D.s in the
U.S. and intense competition for even the most entry-level positions in industry, having a master’s degree could potentially give a job seeker an edge over Ph.D. applicants who may be considered overqualified. But in a downtrodden economy in which employers have the upper hand, U.S. companies are not satisfied with master’slevel candidates who are merely qualified; they’re holding out for the very best talent they can find, and that sometimes means searching for talent outside the country. Some U.S. companies have found what they’re looking for in Canada. “We’ve been extremely successful at recruiting quality students out of the Canadian master’s programs,” says Bruce D. Roth, vice president of discovery chemistry at Genentech in South San Francisco. “We get scientists who are technically trained at a very high level.” Todd O’Malley, a senior manager of staffing for the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, in Cambridge, Mass., is also no stranger to the quality of graduates coming out of Canadian master’s programs. “It comes down to a really solid background in chemistry, combined with good communication skills and a good work ethic,” he explains. “And the people that we’ve hired have been extremely successful here.” Roth says graduates of these master’s programs demonstrate that they have extensive research experience and numerous publications. “We expect almost as much from them as we do from our Ph.D.s, and for them to perform at that level, they have to be really well trained. That’s what we see from the Canadian master’s programs.” Roth points out that in the six years he’s been with Genentech, his department has
filled a large percentage of its master’s-level positions with graduates from institutions such as the University of Sherbrooke and the University of Montreal, both in Quebec; the University of Ottawa, in Ontario; and the University of British Columbia. “The companies who don’t recruit in Canada are missing out on a great opportunity,” he says. Awareness of these programs among U.S. companies is growing, and it often takes just one successful hire from one of these master’s programs to spur subsequent hires. In addition, with the exodus of many large pharmaceutical companies from sites around Canada, the U.S. is becoming a more attractive option for Canadian chemists seeking employment. “When I started my master’s, I thought I would stay in Canada and work for Merck Frosst or Boehringer Ingelheim in Montreal, but those sites don’t exist anymore,” says Daniel Shore, a research associate at Genentech who earned a master’s degree from the University of Ottawa. “The evaporation of those jobs has made people look to see what else is available.” THE CANADIAN master’s degree in chem-
istry is like a condensed Ph.D., says Christian Reber, a professor of chemistry and director of chemistry graduate studies at the University of Montreal. There, for example, students interested in entering the master’s program apply to the program as well as directly to a faculty member. If they are accepted into the professor’s lab, the student begins doing research immediately and takes only a handful of courses. At the end of what is typically a two-year program, students submit a master’s thesis. “We take our master’s students very
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