MChem CHEMISTRY WITH A YEAR IN INDUSTRY

From the materials we make to the medicines we take, chemistry shapes our relationship with the world around us. So understanding how chemicals interact at a molecular level is not only fascinating, it’s also of critical importance. 

Our Master’s course will provide the academic training you need to become a professional chemist. Our cutting-edge research in chemical sciences underpins our teaching – through lectures, workshops, small group tutorials and practicals – ensuring your learning is at the forefront of scientific thought. 

What’s more, our Year in Industry programme will allow you to gain invaluable hands-on experience in the workplace, giving you a distinct advantage when you graduate. 

About

Taught with the same academic rigour and structure as our MChem in Chemistry, in the third year of this four-year course you’ll join an industrial chemical laboratory, gaining extensive experience in a research-led work environment. Your placement will typically last 10 to 12 months, and after an initial training period you’ll be fully integrated into a research team, contributing to the day-to-day requirements of the organisation. 

At the end of your placement you’ll prepare a detailed report, together with a presentation. And during the placement you’ll undertake a distance-learning module to continue your academic development and prepare you for your final year. 

This is the chemistry degree you should choose if you aspire to becoming a professional chemist and want to give yourself a head start. This four-year course will give you the in-depth academic training and hands-on experience you need to follow your chosen career path. 

A key benefit to our MChem course is the emphasis we place on laboratory-based teaching, and the development of practical skills. Your lab work will include synthesis of new compounds, characterisation of these compounds by spectroscopic methods, and the study of their individual properties. 

In the final year of your degree, you’ll tailor your study to specialise in the areas that reflect your interests and career aspirations. You’ll also undertake an individual research project. 

Placement Year and Study Abroad

On this course you will spend your third year working in industry, gaining experience and skills that are highly valued by employers. The placement component of this course is compulsory and can be undertaken in the UK or overseas. 

You will be expected to seek your own work placement. In the first two weeks of your second year you will be asked to write a CV and apply to a range of companies. Not only will this ensure that you work within your preferred field, it will also provide you with the essential job-hunting skills you will require after graduation. We will, of course, offer our guidance and support whilst you are identifying and negotiating placement opportunities. 

During this year you’ll be supported by an industrial supervisor and a mentor from the university. You and your industrial supervisor will feed back during the placement to ensure that it is progressing well, and your UEA mentor will visit you during the year. 

Please note that we cannot guarantee any student a work placement as this decision rests with potential employers. 

If you are unable to secure a work placement by the end of your second year you will have the option to transfer onto the equivalent degree programme without a Year in Industry. 

After the Course

What are your career options after Chemistry? 

A better question might be what career options are not open to you after chemistry, as you’ll see from the huge range of careers that our graduates have followed. 

Our chemistry degrees provide the skills that employers are looking for – high level subject knowledge combined with problem solving, IT, analytical skills, instrumentation, time management, organisation, and team and individual work. 

UEA Chemistry has been ranked 1st for career prospects in The Guardian 2020 and again 1st for graduate prospects in the Complete University Guide 2022. 

Many of our graduates secure positions in emerging chemistry industries, such as Iceni Diagnostics (a UEA spin off company developing lateral flow test technology, including for Covid-19), and leading pharmaceutical companies (Glaxo SmithKline, AkzoNobel or Sanofi), chemical and advanced technology companies (Johnson Matthey, Dell or British Airways) with roles in research, management, product development and quality control. 

Others have used their chemistry degree to pursue more diverse career options. These range from further research degrees (MSc or PhD) towards academic positions, to teaching training (PGCE) to become schoolteachers, through to careers in publishing (RSC and Wiley editors), computing (ANDigital) and even banking (Barclays), insurance (Aviva), and almost everything in between. 

At UEA we have a great team to support graduates in securing excellent career starts through CareerCentral. In the School of Chemistry, our Director of Employability, Prof Richard Stephenson, coordinates internal and external events and makes sure that all additional key skills training elements are present in our curriculum from year 1, allowing Chemistry graduates to present a highly competitive CV. The skills training is embedded within our modules, especially in years 3 and 4, but, in addition, all students benefit from chemistry careers drop-in sessions and 1to1 guidance, plus chemistry specific employers events and fairs. 

We also encourage our students to participate in the UEA award, which is a certificate from the University, recognising a range of extracurricular activities that students can undertake while at university, to help them develop other skills to become highly employable. 

The Year in Industry option of the MChem degree provides extra practical experience in an industrial setting during your degree. We have strong links with industries in the UK and abroad. For example, in 2020, our students undertook placements in companies like AstraZeneca, OxfordBioMedica, Anglia DNA, Treatt, LGC, Makevale, Dermal, Airbus and Robinson Brothers, and one of our students went to ARCNL (Advance Research centre for Nanolithography) in Amsterdam. 

To complement undergraduate studies, we offer a wide range of internships during the summer break (6-12 weeks) supported by the University and different funders, for students in their second and third year of their degrees. These provide additional opportunities to experience work and develop key skills in one of the many diverse research areas being pursued in the School of Chemistry. 

“During the internship I have been exposed to a range of techniques such as bacterial transformation, recombinant protein expression and SDS-PAGE, all of which I would only have read about or been briefly introduced to in my undergraduate studies. I strongly suggest that if you are focused on research that you apply for as many experience opportunities as possible and refine your CV as best you can for that first interview.”- Jack Fendley, 2nd Year intern student, working on oligomerisation of the chlamydia protein TarP for cell invasion, with Dr Tharin Blumenschein over the summer 2021, funded by a Tim Pickup UEA Internship.

Career destinations

Examples of careers that you could enter include: 

• Research scientist 

• Healthcare 

• Government 

• Data analyst 

• Academic 

• Teacher