Pharmaceutical Engineering

Pharmaceutical engineering, a.k.a. pharmaceutical science, is one of the most important careers in the United States. Imagine if there was nobody making new drugs to help cure diseases. There would be no drug companies; no pills to cure diseases, epidemics would spread rapidly across the country with nothing to stop them. People would be so focused on staying alive that there could be no culture or society as we know it. Although it is often taken for granted, pharmaceutical engineering is one of the reasons that we can live in the comfortable society we do.

One of the great things about this career is the high salary. There are many choices that a person heading into this career can make that will have an impact on their salary, but the general annual average is $90,000. One of the things that may affect the salary of a pharmaceutical scientist is where they choose to work. One who chooses to work for an industry will generally get the highest pay: an average of $93,000. The next highest salary is that of a person who works for the government and their average pay would be $86,000. Finally, a person who chooses to work for a university will generally get the least pay, an average of $85,200 annually. Another factor that can dramatically affect a scientists pay is their academic degree. Some typical degrees and their average annual wages could include: toxicology at $103,800, physical chemistry at $102.000, pharmacology at $102,000, pharmacokinetics at $101,700, inorganic chemistry at $87,000, biochemistry at $77,700, and chemistry at $74,800. One last important variable with wages in this career is of course seniority, meaning that for a beginning scientist the average wage is $60,900, but rises as they gain experience.

An important thing a person should decide before going into this career is where he wishes to work. It is generally accepted that there are three main places a pharmaceutical engineer can work. They can either work for the government, private companies/industries, or a university. The decision about where to work should be based on personal preferences since there are definite upsides to any of the three. If a person considers salary the most important factor then they may want to work for a private company or industry since these pay the most. Scientists working for the government get the best benefits of the three including at least one month of paid vacation in addition to healthcare and other benefits. Universities pay the least and have the worst benefits but are still a good choice because they allow for the most independent, unguided and unhampered research of the three. One bad thing about working for a university is that you would have to work long hours in the laboratory while hours in the other two places are flexible and never longer than 8 hours. The final thing a person might want to look into before they choose where he wants to work is the daily activities of their job. Those working for industries would have varying activities depending on the science in which they specialize. For example, a medicinal chemist might use a machine to measure chemicals or a pharmacologist might test certain chemicals and drugs on animals. Scientists working for colleges would work long hours in the lab doing research and performing tests and federal scientists would typically be doing more administrative jobs throughout the day.

Another great thing about this career is that there is that there is an incredible shortage of people doing it. This shortage