Chemistry & Biology Degree Course Choices

There’s been a lot of attention to STEM careers and university courses over the last few years. Has this sparked an interest for you? Would you want to do science at university? This blog will look at how you could use biology and chemistry. A future blog about maths and physics will cover in more detail.

With biology and chemistry, it’s worth splitting the university courses into different areas of human, animal and plant.

For animal related university courses, the obvious here will include veterinary medicine, zoology and marine biology. But there are a huge range of other possible options here, including animal science, equine performance management. There will be a range of life sciences, natural sciences or applied biology degrees too. These courses will have a specific focus, but you are likely to cover a range of different topics, including behaviour, genetics, nutrition, conservation, welfare and husbandry. Some of these courses may have some dissections involved too.

Some animal courses are more ‘welfare’ or hands on related. Did you know that you can do a veterinary physiotherapy degree? You don’t need to qualify as a human physio first! Vet nursing is offered as a degree too, which can be a great way to qualify for the job. There are a range of animal welfare degrees too, which will have varying amounts of science in them. How about an agriculture degree? You can do a specific livestock degree, which will set you up really well do a range of agriculture related jobs, including nutrition, genetics and breeding of livestock. As well as these, you can look at ecology/conservation/environmental science which will have some animal related science in them. Want more information about the options? https://www.prospects.ac.uk/careers-advice/what-can-i-do-with-my-degree/animal-science-and-management

For human science, the obvious will include medicine, dentistry, radiography and pharmacy. These university courses will lead to obvious careers but also can be used for getting into research roles too. If you look on UCAS there are a huge range of human science degree options to choose from, which need both biology and chemistry, ranging from biochemistry, pharmacology and life sciences.  As with the animal degree options, you will need to think through whether you want a degree that will be more ‘hands on’, e.g. radiography or physiotherapy or more aimed at understanding the science better.

And did you know that as a qualified radiographer or pharmacist that you are qualified to work with animals as well as humans? There are a huge amount of careers you can do with a human science degree, this article lists identifies some https://www.milkround.com/advice/what-jobs-can-you-get-with-a-biological-sciences-degree-in-the-uk.

And lastly there’s the plant area. Agriculture and horticulture are probably the immediate options. Some people get confused between these two, horticulture tends to be more garden plants, salad or fruit crops, often in greenhouses or poly tunnels, with agriculture being everything else. Have you heard of agronomy or plant sciences? These are both very centred on the science of plants, how plants grow, their genetics and how soil impacts on growth. Some degrees like conservation and environmental science will have both plant and animal science involved, depending on the units involved.

One issue to briefly consider is what you can do with a science degree, in any of these areas. Firstly, by concentrating on human, animal or plant science, you aren’t pigeonholing yourself to having to work in that particular area in the future. A science degree will give you so many options, including several that aren’t science related, for instance finance and most of the graduate schemes like science graduates. There are some scientists who will ‘cross over’ from animals to humans, for example if researching genetics or One Health (which is to do with diseases that cross from animals to humans and visa versa). And a growing destination for science graduates is science communications, which is about helping various groups of people understand areas of science better. You can also go onto do a masters or PhD too. So, lots of options!

So, if you are interested in using biology and chemistry further, hopefully this blog has given you some food for thought. Want to find out more about the university options? Why not use https://www.myfuturechoice.com/myunichoices/ to explore your options further?

And after a BSc – MSc, PhD…..

Here at My Uni Choices we specialise in helping students, parents & educators make the best choices. Review all the Universities & Courses here or discover more About Us & the best uni courses for you, finally if you’re ready let’s take The Test to find out what course or degree you should do.