any chances for international students to start a career in this field?

lexieee

I'm an undergrad in University of Washington, biochem major. And I know there are better choices like going to pharmacy schools, more salaries and all that.. but ummm.. if there's any (ANY?!) chances available for me( I'm holding a F-1 visa so there's a lot of limitations for me to even find an internship), I would REALLY love to try. The other day I looked up on the indeed website, and searched for the information about the assignment of the H-1B visa, I couldn't find any cosmetic company hiring chemists but rather managers(or things like that). Personally I am a super fan of cosmetics, and I'll really love a career that is "attached" to it! Can anybody give me any infomation about it? or just kill my hope so that I can give it up and go back to the study on drugs... Thank you!

PerryR

Hello Lexiee - Congratulations on your schooling thus far. You certainly have a good background for having a career in cosmetics. My schooling was in biochemistry too and it wasn't a hinderance to me.

Unfortunately, I do not have any information for you about Visas and things like that. I think it will depend on the company. One suggestion I have is to look up some of the career articles we've published. This may give you some ideas on where to find potential positions and how to get them.

Good luck!

Robert Zonis

There are a great many "international" chemists in this business, especially because the larger companies sell globally, and an ability to communicate across cultures is valued.

Some thing to consider is expanding your career options a bit - cosmetic chemistry is actually a subset of new product development chemistry, or formulating chemistry. Cosmetic chemists deal primarily with cosmetics/makeup, but there are chemists formulating products ranging from ink to soap to floor wax to fabric softeners to leather cleaners, etc. Interestingly enough, I've found that as I've branched out into formulating products other than cosmetics, many of the formulating techniques and problem solving strategies I learned for formulating cosmetics actually apply generally to formulating any new product. I'm sure that the reverse would be true, as well.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending) I think you'll find that the vast majority of internships available for undergraduates are unpaid, especially summer internships, so a visa doesn't become an issue. Here at Beaumont Products, we are lucky in that we are right down the street from Kennesaw State University, so our summer intern(s) will at least have access to cheap housing, and could bicycle to work if they wanted to. I expect to have at least one internship available this summer, and hopefully two or more next summer.

Washington is pretty far away from Georgia, though, so I think you might be better off checking with the cosmetic/consumer products companies that are more local - there are quite a few in California.

Howdy, Stranger!

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