Allied Subjects are upper division elective courses offered by the chemistry department or other departments that are strongly related to chemistry. Students need to complete a total of 12 units of Elective + Allied Subjects courses, equating to 3-4 classes. Students who perform research for units (through CHEM H194 or CHEM 196) can have up to 4 research units count towards this total. The following are courses that satisfy the Allied Subject requirement for chemistry majors:
The Department of Chemistry also offers a Materials Chemistry Concentration for chemistry majors. In order to obtain a concentration in materials chemistry, students are required to take an analytical lab (CHEM 105, 125, or C182) and a synthetic lab (CHEM 108 or 115) for their laboratory requirement, and CHEM C150 for the elective requirement. For their allied subject courses, students are asked to take a total of 10 units (~3 courses) from the following list:
Although it is possible to double major/obtain a simulatenous degree (see Chemistry + Business) as a Chemistry major, it is highly uncommon given the nature of courses within the College of Chemistry. Before you decide to double, please read the corresponding page on double majors. Please note that students are not allowed to double major in Chemistry and Chemical Biology.
Some students choose to obtain minors in related fields, such as Bioengineering, Computer Science, Materials Science and Engineering, and Mathematics, amongst others. To find out more about minoring while in the College of Chemistry, please consult the Minors page.
From the 2017 Career Center survey of Chemistry Majors:
Of the Chemistry majors graduating from UC Berkeley, about half (50%) continue with their education, attending graduate school for their Doctorate, PharmD, or Master's degree. These students attend schools like MIT, Caltech, Stanford, Princeton, and UCSF.
Of the students who go into the workforce, 64% work for for-profit corporations, with 21% for education and 14% for government. The average salary is $50,400. The most common jobs for graduates are research techicians (research associates) and software engineers.