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March 28, 2024, 07:28:13 pm

Poll

The best place to do a double degree in Chemical Engineering/Pharmaceuticals is... (And if you could, please post why you chose the answer you did!) Thanks :-)

Monash University
6 (60%)
RMIT University
4 (40%)

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Author Topic: Chemical Engineering/Pharmaceuticals  (Read 9085 times)  Share 

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mdntimp

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Chemical Engineering/Pharmaceuticals
« on: January 10, 2014, 08:34:35 pm »
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Hey :)

Has anyone looked at the double degree in Pharmaceuticals/Chemical Engineering at Monash or at RMIT?

Is anyone taking this course? If so, could you please tell me a bit about it, such as what kind of things you study and learn about, if you have had any work experience or placements, and what kind of job position you hope to have in the future (or if you've already been offered one!!)

And is anyone else out there interested in doing this course next year?

Would you all recommend Monash or RMIT for this course? Please help, this is my biggest concern!!

Just any general advice on pharmaceuticals and/or chemical engineering in would be awesome.  :)

Thanks guys!!
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slothpomba

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Re: Chemical Engineering/Pharmaceuticals
« Reply #1 on: January 11, 2014, 02:51:27 am »
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First up, we moved your thread to a forum that was more suitable (and inhabited by people more able) to answer it. I don't believe there is any degree called "pharmaceuticals", i think you have to elaborate on that.

I know there is a pharmacy/engineering double degree (i think). I find it a bit hard to conceive how you'd use both degrees in a professional capacity. If they need a pharmacist, they'll only be using your pharmacy skills, your engineering wont help much, if they need an engineer, your pharmacy skills probably wont cross over much either. That's just to clear up any misconception that there might be a massive synergy between the two degrees.

If you just want it as a "back up" or for interest purposes, go for it. I'd recommend Monash over RMIT as the Monash pharmacy school is within the top 10 in the world and it is much older than the very new RMIT pharmacy school. I can't comment much on the engineering side of it.

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mdntimp

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Re: Chemical Engineering/Pharmaceuticals
« Reply #2 on: January 11, 2014, 07:41:38 pm »
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First up, we moved your thread to a forum that was more suitable (and inhabited by people more able) to answer it. I don't believe there is any degree called "pharmaceuticals", i think you have to elaborate on that.

I know there is a pharmacy/engineering double degree (i think). I find it a bit hard to conceive how you'd use both degrees in a professional capacity. If they need a pharmacist, they'll only be using your pharmacy skills, your engineering wont help much, if they need an engineer, your pharmacy skills probably wont cross over much either. That's just to clear up any misconception that there might be a massive synergy between the two degrees.

If you just want it as a "back up" or for interest purposes, go for it. I'd recommend Monash over RMIT as the Monash pharmacy school is within the top 10 in the world and it is much older than the very new RMIT pharmacy school. I can't comment much on the engineering side of it.


Thank you!  :) I'm still new here and never really sure where is most appropriate for me to post haha.

Monash has Bachelor degree in Engineering (Honours)/Pharmaceutical Science, and I will choose to specialize in Chemical engineering. And RMIT has a Bachelor degree in Engineering (Chemical Eng)(Hons)/Bachelor of Biomedical Sci (Pharmaceutical Sci)

From my current understanding, pharmaceuticals is the same thing (more or less... Correct me if I'm wrong!) as pharmacology. So doing pharmaceuticals would not qualify me to be a pharmacist, they are two totally separate degrees (for that, I would do the bachelor degree in pharmacy). Pharmaceuticals is a lot about chemistry and taking such knowledge into the lab to produce products, whereas pharmacy just allows you to, well, be a pharmacist haha! So chem eng/pharmaceuticals are able to work together, as Monash puts it: "Chemical engineers can design, run and troubleshoot production facilities, but their training typically excludes the skills to develop pharmaceutical products. Similarly, pharmaceutical science graduates can invent and test new products, but they lack the know-how to manage the product process beyond the laboratory stage. This double degree produces professionals capable of covering the full spectrum of the pharmaceutical product design and development process."


Cool, thank you, I am leaning more so to Monash... Because, as you said, they are in top 10 within the world for their pharmacy/pharmaceutical school! I was just more concerned about whether or not Monash would be most suitable for the chemeng degree, as that is the degree I am most interested in (that being said, I am very excited about pharmaceuticals also.)


OOOOOR would you think a degree in chemeng/business would be better?
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spectroscopy

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Re: Chemical Engineering/Pharmaceuticals
« Reply #3 on: January 11, 2014, 07:50:47 pm »
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From my current understanding, pharmaceuticals is the same thing (more or less... Correct me if I'm wrong!) as pharmacology

nope in pharmacology you dont learn about how to make drugs and stuff, pomba knows all about this stuff, but from what i remember pharmacology is more about pharmokinetics, basic mechanisms of drug action, how drugs affect neuro/endocrinal function etc. whereas monashs pharm sci degree lets you do drug discovery biology or formulation or medicinal chemistry which is more about how to make drugs. i know that if you did monash pharm sci and chem eng, alot of pharm companies that are recruiting chem engineers would really like you over the standard chemical engineer because you know already about how to do things in relation to pharmaceuticals + if this sort of stuff interests you then its more time to have fun doing chem/pharm/engineering !!!
just my two cents
and Monash >RMIT for this particular double degree but both are awesome unis
good luck !!

mdntimp

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Re: Chemical Engineering/Pharmaceuticals
« Reply #4 on: January 11, 2014, 07:59:35 pm »
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nope in pharmacology you dont learn about how to make drugs and stuff, pomba knows all about this stuff, but from what i remember pharmacology is more about pharmokinetics, basic mechanisms of drug action, how drugs affect neuro/endocrinal function etc. whereas monashs pharm sci degree lets you do drug discovery biology or formulation or medicinal chemistry which is more about how to make drugs. i know that if you did monash pharm sci and chem eng, alot of pharm companies that are recruiting chem engineers would really like you over the standard chemical engineer because you know already about how to do things in relation to pharmaceuticals + if this sort of stuff interests you then its more time to have fun doing chem/pharm/engineering !!!
just my two cents
and Monash >RMIT for this particular double degree but both are awesome unis
good luck !!

Awesome, thank you for clearing that up for me :-) But I am sooo glad to hear that, because drug discovery biology, formulation, medicinal chemistry and making medicinal products are exactly the kinds of things I'm interested in!! (As appose to just learning about the mechanisms of drug action & the other things you described as more to do with 'pharmacology')

Yeah I was hoping that having the pharmaceutical side of things, as well as chemeng, would benefit to me... Not only in terms of employment, but also in having the most certainty and knowledge about the industry that I possibly can.

Thank you! This has made me even more excited for uni. Can't wait!
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mdntimp

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Re: Chemical Engineering/Pharmaceuticals
« Reply #5 on: January 11, 2014, 08:02:12 pm »
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nope in pharmacology you dont learn about how to make drugs and stuff, pomba knows all about this stuff


Oh and I just realised that Slothpomba is indeed studying pharmacology at uni haha! So a good person to talk to about it :-)

Also, can I ask... What is Psychopharmacology!?
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slothpomba

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Re: Chemical Engineering/Pharmaceuticals
« Reply #6 on: January 12, 2014, 01:27:38 pm »
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From my current understanding, pharmaceuticals is the same thing (more or less... Correct me if I'm wrong!) as pharmacology

"Pharmaceuticals" isn't a major anywhere to the best of my knowledge, if you're taking about "pharmaceutical science" then that is one. It used to be called "formulation science" which i think reflects what it is more accurately. It's more about the process of manufacture of drugs and how they are synthesised (and possibly how they are discovered). It's essentially a specialised version of chemistry i guess you could call it and doesn't have *heaps* to do with pharmacology.

Pharmacology is about how the drugs work and why they work. You take an aspirin and your headache goes away but why? How does it do it? How do we figure out how much dose to give someone? Basically we learnt how every class of drug worked and why. It's a bit interdisciplinary borrowing from areas like physiology and biochemistry.

Finally, pharmacy is the obvious one. It's the dude you see at the pharmacy when you need to get antibiotics or something, thats what it prepares you to be. To the best of my knowledge, it has a lot of focus on patient interaction, ethics, etc in addition to some pharmacology.

I have my own personal reservations about how useful most double degrees are in the workplace (as i said in my earlier post) but thats certainly not to discourage anyone. There's really not much reason to not go for it either, its only an extra year and a few extra grand. Scientists will handle it on the laboratory stage, engineers will handle it when it scales up, i'm sure some knowledge of one will help the other but you'll probably only play one of these roles (likely the engineering one).

That said i do think it is a better combo than combining it with business (unless you have an interest in that kind of thing).

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mdntimp

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Re: Chemical Engineering/Pharmaceuticals
« Reply #7 on: January 12, 2014, 10:20:42 pm »
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Cool, thank you for clearing that up for me. I was quite confused between pharmaceutical science/pharmacology... And yes, sorry about that, I do mean "pharmaceutical science!" Although I swore it simply used to be "pharmaceuticals" haha, silly me

And yes I suppose you are right, I would most likely only ever work in one of these roles. My ultimate dream is to work across the board, from the lab to the manufacturing stage and possibly even to the marketing stage. Obviously I would need to work my way up to such a diverse role during my career. Would you think it is possible to find a career that combines both lab and drug discovery/synthesis with the actual manufacturing and marketing of those medicines?
And pharmaceutical science *would* allow me to work in labs to actually synthesise, improve and discover pharmaceutical products from heyfever tablets and tanning lotion to serious medical products, is this correct? 
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spectroscopy

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Re: Chemical Engineering/Pharmaceuticals
« Reply #8 on: January 12, 2014, 11:26:15 pm »
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a career that combines both lab and drug discovery/synthesis with the actual manufacturing and marketing of those medicines?
And pharmaceutical science *would* allow me to work in labs to actually synthesise, improve and discover pharmaceutical products from heyfever tablets and tanning lotion to serious medical products, is this correct?
to the first point - chem eng's at big pharma like gsk and pfizer have to know the basic synthesis of drugs and adapt that onto a macro scale for mass production, if you are already familiar with the process in the lab then doing your job would be alot easier. also marketing would probably be a bit different but if you get to a high level manager position you would probably be able to do a bit of everything :P

and to the second point - my friend who just finished his honours in monash pharm sci course says that yes you can do all of that stuff but youll need a masters or something to be competitive except for formulation(or was it medicinal chem?) where bachelors grads have a reasonable chance at jobs :P

good luck :P

mdntimp

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Re: Chemical Engineering/Pharmaceuticals
« Reply #9 on: January 12, 2014, 11:40:12 pm »
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to the first point - chem eng's at big pharma like gsk and pfizer have to know the basic synthesis of drugs and adapt that onto a macro scale for mass production, if you are already familiar with the process in the lab then doing your job would be alot easier. also marketing would probably be a bit different but if you get to a high level manager position you would probably be able to do a bit of everything :P

and to the second point - my friend who just finished his honours in monash pharm sci course says that yes you can do all of that stuff but youll need a masters or something to be competitive except for formulation(or was it medicinal chem?) where bachelors grads have a reasonable chance at jobs :P

good luck :P

Yes, that it very true! I think the two degrees will benefit each other, more so pharmaceutical science benefitting the Chemeng, but that works in my preference anyway. Haha yes, high level management position wherein I can do a bit of everything is DEFINITELY my goal! But I know this may take time and experience that I can't necessarily get in a uni degree :-)

Awesome, thank you for your help!! :-)
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