FOR too long chemistry has been the Cinderella of science, languishing under a lacklustre image while exotic specialities such as forensic science attract top students. But after 26 department closures, efforts to revive the subject seem to have worked, with undergraduate numbers rising by almost a fifth since 2004. We asked three chemistry graduates in related careers to explain why they love getting a reaction.

“Chemistry is about understanding life,” says Dr Tim Gabriel, an academic-industri-al lecturer at Huddersfield University. Like its sister sciences, chemistry ranges from the breathtakingly big to the almost impossibly small, and his work is no exception. “My specialist area is nano-porosity,” he says. This translates as making tiny holes in a material to change its properties — making solar panels generate more energy, for example.

And the fabled academic freedom? “I dictate my own hours.” He lectures for seven hours a week and also spends time doing marketing and recruitment. University work also offers plenty of variety, which he enjoys: “We take our students to Romania to carry out autopsies.”

After three years working in academia, Dr Emma Schofield, a synthetic chemist, switched to a career in industry. She now develops precious-metal catalysts for the specialty chemicals company Johnson Matthey. “We create substances that are totally unique,” she says. “Looking at your flask and thinking ‘That’s never been seen on this earth before’ is very strange.”

Her catalysts are used in fuel cells and catalytic converters. “Industry offers a real, everyday application. We make pollutants safer for people to breathe.” Travel is one benefit in her new career, but the relationship with her peers has changed: while academic conferences encourage an open forum for ideas, industrial chemists must be more guarded because product patents mean sharing research findings is usually taboo.

So how does teaching compare with the glamour of glo-bal travel and new discoveries? Steve Church, a chemistry teacher at John Cabot City Technology College in Bristol, was sponsored by British Gas through a degree in chemical engineering before “accidentally” finding his way into teaching. “I saw an advertisement for teacher training and was soon standing in front of 30 students [who were] hanging on my every word. I thought: ‘I can see myself doing this for a very long time’,” he says.

Forget new substances: to a class, everything is new. “Children don’t have preconceived ideas. Teaching the same lesson twice can be a completely different experience.” And teachers are not confined to the classroom, either. Church has collaborated with the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Science Learning Centre on several projects.

Pay and promotion prospects compare favourably too. At 33, Church is already the head of Year 11, while he describes the pay scale as progressive. “Teaching is anything but one-dimensional. To me, it’s the best job in the world.”

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