Overview

• More 

Make drugs without getting arrested.

Description

So. Not all drugs are illegal.

If this is news to you, don't worry—we'll give you a moment to pick up your jaw from the floor.

Ready? Okay. Now, go to your medicine cabinet. You'll likely find a whole bunch of drugs that are perfectly legal. Why? Well, the short answer is that they help people feel better…without many of the nasty (illegal) side effects. Kind of the dream combination there.

Those drugs have to be manufactured by someone, and that someone is a pharmacologist. A bunch of them, in fact. (But really, in a section labeled "pharmacology," who else would it be? You didn't think we were going to say "acrobats," did you?)

So why choose pharmacology as a major? Well, maybe you're on a crusade to cure the common cold or prevent allergies…5ever. If so, thank you for that level of devotion.

Or maybe you have an interest in medicine and chemistry and are looking for a way to combine them, or you just love cobbling together new compounds and want to help out.

Whatever your reasons, drugs are one of those things that people cannot seem to get enough of. They're on the list along with zombies, pizza, and videos of cats acting like jerks. The demand isn't going anywhere, so in terms of job security, you're thinking of a good field to go into. It's not like people are suddenly going to decide that the best treatment for a migraine is karaoke.

Trust us, we've tried.

Nope, it's drugs, drugs, drugs, and that's all you—with this major under your belt, that is. Yeah, don't make drugs recreationally…that's how the police get involved.

As a pharmacology major, you'll be improving and extending lives with your inventions, which is pretty great. Even better still, you don't have to deal with all those sick people (unlike doctors). You get to improve lives from behind the safety of a bunch of lab equipment.

Blech. Sick people. Gross.

And who knows—what if you do find a new way to treat a disease? Fortune and glory could be yours. If you don't want to be cooped up all the time, you could even research traditional folk remedies. Yep, you could end up harvesting rare plants or squeezing strange glands. If that's your thing.

Maybe you could be a renegade pharmacologist, raiding dens of medicine to find the best way to treat illness. That sounds pretty good to us…although, you probably won't use a leather jacket and a whip as a pharmacologist. A leather labcoat, perhaps?

We dunno. That would be something to discuss with a future supervisor.

Famous People who majored in Pharmacology

• Richard E. Chipkin, president of Psyadon Pharmaceuticals
• Curtis Ruegg, executive vice president of R&D at Revance Therapeutics
• Claude Chabrol, a French film director
• Ian Adamson, an Irish politician
• Peter D. Suzdak, co-founder of Codiaxyl Pharmaceuticals

• More