The positions of these enterprises are generally divided into three categories: technical positions (R&D+ testing), business positions (sales+marketing) and functional positions (finance+administration+human resources).
Generally speaking, the technical post is the most direct counterpart of the material specialty. It is advantageous for students majoring in materials to go to technical posts, and the skills of doing experiments and related professional knowledge they usually learn will be used here. However, it should be noted that technical posts have certain requirements for academic qualifications. The bigger the company, the higher the requirements for academic qualifications. Top 500 foreign companies require doctors for R&D personnel, and private enterprises require masters or above. If some students plan to engage in technical posts related to materials in the future, then it is recommended to take the postgraduate entrance examination, which has great advantages in academic qualifications.
Business positions are not strict with academic qualifications, but students majoring in materials have an advantage because of their professional background. But business departments need more soft skills such as communication, interpersonal communication and marketing. If some students don't want to do R&D and testing, but want to do sales and marketing, then I suggest that students find more internships in this field and accumulate work experience.
The functional departments will not say much. The technical content of administrative posts is very low, and finance and HR prefer to recruit people with this major. Of course, if there are people who do finance or HR across industries, my suggestion is to do more research and practice.
2. Weak professional relevance: Weak professional relevance refers to enterprises that can be related to materials majors but are not closely related, such as automobile enterprises, pharmaceutical enterprises, fast-moving consumer enterprises, etc. In recent years, the manufacturing industry has been sluggish, and car companies have laid off more employees and recruited less. Relatively speaking, the pharmaceutical industry and FMCG industry are much more stable, so it is a good choice for students majoring in materials to go to medicine and FMCG. The type of work has also been mentioned above, so I won't repeat it here.
3. majors are irrelevant: there are too many companies with irrelevant majors, and students can choose freely. Among the students I know, there are materials majors who are interested in accounting. They went to the four major accounting firms as interns during their graduate studies and stayed there after graduation. There are also chemistry students who are interested in programming. They graduated from self-taught code and succeeded. Other people who are interested in rock and roll went to be music editors after graduation. The characteristics of this kind of students are that they discover their hobbies early and learn related skills quickly, so it is natural to change careers. So it's up to you whether the students majoring in materials want to change careers or not. If you make it clear from the beginning that you are not interested in materials major, then you should make good use of your spare time as a student to develop your hobbies, accumulate the knowledge and skills you are interested in, and prepare for changing careers after graduation.
Second, the academic circle (as a teacher)
The proportion of students majoring in materials who become teachers after graduation is also quite high, because teachers belong to the work within the system, their social status is relatively high, and their salary is acceptable, but whether they can make a lot of money depends on their own ability and dedication.
1. Being a university teacher: A university teacher is also a highly educated profession. Even for administrative posts and testing posts, the minimum requirement is a master's degree. If you want to engage in scientific research, and want to be promoted from a lecturer to a professor step by step, you must have a doctorate. Many front-line 985 or 2 1 1 even require overseas postdoctoral fellows, which have some strict requirements on the quality and quantity of SCI papers. Therefore, if you want to stay in colleges and universities in the future, it is recommended to study PhD and send more SCI with high impact factors. Education and thesis are of great benefit to becoming a college teacher.
2. Being a middle school teacher: Junior and senior high school teachers are not so strict about academic qualifications, and students who graduate from materials major can apply for chemistry teachers. But it should be noted that if you want to be a middle school teacher, then normal students have an advantage over non-normal students. Because normal students will learn more classroom teaching methods in the usual teaching process, such as how to control the field better, the interaction is more interesting and the teaching is more efficient. Therefore, if non-normal students majoring in materials want to be teachers after graduation, they should accumulate more teaching experience, and extra-curricular tutoring is one of the effective ways.