So, basically, when I started college I had no idea what I wanted to do. Noone in my family is in science, my parents never graduated from a 4-year. I liked Chem/Calculus after my first year so chose Chem Engineering (ChemE) as a sort of dare. Along the way, I found I absolutely loved Physical and Organic Chemistry. I sort of find ChemE boring. I would never have imagined that I would end up liking chem so much (I was huge slacker in high school, <3.0 GPA in HS no chem no precalc even; WAY behind my engineering peers when I started college that's for sure)... but I really feel grad school might be the best thing for me now. I'm going into my 5th year (super senior) with the following stats and relevant experience:
I love physical and organic chemistry. My top professors I've looked at are computational organic chemists - using quantum, ab initio methods, trying to examine transition states and theoretical reactions/seeing if they work in lab. That stuff seems awesome to me. On a broader level I love studying organic chem, synthesis, and structure but I have a deep appreciation for pchem and desire to pick apart the fundamentals of how stuff operates and interacts (which is not always a focus of synthetic ochem groups). Anything involving that kind of stuff I can see myself liking; I can give names of researchers if that helps give an idea of what I'm looking for in research.
I know I'm not the strongest applicant (but I have come a long way! maybe that means something?), I don't have a single publication in my name and only 6 months of chem research. I'm not even a chem major! Although I have tried to take as many extra chem classes as I can.
I just wonder what I should be focusing on most now? I have an internship and taking a math class this summer... should I drop the math class and go balls-to-the-wall studying for the GREs in my spare time? Also... for my last year I only have 3 ChemE classes I need to take to graduate! (1 each school term) During that time I really want to take some higher level chem classes, graduate level Ochem and Pchem. Or should I instead be begging ochemists or pchemists at my university for positions in their lab so I can get more research experience? I figure, if I do the latter and I get denied from all my schools for Fall 2012 I can apply the next season with maybe nearly 2 years of chem research and even a publication or close to it under my belt if I'm REALLY lucky.
These are the schools I like a lot so far (I don't even know if its worth it to apply to top 10 schools, and I don't care much for prestige just as long as I'm happy with what with what I'm doing and can get a semi-related job afterward whether it is in academia or industry.)
UC Davis
UCLA
UNC - Chapel Hill
University of Michigan
Georgia Tech
UCSD
UCSB
UT Austin
What do you think?