Undergrad research =/= Grad research interests

[meniculus]

I've been writing my statement of purpose, and have had no idea how to approach it because the research I've done is in no way at all related to the research I am interested in for grad school, not even tangentially related. How harmful will this be to my application? Has anyone dealt with this before? I'm unsure how to frame this in my SoP without sounding too personal/drone-y.

Also apologize if this has been posted before. I tried a basic search for similar threads and didn't come up with anything obvious.

[synorg]

i wouldn't worry about it. i did undergrad research in chemical engineering/environmental chemistry and applied for synthetic organic and got a couple admits. it's definitely been said before on here that having research experience PERIOD is the most important thing. get feedback from faculty at your undergrad program on your SoP if you're really worried about it, but start off expressing what motivates you to pursue a phd, and hopefully a career, in chemistry.

so in short, don't worry about any mismatch in subfields. just do your best in conveying your academic interests. good luck!

[Shelley Burian]

In the humanities, where this happens a lot because of liberal arts programs, it's important to trace how you arrived at your current research interests, because that shows people how much you've thought about your direction. Some examples I have heard of in my field (art history) is someone saw something in a museum which really inspired them or went to a conference and heard a presentation and then went and did more research or reading into the subject. This makes it personal while still being academic. Don't make it sound like you just woke up one morning and picked a topic because you liked the look of it.

[Quantum Buckyball]

In the humanities, where this happens a lot because of liberal arts programs, it's important to trace how you arrived at your current research interests, because that shows people how much you've thought about your direction. Some examples I have heard of in my field (art history) is someone saw something in a museum which really inspired them or went to a conference and heard a presentation and then went and did more research or reading into the subject. This makes it personal while still being academic. Don't make it sound like you just woke up one morning and picked a topic because you liked the look of it.

I woke up one morning in Summer 2007 and decided to become a professional chemist, I was totally inspired by Elle Woods

[Eigen]

I would say it isn't that big of a deal, but it might put you at a disadvantage depending on how far you're transitioning.

It seems like schools want to accept people with a good background of research experience so they can get into the lab doing work very soon after starting. If you are transitioning far enough that your work experience won't translate, that might be an issue- ie, you're transitioning from theory to synthetic chemistry, or synthetic to theory. In either case, you won't be able to step into the group and start working.

If you're transitioning areas with similar skills (synthetic organic to inorganic, for instance) a lot of the skills will be the same, just with different applications, and it's not as big of a deal.

That aside, however, the larger skillset isn't in the actual labwork, but rather in your ability to formulate and follow through on ideas, solve problems, and get around issues in your research- so showing that you can do/have done that is the most important, I think.

So you just want to word it in such a way that you emphasize what you've done that benefits your future goals as much as possible.