I want to become someone who develops new pharmaceuticals on a chemical level, working in a lab and not facing patients or anything. I’m currently about to major in chemical engineering, but i want to know if there are better paths! I chose chem engineering as a degree because I’ve heard it’s pretty versatile, but I’d like to hear your guys’ opinions as I’m pretty confused and would like some guidance. :-)

>>33320308 (OP)
I am not in the field, but I know something you can do. Look up people who have your ideal job on LinkedIn. Then contact them and ask for their advice. If you don't feel comfortable reaching out, then just stalk their profiles to look at their education and career progression

I have a PhD in chemical engineering, and have friends who went into pharma / biopharma (I went into semiconductor).
90+% of pharma RnD is bio-molecules based these days (large proteins like monoclonal antibodies or smaller polypeptides like ozempic and clones). There are very few small-molecule drugs in the pipeline.
You could get a job like this with a degree in chemical engineering, but you absolutely will need to get your PhD, and work in bio groups for your dissertation (cell growth and/or small animal studies). And if you want a job that doesn't suck, you need to make it into a top research program (aka one from this list), so you need to be smart with nearly a 4.0 + undergrad research experience.

Of course you shouldn't trust anything you read on 4chan, so go talk to one of your Chem Eng profs you trust and tell them "I want to work in pharma one day, can I talk to you about this, or is there someone in the department that does relevant research that could give me advice". That sort of thing.

>>33320347
this is really helpful, thank you! :-)

>>33320411
I just graduated, my highschool GPA was a 3.81 (weighted) with AP Chem, Bio, Calculus, and Mechanics under my belt. I was considering Purdue since I have a decent chance of getting in, but will that be enough? I didn’t really start taking my grades seriously during junior year, and I’m afraid it’s too late for me to do anything better. Only getting around 93rd percentile for SAT and ACT as well.

>>33320483
Okay you are just in high school? Nice that gives you plenty of time to figure out what you want to do with your life.
This list of schools is for GRAD school, the list of undergrad schools is much larger and Purdue is definitely a reasonable choice.
Here is what you need to do roughly:
Freshmen year:
- Chill out, meet some people, decide if you want to join a frat, figure out what living on your own means, try to sleep with some of the dorm room 6s and 7s.
- Pass your classes with a 4.0
- Maybe maybe maybe try finding some research group for the summer, but this is try-hard mode.
Sophomore:
- Okay your classes get much harder, do what it takes to get that 4.0
- If you still like chem eng and still want to try going into pharma, start talking to professors about the correct courses to take, as well as what it means to go to grad school.
- Ideally during the summer you have some kind of 10 or 12 week undergrad research experience at Purdue or a local college. If you can do this at Purdue, and then continue doing research during the school year with the same group (and you don't hate it), this would be ideal.
Junior:
- They will try to break your spirits with an ungodly amount of labwork + write-ups, just stick with it
- Again, talk to people you respect (even grad students) about what it means to go into grad school.
- Really, really try to find a summer undergraduate research experience, in some kind of pharma or bio group, from the list of schools I previously attached.
- Don't fail out because you turned 21
Senior:
- Keep talking with your chem eng profs and/or advisors (at my school they were the same people).
- Apply to grad school
- Apply for NSF fellowships
- Pass your classes

Hope this helps. Don't be afraid to change your mind, Chem Eng is a pleasantly large field that you can find a number of different industries to work in, but to do all the interesting stuff you unfortunately need your PhD.

>>33320553
One last thought:
Don't know what the curriculums look like these days, but strongly consider using any of your spare technical electives on statistics, programming, and machine learning, FWIW. You don't want to be the person still manually copy+pasting thousands of lines of excel because you cannot write a simple python script.