Chemist and Chemical Technician
SOC 19-2031
⚠⚠⚠ The question this page answers is whether you need a doctorate, and the data is unusually clear: 30% of working chemists report one as required — the highest doctoral share of any occupation on this site — while 56% report a bachelor's. They are two different careers and the choice has to be made in the second undergraduate year. ⚠⚠ Also here: the chemical TECHNICIAN route has 7,600 annual openings on an associate degree, more than chemists and materials scientists combined.
Data Scientist
SOC 15-2051
Data scientists turn messy data into decisions — cleaning and preparing it, building and validating statistical and machine-learning models, and explaining the result to people who will act on it. ⚠ There is no licence, no entrance examination and, for most people now working in the field, no data science degree: the occupation is older than the major.
Physics — 9 institutions, 329 completions. A common and well-regarded entry route: modelling, computation and comfort with uncertainty.
Pharmacist
SOC 29-1051
⚠⚠ One route: the Doctor of Pharmacy, awarded in Florida's public system by UF, FAMU and USF (about 412 a year). ⚠⚠ Admission turns on two or more years of prerequisite science, not a bachelor's degree: UF's minimum is an associate degree, and more than half of Pharm.D. applications nationally come from people without a bachelor's. Median pay is $140,910 nationally and $135,970 in Florida. BLS expects retail demand to be limited as prescriptions move online and by mail.
⚠ Chemistry — general and organic chemistry make up the largest block of pre-pharmacy prerequisites on UF's critical-tracking list (CHM2045/2046, CHM2210/2211). AACP publishes no data on entrants' majors, so this records where the prerequisites sit, not a proven best major.
Environmental Scientist and Specialist
SOC 19-2041
Measuring and protecting water, air, soil and habitat, and making the case in front of a regulator. ⚠⚠⚠ Two things a Florida student should know before choosing the major. FIRST, environmental SCIENCE and environmental STUDIES are different degrees leading to different jobs, and the state's largest producer teaches the studies one. SECOND, Florida pays this occupation $21,390 below the national median — a far wider gap than architecture's $3,040 or interior design's $6,330 — so choosing the employer matters more here than almost anywhere else.
⚠ Geological and Earth Sciences — named because Florida's water problems are geological ones: a limestone aquifer, springs, sinkholes and saltwater intrusion. ⚠⚠ It is also the route to the one directly relevant Florida licence, the Professional Geologist under chapter 492, F.S.
Marine Biologist and Wildlife Biologist
SOC 19-1023
⚠⚠⚠ The numbers first, because nobody puts them in front of Florida students: 19,500 zoologists and wildlife biologists nationally, about 1,400 openings a year across all fifty states, and a FLORIDA median of $52,750 against $76,780 nationally — the widest gap this site has measured. ⚠⚠ Florida awards 98 marine biology bachelor's a year at three institutions, and roughly 5,000 biology bachelor's, many of whom want the same jobs. This page is about what to do with that, not about talking you out of it.
⚠ Geological and Earth Sciences — named for the oceanography half. Physical, chemical and geological oceanography decide where organisms are, and OCE1001 at 21 Florida institutions is the shared course. ⚠⚠ Marine GEOLOGY and coastal processes are also a less crowded corner of the same coastline.