Hello guyz, am currently doing an Mphil in Electrochemistry and am still in the early stages. Have however fallen in love with the cannabis industry so am thinking of dropping the electrochemistry root and find something that has got something to do with my current work, that is extraction of cannabis.
Any assistance from this community will be greatly appreciated.
Do plants grown in electroculture yield higher quality medicine compared to plants grown not in electroculture.
Am currently a chemist, so wanted something that relates to chemistry but in the cannabis field,
May be you can elucidate further about the electro culture to se if i will be able to tackle it.
Electroculture is more on the agronomic practices, want something to with extraction.
Are you trying to find a new topic to point towards for your masters?
Talking about cannabis extraction in this context is a bit like talking about petroleum production. It’s a bit of a broad topic. I don’t know what your present experience level is, but if you’re starting from close to zero it probably means you have the better part of a year of learning before you can start to ask really interesting questions.
It would be a lot faster in any number of other industries, but the state of the art is not published in any journal, and this industry is developing only slightly slower than the current LLM boom.
You could go for chemical engineer, but positions for chemical engineers in cannabis can be limited.
Maybe lean towards analytics. There is always demand for analytical chemists. Then you’d just look for a job at a cannabis testing lab.
Just curious how a Masters in Philosophy relates to Electrochemistry or Cannabis extraction? Like, would your thesis be on the philosophy of cannabis extraction? I have no idea how college works, I’m thinking of finally going.
That’s because most people are stuck in garage tek and garage scale mentality.
Chemical and process engineers will be running this industry in 5-10 years. Maybe less.
I wish I could afford to hire a bunch of them.
Right. The real positions in cannabis for chemical engineers will begin to pop up as the market scales into larger production facilities, but even still those positions will be limited compared to most jobs.
If they just want to be better at turning dials they could also pursue just basic organic chemistry. Plenty of useful information to be applied from purification studies. Will you get paid more as a valve turner with a fancy degree? Probably not. Could you get a higher paying position managing those who do? Probably.
A former colleague of mine is a chem E works as plant manager for glass house brands.
Personal opinion - if you’re a chemist, go into industry on normal terms, don’t research cannabis. Gain real expertise on the things everyone here seeks consulting on, such as flash, HPLC methods, and novel purification methods like crystallization and whatnot. Then, in 5 years if you still have the cannabis fever, you can go into industry and see how you like it. If it sucks, which it most likely will, you’ll have a back up. Nobody is going to really hire you right now for having a cannabis thesis. They want to know if they can use and abuse you or scrape knowledge from you for cheap at this point in time.
Agree with the above.
In a perfect world I’d have two or three people with traditional chemistry backgrounds running around in my lab doing synthesis and R&D work, and a pair of chemical engineers handling the process side of things.
I wouldn’t really care in the slightest if any of those people had “cannabis” experience or papers or research under their belt.
If someone did, depending on what that experience was, I might actually consider it a negative. It’s frequently easier to work from a blank slate than to work around or untrain bad habits.
I’m definitely going to college after reading the responses here… lol
dont go to college. its all free on the internet u just gotta want it.
I haven’t been able to find work since July 2022. It seems like the general consensus on cannabis-centric experience is that it’s bad, whether I’m looking inside the industry or out. Don’t get me wrong, though I totally agree with the sentiment that it’s better to train someone completely new than someone who has bad habits, but I also feel that’s more of an attitude issue than a general experience issue. Someone with experience in the industry should at least be considered along with fresh grads or whatever else. I definitely feel worthless and a bit regretful for wasting my time in this industry when I could have just stayed in pharmacy or something.
Also, I love getting my knowledge on the internet, I’m a huge advocate of studying, researching, and learning at your own pace on your own time. I’m only considering college for the shiny piece of paper at the end. The new high school diploma is a bachelor’s degree it seems.
Like, I appreciate the caution against college, but I’ve been following that belief for the past 10+ years and it’s fucked me. It’s finally time I just buckle down and get a degree. Doing it mostly out of spite.
This is pretty terrible advice for someone who wants to get into the chemistry side of the business.
Can you learn a ton on your own? Sure, I have, and so have many others. University isn’t even close to the only way to learn something.
But as an employer, when I see BSc Chemistry or Engineering or whatever, I know that at a bare minimum that person should have a working familiarity with the fundamentals, including the basic math, safety concerns, etc.
Autodidacts can have extremely deep knowledge rivaling PhDs in some areas and dangerously shallow knowledge in others. Some realize this, some don’t. The ones that don’t can be straight up dangerous in some situations, and not realize it.
My chemistry knowledge isn’t deep enough to figure out if someone who does not have a chemistry degree has major gaps in areas that might cause issues down the line.
Someone with a degree is marginally less likely to have those major fundamental gaps, and at a minimum should have been exposed at some point to the resources or knowledge required to fill that gap if it’s identified.
Not always. It could be a huge positive.
But it certainly makes me ask a lot of questions that I wouldn’t need to for someone who is completely green with just a degree or with other industry experience.
From my experience, people who have worked in trap labs for years frequently don’t have the appropriate level of safety and process cleanliness consciousness that is required for working in a heavily regulated pharma-type space.
And any number of legal labs I’ve seen have basically been trap labs but with the addition of epoxy floors and hair nets and paperwork.
I completely agree with everything you’ve stated, honestly. I wish I gained experience in a pharmaceutical-type space rather than a legal trap lab, which is absolutely what most companies are utilizing. (I originally wanted to pursue a degree in Pharmacology, which is why I got my pharmacy tech license).
After wasting my time in legal trap labs, I’ve become disenchanted with the cannabis industry. Even though I’m not an engineer or anywhere close, I do still understand safety and cleanliness, but when you’re put in an environment that isn’t willing to improve or change, it’s almost impossible to maintain.
I’ve been trying to get out of the industry since my last layoff, hoping I can start a new career from the entry-level and learn on the job, but I can’t even get interviews. I can barely get interviews when I apply for positions within the industry, and I get it. I probably wouldn’t consider me for an interview either, for the exact reasons you stated.
If I go to school now, I’d go for Environmental Engineering with a Minor in Urban Planning/Sustainability. Though, I was terrible at math in high school, and I’m a dropout, I got my GED. I was placed in remedial classes when I first attempted community college and dropped out because I had panic attacks going to class. Hahaha, just thinking about it makes me feel so pathetic.
Anyway sorry I’m gonna stop replying, this was insane of me. Hope you figure out a topic to work on Dan.
this
and this. go into a “normal” industry (pharmaceuticals, biotech etc.) and see how things work in a longstanding regulated industry for a few years. and it will give you a chance to work with and learn from experienced people. then go into cannabis if you want, but remember it’s a complete shit show and there’s tons of people desperate to get in (even though the time to get in was yesterday). there’s a huge difference between garage tek mentality and someone who’s been industry
just go. of course many here will tell you “it’s a scam, you can learn everything on the internet”. thing is, it kind of doesn’t matter if things can be learned on the internet because like it or not, when an employer is considering someone for a scientific/tehnical position, college degree is used as a filter to weed out people. like it or not, it is what it is (life isn’t fair).
I have met plenty of smart people who had the mentality “college sucks, it’s a waste of time, it’s a scam blah blah blah…” and you know what? years later they’re still doing the same damn thing. had they just went and got the degree years ago more opportunities would have opened up for them. ill never understand the mentality of “ill just dig into my own beliefs of how I think the world works and damned everyone else”. like trade 4 years or so of a lifetime of more opportunities? and if its not for you then fine, learn a trade or something. or start a business. do whatever.
if you want to study chemistry or similar, I highly recommend going to college because a professor isn’t going to care about you or your feelings or what you saw on YouTube or what you feel is right, they’re just going to evaluate you on your ability to solve problems and get the correct results. and then there is the lab component which is a Huge part of the grade and actual hands on experience you can leverage in other ways.
yes because most of the cannabis jobs are operating some piece of equipment that can be taught to someone with little to no skills. turning valves doesn’t make someone a scientist. there’s a large number of people that want to get in and a smaller number of cannabis centric jobs. just a supply and demand thing.
yup and this is exactly the mentality I have seen friends and associates with. had they just had gone 10 years ago their lives would probably be on a different track. it just gives you more chances for opportunities, period. without the degree I never would have been allowed in a regulated lab in Pharma, or been able to work with synthetic nucleic acids. is it fair? nope.
To be fair to myself, I did much more than just turn knobs. But I understand that’s how other people see my experience, even if I worked my way up to management positions through my own merit. I still had to learn a decent amount of organic chemistry and thermodynamics in order to do my job safely and efficiently. I’m not considering any entry-level extraction positions anyway, so I’m not looking for knob-turning jobs lol
(Someone move my responses to the mentally ill thread please)
Come up with a bulk electrolysis catalyst for decarboxylation
I did a doctorate in echem. Worked in extraction a long while. There is very little science in extraction but you can make some money doing it.