American Chemical Society Certificate

OSRHE Program Code: 178
CIP CODE: 400501
Certificate Code: 7154

This certificate for the American Chemical Society is embedded in the Chemistry, B.S. program.

To be successful, a professional chemist requires a broad base of both scientific knowledge and professional skills. The guidelines for a certified bachelor’s degree, as defined by CPT (available at www.acs.org/cpt), were developed specifically to prepare students for success in a broad array of careers. Independent of whether the student intends to move into an industrial position, pursue graduate study in a chemical field, or enter into another professional career track that requires rigorous scientific training, students will benefit from being able to build on a strong background including chemical knowledge, laboratory competency and safe laboratory practices, oral and written communication skills, familiarity with the chemical literature, and experience with working both independently and as part of a team. Knowledge of chemical content is the cornerstone of an undergraduate education in chemistry, and the ACS requirements focus on breadth and depth of chemical knowledge.  

Students completing the requirements for the Chemistry-Professional degree will achieve an embedded certificate for “Certified by the American Chemical Society”. Alternatively, students completing the Chemistry-Biochemistry degree may obtain the certificate by completing the following courses in addition to the requirements of the degree:  CHEM 3413 Inorganic Chemistry, CHEM 4524 Physical Chemistry I, and PHYS 1214 General Physics II OR PHYS 2215 Engineering Physics II.  The cross-disciplinary professional chemists behind the creation and evaluation of the ACS-certified chemistry degree requirements are confident that the students who complete this educational pathway will possess the skills and experience necessary to be successful in careers in chemistry and other professional positions.

At least 25 percent of the coursework applied to this embedded certificate must be satisfactorily completed at NSU.

Student Learning Outcomes

1. Apply principles of analytical, inorganic, organic, biochemistry, and physical chemistry.
2. Employ lab skills.
3. Communicate the results of experimental investigation in technical reports, laboratory notebooks, and presentations.
4. Conduct independent laboratory research.
5. Dissect chemical literature.
6. Implement problem solving skills.