[chroniton]

Hello,
Basically, I graduated with two BS degrees: Biochemistry (medicinal chemistry), and Biological Sciences (Genetics). My goal is to apply chemistry to solve a biological question (specifically I am interested in neuroscience on the biology side), so I found a professor at a university who had been doing this, joined their Biomedical Science PhD program, and after my first semester was told by the faculty member that his lab no longer was moving in the chemical biology direction. I felt very misled (there were other letdowns: I was told I could take graduate level chemistry courses, which never happened. No chemistry seminars. And so on…).

I'm in my first-year of the PhD program on my last rotation. I might be able to do some of the research I want to with this other lab, however I will not have the support of chemistry department committee members (we are located at a hospital), chemical biology seminars, or chemistry courses). I feel like I'm fighting an uphill battle against the department to let me be chemically oriented.

Should I just stick it out and hope I can get a postdoc position in a chemical biology lab? Any advise on talking to the department about taking a terminal Masters and reapplying to a chemical biology PhD program this coming year? In hindsight this is my fault for choosing a program that didn't have enough professors doing what I wanted to do. But I have learned a lot of good biology that I hope to use in my career, so not a total lose.

Thanks,
Chroniton