[obsoletelogic]

Sorry if this is the inappropriate place to post this, but I wasn't sure where else it should go other than in 'undergraduate'. I'm in something of a unique situation. I was a Cell & Molecular Biology major, but I have since realized that I'm really more passionate about Chemistry. I am deeply considering changing my major to Biochemistry (the degrees have significant overlap at my university but are offered by different departments).

However, I am becoming more and more interested in inorganic chemistry, especially chemistry as a materials science, and in the application of other fields like organic chemistry. What I am wondering is, if my interest pervades through the rest of my undergraduate career, I could apply to chemistry graduate programs in different disciplines?

That is to say, could I apply to graduate school and work in an inorganic or organic lab despite having a degree in Biochemistry instead of Chemistry? Biochem degrees at my university have to take two semesters worth of Organic and Physical chem, as well as one semester's worth of Analytical Chemistry, and a slew of Biochemistry credits. I planned on taking the Inorganic classes offered here as my electives.

I apologize in advance if this is a stupid question, I was just hoping to get some input from graduate students or others with experience that don't work in the molecular biology research lab I currently volunteer in.

I should add: the reason I cannot change my major to just Chemistry is that it would take slightly longer, and that is not financially feasible for me at this time.

[Corribus]

The answer is "yes" you can apply to chemistry programs with a biochemistry degree - with a caveat.  You can apply with whatever degree you want provided you meet the program's course requirements.  I can't generalize but where I did my PhD, you chose your "division" in the program after you were accepted (and biochem was one of those divisions, by the way, along with inorganic, physical and organic).  Being honest, those kinds of divisional boundaries don't mean much any more.  Everything is so interdisciplinary nowadays that people are rarely pigeonholed into a single subdiscipline of chemistry.  The only thing the chosen division impacted was the graduate level coursework we took.  But in my experience graduate coursework is secondary to what you learn while you're doing your research, and the quality of graduate level classes is a mixed bag at best.

The caveat is that if you DO choose inorganic or materials chemistry and your background is biochem, you will be taking graduate level inorganic and materials science classes.  This could put you somewhat at a disadvantage.  However most chemistry subdisciplines just assume a generic undergraduate course load, so it probably won't be that big a deal.  If you have taken the standard chemistry classes in undergrad (gen chem, o-chem, p-chem, labs and so forth) you'll probably be fine.  You might want to brush up on your math and read through an inorganic textbook or a physics textbook to brush up on some of those fundamental concepts, but that's the most I'd worry about it.