Hey guys, I usually don't like to make two horrible blogs in a week but i'm in the mood so w/e
So in light of my recent midterm results, don't worry they weren't that bad. I don't know the average but this is my throw quarter so its fine.
I'm really thinking hard about my major and which direction I want to go to. ATM i'm looking at Chemical Engineering. I really like Chemistry, and i've completed all of ochem, gen chem, majors biology (cell,animal, plant) and the various electives. I just need to take the calc and physics and one or two other classes.
I really liked chemistry and was originally gonna take the PCAT but i decided that i didn't really want to go down that road. So I figured that since i lived in seattle it shouldn't be to hard getting a job as a chemE or bioE.
getting into ChemE requires like a 3.4 gpa plus a bit more to be safe. I'm by no means out of the running with my overall gpa being like a 3.6. If i don't get into ChemE i could probably apply to the other Engineering programs but i don't think i will. iono yet.
The second route that i was looking at taking was going into ACMS (Applied and Computational Mathematical Sciences) I don't know a whole lot about this major but my advisor kind of told me about it and it peeked my interests. I looked into it and the requirements to get into it are pretty easy, yet i don't really know what jobs i can get with this major. If i can get a job that i like then cool! At the very least it will help cause it would set me up for a masters degree in a lot of fields.. (ChemE doesn't require masters). If i did go throught with it, then the major i would like to get my masters degree in would be SLP (Speech and Language pathology) I love to talk and this major suits me. It is a masters degree program only.
If anyone has any input or suggestions please comment. If you are a chemE, SLP, or ACMS please tell me how you like your job. And any suggestions for similar fields to look into. Thanks!
chemical engineering really doesn't have that much to do with chemistry. pick cheme if you are comfortable with integrals. There are fucking integrals everywhere. if you like taking somewhat simple concepts and applying them to complex real world situations if you dont mind doing very long and convoluted math using a computer (mathcad). if you don't mind estimations, trial and error, and millions of fudge factors and correlations.
most consider the classes extremely boring. That is because what you are learning is stuff like, how much energy do you need to push this fluid through a pipe. But what can be fun about is the process of figuring out the problem.
I absolutely loved chemical engineering. It was more difficult with the rigorous classes at my college (10-Week Quarter Systems), but I found several areas incredibly fascinating. Reaction Kinetics gets an A+ for fun (and undergrad level not too hard, just fun), ChemE Thermodynamics gets an A+ for fun (at the risk of oversimplifying, Maxwell etc Thermo at its most fun), Fluid Mechanics/Momentum Transfer (Professor: You will hate this class because chemists choose chemistry because they hate physics and physicists choose physics because they hate chemistry. This class is physics for chemists.) gets a C-F from me because it was in a hard quarter and I gamed a lot ... and Separation Processes, Heat/Mass Transfer, Technical Electives & Design Classes so much fun. You also get, in my opinion, a great introduction to the realm of materials science and many of those classes counted towards my Chemical Engineering degree.
Computer programs ... Aspen, MathCad, Matlab, some others. Fudge factors gave me chills I didn't get in chemistry. Real life examples and projects involving the scaling up of small laboratory batch processes to industrial production? Blew my mind and loved it!
I currently like my job. It's in solutions chemistry, design and testing of large liquid systems with chemical feed injections and some automated controls.
lol yeah don't go into chemE solely because you like chem. But if you're like me and you like chem and happen to be good at math/physics or just enjoy problem solving (i.e. engineering mindset), then it's perfect for you. Enjoyment of classes is heavily dependent on your professors though. Like my separations class was terrible even though I was looking forward to it.
Since you mentioned bioE in passing, I'll also note that you might want to consider taking some bio/biochem classes alongside chemE (if possible, I know engineers don't exactly have the option to take other classes). I'm probably being biased since my major was essentially biochem-engineering lol but I think having some extra bio background coupled with a chemE degree opens up a lot more options than being pure chemE (though pure chemE is still pretty good).
To echo the others, the undergraduate Chemical Engineering curriculum doesn't have much to do with chemistry. If you enter it, you should expect a lot of physics and rigorous math (that you will later learn is all done by computers these days). However, if you want to get into fields that ChemE's commonly enter, with an emphasis on chemistry, I would either suggest looking into Biomolecular engineering, catalysis engineering, or materials/surface processing (via plasma or chemical vapor deposition, polymers, etc).
Biomolecular engineering can range from biofuels, pharmaceuticals, and more, so I believe there is ample chemistry in the research and development of these products. Catalysis engineering is big in industries such as petroleum business and other large scale chemical production. Surface processing is generally for integrated circuit production (think Intel chipmaking business). And if you want to get into polymers, there is obviously a huge number of applications for different polymers, all of which have fairly interesting chemistries to develop. If you want to focus on chemistry while remaining in these industries, you would probably look into the research/development route, which would probably require a graduate degree.
The biggest question is what do you want to do with your life? What type of field are you looking to enter? What part of the country do you want to work? Engineering is an extremely versatile profession where you can do pretty much anything you want to, depending on where you want to live.
I have a Chem degree and am finishing up my MecE degree right now. Many courses are shared between MecE/ChemE so I have seen a lot of the stuff you would be dealing with. The Engineering have noting to do with my Chem degree other than maybe a small section of materials engineering dealing with phase diagrams I've seen in physical chemistry courses. Aside from that, the approaches are totally different.
You have to remember that 90% of engineers will move into management within 4-6 years, the focus isn't really on the technical side of things at that point. If you're good with people, have a solid business sense and like the business aspect of any industry you'll be entering, then you'll be a successful engineer. Otherwise, you'll likely be buried in a technical role and will not have a lot of advancement opportunities over the course of your career.
EPT![[image loading]](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HIo9XpBa0W8/TuXiaZVrRqI/AAAAAAAAAes/8NLrhfSCLXc/s320/cute-cat-sleeping.jpg)
