| I'm in MSE. I like it very much. It's a small field so you get to know everybody in your major and have small classes. I find the stuff we're learning interesting and we get to melt metal with fire, so I guess it doesn't get a whole lot better than that.
Job opportunities are good. Neither I nor anyone I know in MSE have had a problem getting a job after graduation/internships over the summer and pay seems comparable to other fields. The most important thing is to make contacts. It's a relatively small field so knowing a few people can help you, a lot. For example, a friend of mine is graduating this year with around a 3.0, probably a little lower. Because of his crazy level of involvement with our MEPS program (materials science professional societies) as well as his experience (a year co-oping and 3 summers interning) he was able to say no to any interview that was below 75k. He's walking into over 80k a year starting out, doing R&D for some steel company. Now, that isn't typical, but it gives you an idea of the opportunities that are out there if you work for them.
I haven't done anything in ChemE so I'm not sure. In MSE you specialize in polymers, metals, biomaterials, ceramics, composites or nano materials, so a part of the difference might be that specialization.
I don't really think so unless there are two things that really interest you and you're open to the idea of taking an extra year or so. Notice I say taking an extra year instead of summer classes because you should be interning over the summer, not taking classes.
What schools are you looking at? I think GT has a pretty good MSE program. | 
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