Calcozzo

Hey CC. This will be my first post on this forum, despite having lurked for a while now.

Just a rough bit of background info: Until halfway through senior year this year, I thought I wanted to be a software engineer. That was until I took an actual class, and realized that the vast majority of what a computer science degree entails bores me to tears. Physics and AP Bio were another story, though; I was fascinated by mechanics and heat (electromagnetism not as much) and human biology. I took AP Chem the year before and enjoyed that, too. So although I've got some time to really choose my major, I've narrowed it down to either ChemE or MechE. I live in Seattle (probably one of the reasons I somehow felt drawn at CS at one point) and there's a growing biotech presence, and even if that doesn't work out, Boeing hires people by the boatload to make airplanes, which sounds pretty sweet as well. Hell, there's even a fairly large BP oil refinery an hour north of here, if I choose to get into that.

And so my main questions are
1. What's the difference in difficulty between ChemE and MechE?
2. Have either found a niche in the biotech industry?
3. Which major is more fun? (This one comes down to personal opinion, but I'm interested in hearing what people have to say.)

Japher

1. MechE vs. ChemE: in a nutshell, for biotech, a ChemE will define parameters a piece of equipment needs to meet and the MechE will design/help design and ensure that the equipment can meet those parameters. ChemEs in biotech will fill more process engineering type roles where MechEs will exist as equipment engineers.

2. Both are heavily present in the biotech industry, myself included.

3. Depends; do you like to tinker with equipment or with processes?

vader1990

Have you considered Biomedical Engineering or Bioengineering?

Calcozzo

I have, but BME sounds too restricting to me. I'm interested in biotech now, but that might change in a couple years, so I want to go for a more versatile degree.