Chemical Engineering Grad School

bhop123
Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:05:58 +0000

Hey guys,

I am not new to this site, I remember using it back in the high school days, but now that college is past its mid-point and I am a junior at Hopkins, I have seriously been thinking about my future after undergrad. Since staring research back in freshman year, I have been pushed toward a PhD in ChemE by a lot of the peers I work with. Now, I believe it is in my best interest to go to Grad school so that my career will open me up to more research in the future(if I wanted to do more classical ChemE jobs like production and large scale chemical reactions, a BS or MS would be fine but I enjoy reseaarch a lot)

Anyhow, I am not a naive freshmen who has his next ten years planned out, and after concurring one goal, has moved towards another like some people in this forum, it can be addicting, hehe.

So I have thought through a lot of the top ChemE programs in the country. And I think I am interested in a few of the schools. But, my predicament lies with the real deal behind these schools. This is where I am asking of your help. Princeton and Stanford are two solid ChemE grad programs that both do interesting research in nanotechnology and energy/fuel cell stuff, two fields I have been doing research in already, and by looking through the websites I seem to like them both a lot. Now I think I want to go to industry after grad school, and I have heard things from other PhD’s at my school saying that Princeton is more of a pedigree grad program that gets graduate students into professorships, and Stanford and other bigger non-private state schools will give you a better set up for industry. Does anyone out there know more information about Princeton’s chemE grad program that can help me out?

Also, please don’t get on me about shooting for the stars with top grad programs, I know they are extremely hard to get into, and by all means getting in would definitely require some luck. However, I am realistic and I have co-authored several papers and Blah,Blah Blah, so lets just focus on how the personalities of these schools are and not on my personal stats, cause I think I have a shot. Thanks everyone.

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