Chemical Engineering Substitution

Elemento
Tue, 25 Jun 2013 11:50:51 +0000

Cameraphone,

I am in a similar but different situation than you are. In my town I can get a Mech E or EE degree. However I too want to do chemical engineering. I live in the DFW area. I know UTA and UTD offer engineering courses. I have been taking my lower level courses at a local CC. However I simply cannot up and leave and move to another location.

I am older, 28, work a full time job and have the full load of an adult on my hands, rent, bills, car note, insurance. I totally understand what you mean by not being able to afford it. However I have considered Texas Tech and they offer a pretty large scholarship for transfer students. I have a 3.7 gpa right now. Funny thing is that hurt my gpa, history and government. Made a C in government and B’s in the other two histories and other government class. The rest of my lower level stem courses I aced.

Either way. Aside from that, since I work full time and have little extra money because of bills, I have no one to help me pay for school. Community college is suppose to be cheaper and it is, but when you literally have no family helping and no one supporting you financially, it becomes expensive almost like going to university. I had to take out loans, and getting my associate degree working full time and maintaining high gpa took more than two years.

I really want this, engineering, and I do not want to settle. I considered doing biochem but please… I do not want to work at a bench all my life. I have worked at a micro/chem lab for almost two years now and the pay sucks and people with Phds barely make over 50k. To me that realm of science is just not financially worth going into.

I do enjoy math and chemistry, but in the end I want to see it come to life, made into creation or see my work actually become something. What I do now basically is perform something over and over that someone else did ages ago. I need a challenge.

When you take into consideration, at least my case, all the things that will or will not make you happy, you then have your decision.

I have decided for engineering, yes, now the hard part is to up and move to Lubbock or stay here and do Mech E. Both are great careers and allow me to do science and use my math skills.

If you choose to make the jump to go locally for a Mech E degree or move to get Chem E, both will reward you within your spirit and financially. If you get a job you dont like, you can simply change to a different area that you do like. From my understanding engineering is highly versatile. While others degrees are not.

I wish I was your age again because if I were you, I would go for it. Do whatever you feel passionate about no matter the financial cost. You can pay it back when you are done with your engineering degree. Now I cannot say that about all degrees people go into. I know engineering can pay well as opposed to a simple biology degree.

You can move into a dorm, take the scholarship, study hard, save the playing around for later after you get your degree finished. Take loans if you have too, take summer internships, find a mentor at the university. I actually feel your pain and passion at the same time, I too am living it, just in a different way. Do not give up buddy, and dont let something as simple as money hold you back. If there is a will, there will be a way. You can pm me if you want.