Should I become a chemical engineer or an electrical engineer?

NeoDymium
Sun, 10 May 2015 19:28:20 +0000

At some point you just have to pick something. My intended major was BME; was advised to switch to something more traditional for job opportunities; now hearing things about chemical. I can’t keep switching until I find something with 0% unemployment.

Pick something viable and stick to it. That will be the best for your job prospects.

And how would you know that I would be disappointed by being a chemical engineer? Just out of curiosity, what is it about chemical engineers specifically that you or anyone else might find disappointing?

I speak from the experience of all those I know (including myself) who went into ChemE because they thought that it sounded like a neat major. The fact that it is a specialized major, and that most of the work is less-than-glamorous (oil, pulp and paper, industrial chemicals etc) is pretty spot-on, for one. But as I said, the problem is more along the lines of that the kind of work you end up doing is little more than blue collar work that requires a university degree (often an MS for ChemE, by the way). The students who went in with the mindset of, “I like chemistry and math and want something with good job prospects” tend to be among the most disappointed, only behind those who think it’s a good choice for pre med.

Most of the people I knew who were talented enough to do well chose a different route. One went to graduate school in biochemistry after a BS in ChemE, another did the same with Physics, another switched to EE (and enjoyed it quite a bit), and a lot of the ones that could code took programming + engineering jobs. There were those who genuinely enjoyed the program and were very talented, but to say the least those were the exception rather than the rule. I haven’t really seen much of this kind of attitude towards their major from the EEs or MechEs that I knew; most of them either enjoyed their major and stuck to it or quickly found that they weren’t really suited for that kind of work.

Of those who actually enjoyed the program, most of them were either the children of ChemEs who knew exactly what they were getting into, or those who were part of a military program (veterans or ROTC). But it’s hard to know that ahead of time from the way that the major is advertised by schools.