<p>Good question, what is “actual chemistry”?</p>
<p>At its heart chemistry is defined as the study of the properties of matter, its transformations, and the processes of those transformations. This is exactly what you learn in chemical engineering. All the useful courses in chemistry (general/organic/physical) are learned, as they explicitly fit the definition of chemistry. In addition, they take more thermodynamics classes than straight chemistry majors. Thermodynamics is the study of the flow of energy during material transformations, fitting rigorously with the definition of chemistry. They also take courses in reaction kinetics, materials science, fluid mechanics, heat transfer and mass transfer. Mass transfer explicitly fits the rigorous definition chemistry, as it studies processes in materials transformations - diffusion and convection. Fluid mechanics is strongly related with thermodynamics and mass transfer, so while not rigorously fitting the definition of chemistry, it is related. Heat transfer is also strongly related with thermodynamics. Reaction kinetics combines all these aspects and studies the rate of matter transformations and processes - fitting the rigorous definition of chemistry. Materials science is obvious.</p>
<p>This is, therefore, on top of the chemistry core, 2 thermo + materials + kinetics + fluids + heat transfer + mass transfer = 7 core engineering classes specifically defined as chemistry.</p>
<p>In contrast, while the B.S. Chemistry’s core chemistry classes are shared with B.S. Chemical Engineering, they take many classes that do NOT fit the definition of chemistry. Classes like biochemistry do not fit the rigorous definition of chemistry, as it does not concern itself with the GENERAL properties, transformations and processes of matter, but with a highly specific system: organic reactions in aqueous media.</p>