Tired of Engineering... where to go next?

Graduate School
1

<p>Hey everyone! (My first post!) </p>

<p>As you can tell from my username and the title of this thread, I am considering other areas of study for graduate school than chemical engineering. I intend to finish my bachelor’s because:

  1. I think it would provide a good background of chemistry, physics, and math should I chose to go into any of those fields.
  2. I genuinely enjoy doing math and science; I don’t think I have the capacity to b.s. anything (which is both good and bad!).
  3. I think I have a high tolerance for blood, sweat, and tears, all of which I have experienced.
  4. I sunburn easily so it’s best that I stay away from the sun, so engineering was a safe guarantee.</p>

<p>Before I go any further, (I greatly appreciate anyone who will take the time to read and possibly respond to my post), I would like to emphasize the fact that I am more of your average student: I didn’t have a list of 50 EC’s from high school paired with a 4.0 GPA that I could use to apply to the top programs in the US. I didn’t know what I wanted to study; my parents suggested engineering because of several factors: no foreign language requirement, best education for their money, and the chemE degree is something to fall back on.</p>

<p>I recently finished my second year at a southern state university. My GPA is around a 3.0, but with the help of retaking courses (YESSS!!), I hope for it to increase by at least 0.20 (not as stellar as other users’, but hey, I’m only human. Don’t get me wrong, I am not satisfied: I have more motivation than before to work harder.) I am actively researching a bioengineering project that I have started on my own with an endowed chemical engineering professor.</p>

<p>Finally, we get to my questions.</p>

<p>Where can I go from here? </p>

<p>Obviously medical school is out of the question; engineering is not a recommended undergrad major to pursue should medical school be the ultimate goal. My GPA would not even be on the radar. I haven’t been planning since elementary school to become a medical doctor.</p>

<p>I have considered law school, but I think my strengths would be best considered elsewhere.</p>

<p>Graduate school is my ultimate goal, a graduate degree is almost mandatory these days.</p>

<p>I have looked at pharmaceutical science programs (relates to my research), but I think I would like to experience the discovery side of research, rather than the applications. A program that I think addresses this is biochemistry. Other than taking a few biochemistry classes, what else could I do to increase my chances in being accepted to a respectable graduate school?</p>

<p>Although I have a few years left (finish chemE, take an extra year for biochemistry, physiology, and cell biology classes), what graduate programs would you suggest to consider?</p>

<p>I have particular interest in the medical field, but as I mentioned before, medical school is not something I wish to pursue. Above all, I enjoy learning and I genuinely like to help people, be it one-to-one or on a mass scale.</p>

<p>And to finish with my favorite quotation:</p>

<p>To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.</p>

<p>This is to have succeeded.</p>

<p>Again, many thanks to all for reading and replying.</p>

2

<p>2 other engineering areas where you can realy leverage your chem e undergrad:

  1. Bio/biomedical eng
  2. environmental eng</p>

<p>I work in the latter field with many chem e’s turned environmental. Lets just say its not the most lucrative career, but its fun with a highly varied set of technical challenges everyday.</p>

<p>I’d suggest checking out the biomedical eng field. Here’s Penn’s bioeng department web page:
<a href=“http://www.seas.upenn.edu/be/message.html[/url]”>http://www.seas.upenn.edu/be/message.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Its a great department with research into drug discovery, tissue engineering & orthopedics…interesting stuff with nice labs.</p>

<p>Plenty of other strong programs in biomedical eng like JHU. Suggest you read up on professor’s bio’s & go visit a few labs & departments.</p>

<p>ps…I wouldn’t let your interpretation of your averageness stop you from visiting top-rated programs like Penn & JHU. You shouldn’t count yourself out until they tell you to forget it. Acceptance to eng grad school on the research side of life can he closely tied to research funding & lab needs, making prediction of acceptance/rejection tough due to variable demands.</p>

3

<p>Bio and env engineering? Didn’t the thread starter say he was leaving engineering?</p>

4

<p>I think LeavingChemE meant what his screen name says…out of Chem E…leaving the door open perhaps for other E’s and other disciplines…that’s at leasr how I read it.</p>

5

<p>If you are interested in basic developmental work, you might look into programs in applied physics, chemistry or biophysics. Outside of engineering and these types of disciplines, the “discovery side of things” tends to be pretty qualitative, which wouldn’t really allow you to leverage your chemE background. </p>

<p>If you want to leave chemE because you dislike the coursework, that’s a good reason to pursue another degree; however, if you want to do biology or pharmaceutically related work, a chemE degree would still allow you to do that - especially in the medical field, where some very good basic science is being done by chemical engineers (Robert Langer at MIT, etc.). </p>

<p>A lot of people with chemE undergraduate degrees go into Tissue engineering, something you could do in graduate school within a variety of fields (most common ones are bioE and chemE).</p>

6

<p>Hmm. Do post-bacs help overcome low GPAs, for medical school admissions? If they do, I suspect doing that would be ideal for you.</p>

7

<p>i think environmental engineering would be a really great fit for you. in most schools w/o separate enve (enviro eng), its paired together w/the chem E department. </p>

<p>its a relatively new field, expanding very quickly in the next few years. you’ve got the perfect undergrad training already, there are plenty of very good enve grad programs at topnotch universities. also, its not a particularly popular major, so competition level is low. its expanding very quickly, so its ALOT easier to find a tenuretrack position than say, in biology. </p>

<p>my boyfriend is an enve, his research professor got a tenuretrack position at a UC, straight out of grad school (in nearly any other major, you’d have to do a postdoc or two first!). </p>

<p>there are also alot of positions open in industry. i would even say that there are more than chem e positions.</p>