<p>so i’m taking my very first chemE course (material balances) in college as a second year and so far, my impression of what chem engineers do is simply try to create optimal conditions in a chemical plant to maximize the conversion or yield of a reaction.</p>
<p>so like i’m definitely enjoying solving the mathematical problems in itself
but later on in the future, i can hardly imagine myself spending the rest
of my life working in some rural chemical plant trying to maximize the
conversion of chemical reactions every single day. is there more to chemE
than just this? because although i enjoy solving the mathematical aspect
of chemE problem sets right now, i don’t think i could stand such a boring
role for the rest of my life and i’m contemplating changing majors although
i’m doing well in the class.</p>
<p>this is a very serious issue for me and i would greatly appreciate any feedback.</p>
<p>Well, you’re still early on in your college career. I would wait and see.</p>
<p>That being said, if you think you might be more attracted to another field, it may not be a bad idea to hedge your bets and start taking a healthy offering of courses in that field (the intro-level courses, maybe for a minor or double major or something, and see if you like it).</p>
<p>I was attracted to chemE initially because i thought i would be able
to pioneer new materials, pharmaceuticals. I guess I thought I would
learn more about techniques in converting raw materials to more useful
forms, whether in the chemical or biological scale whereas right now, I’m
learning about converting those raw materials as cheaply as possible.
Although I guess these kinds of jobs do exist, I feel like most jobs for
chemE majors are process engineering where it just comes down to creating
the most economic solution to a reaction which I’m not too psyched about
although nonetheless, very important for our future.</p>
<p>I guess pioneering new materials is probably more chemistry than
chemE but I heard that modern chemE is like that too and I wanted
to be able to use math on the job unlike chemistry so I picked chemE.</p>
<p>You are still fairly early in your chemical engineering career–you have taken one course. I’m sure there are professors in your department that are involved in research that interests you. Also, be sure to take your electives in Material science, chemistry, biomedical engineering or other subjects that interest you.</p>
<p>Unfortunately from my experience, most chemical engineers do work as process engineers and the whole goal is to optimize and maintain the plant operation. However, if you do pursue a more advanced degree in chemical engineering, you can do so much more including designing virus to transport drugs to designing bioreactors.</p>
<p>I think the stuff you’re interested in would require either a MS or PhD in ChemE. I know with a BS in Materials Science & Engineering you can get into some research jobs, but it’s also easier with a PhD in MSE.</p>
<p>That said, you can always stick through ChemE in undergrad and go to grad school in Materials; it’s a pretty common transition.</p>
<p>All the text book examples are based on traditional chemical and petroleum plants. Chemical Engineering is the most versatile of all the engineering areas and it has the highest pay scale for the traditional disciplines. Chemical Engineering has developed the cereal bars and have designed high temperature catalyst to lower boiler emission. Food is a chemical, heart valves are a chemical and fuel cells are chemical operation. Combine Chemical Engineering with good background in other area such biochemistry or C++ and you will stand out in crowd.</p>
<p>I’m sorry for exploiting thread, but I have a question; I was talking to a professor about chemical engineering and he said there’s now an increasing amount of biology involved in ChemE nowadays. Specifically what did he mean by that?</p>
<p>I think he means a lot of focus in chemical engineering, at least within the US, is in the biomedical field since there’s a lot of money there. Manufacturing has been declining in the US for a while now, so more traditional ChemE jobs might be on the slide.</p>
<p>There’s a similar trend within materials engineering where fewer and fewer metallurgical engineering jobs are around (How many new steel mills have you seen popping up recently?).</p>
<p>There is a lot of intermingling and interdisciplinary research between ChemE and BME, specifically in material sciences or biomolecule synthesis. While ChemE can have strong ties to refineries or plants, there are still opportunities within the growing BME and medical fields.</p>
<p>The best thing about ChemE is knowing that you got a degree in the hardest major possible… that’s about it. You want to make money get an English or Journalism degree and a MD or JD.</p>