<p>I’m a senior Chemistry major/Mathematics minor thinking about going to graduate school for M.S in Chemical Engineering. If I take an Intro to Engineering class before I graduate, will it be helpful with admission to the M.S program? It won’t be a huge problem because I’ll be able to take undergrad engineering courses to make up once I get in. I just wanna know if it would look good on the transcript and impress admission committees</p>
<p>You should look at the admissions requirements for various MS programs in ChemE. I imagine some may require courses in stuff like fluids and heat transfer that you might not have had as a Chem/Math major.</p>
<p>Why would taking an “Intro to Engineering” class impress admissions committees? Engineering majors – who would be your primary competition for slots in graduate ChemE programs – probably took that class their freshman year. And if they didn’t, they have had 4 whole years of engineering classes, not just a quick one-semester intro.</p>
<p>The intro class might be helpful to YOU if you have no engineering background, but I certainly wouldn’t count on it giving any kind of boost to your grad school application.</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies</p>
<p>Oops I need to rephrase my Q. It should be “It won’t be a huge problem if I don’t take the Intro class because I’ll be able to take undergrad engineering courses to make up once I get in.”</p>
<p>You’d probably want to take the course now, since you’ll have to take it in grad school anyway. Except then you’ll be behind schedule because you’ll also have a buttload of other undergrad courses to make up before you can even start your grad class load.</p>
<p>Most grad programs expect you to need to take a prereq or two in the program, but much more than that and they start to think you might not be ready. I do not think any “Intro to Engineering” course is going to sway them one way or the other - you might want to talk to some of the programs and see what material they expect, and see how much of it you can cover prior to enrolling.</p>
<p>You might want to ask your ChemE department if you can skip Intro and go right into a ChemE course. From what I understand, Intro to Engineering generally is just that – an introduction to the various kinds of engineering. With your math and chemistry background, you might be able to skip if since you won’t be a major.</p>
<p>I checked various websites of undergraduate courses needed for non-engineering students once they get in and the lists don’t include any Intro-level engineering course I don’t even have to take it. </p>
<p>Here’s an example: [Department</a> of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering](<a href=“Graduate Program Overview | William A. Brookshire Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering”>Graduate Program Overview | William A. Brookshire Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering)</p>
<p>The thing is my school doesn’t have ChemE department, let alone an Engineering school =( The Intro to Eng. class I’m talking about can be taken at another school via cross registration, and that school doesn’t have ChemE department either. </p>
<p>I could try to take a class like Fluid Mechanics offered at that school since it’s somewhat related to ChemE, though for now I’m leaning toward just taking the Intro class and having a fun time lol</p>
<p>I’d suggest taking a fluids class before deciding ChemE is for you.</p>
<p>Thank you for your input, RacinReaver</p>
<p>There’s a physics class called “Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics” at my school. What do you think of this one?</p>
<p>Another great class to take!</p>
<p>I think thermo and fluids are classes pretty much every second/third year ChemE would be expected to have taken, so it’s definitely something you’d want to have experienced before you go to grad school in the field. Especially since you’d probably have to take grad versions which will be even harder, and they’ll expect you’d have been exposed to it in undergrad.</p>