<p>I'm really interested in chemical engineering at the moment, but I fear that finding a job will be more difficult than mechanical, electrical, and computer engineering. </p>
<p>I'm thinking about getting a double degree in electrical/mechanical engineering and computer science (Canadian universities don't offer double majors in 2 engineering disciplines), which I hope will make me a better candidate for a job. I'm also beginning to find mechatronics interesting, which is another reason why I chose this route as an alternative.</p>
<p>Should I be concerned? Or will emerging fields such as nanotechnology and biotechnology (both of which interest me) open up a lot new jobs for chemical engineers?</p>
<p>I don't think you should be concerned with dying fields as much as outsourcing which is overblown. I have no clue what I'm writing about. And neither, for that matter, will most of the responders.</p>
<p>I would actually argue that chemical engineering is one of the better engineering disciplines to have. As long as the price of oil is high, which seems to be something that we will have to live with for a while, chemical engineers will have plenty of employment in the oil industry, which has historically been the largest employers of ChemE's. For example, in the wake of the Katrina problems, the US is pushing for a greater investment in oil refinery capacity, which will clearly mean more ChemE jobs. Canadian ChemE's should expect to have significant job prospects mining for oil in the Athabascan Tar Sands of Alberta, which are attracting multi-billion dollar investments in processing plants and upgraders.</p>
<p>I've heard that chemical engineering is actually the fastest growing engineering field, currently. I don't recall what on website I read that, though.</p>
<p>It is impossible to tell you what a chemical engineer does because they work in so many diverse areas. A simple answer is they use science and mathematics, especially chemistry, biochemistry, applied mathematics and engineering principles, to take laboratory or conceptual ideas and turn them into value added products in a cost effective and safe (including environmental) manner. This basic answer is probably true today as it was 75-100 years ago although the specifics are changing rapidly.</p>
<p>Is the pay good for chemical engineers?</p>
<p>On a comparable basis with other professions, chemical engineers are well compensated. Even compared with other engineering specialties chemical engineers rank high on most compensation scales (usually 1st or 2nd on starting salaries for new BS engineers).</p>
<p>Benderunit. The question isn't so much whether there are dying engineering fields but whether engineers can maintain flexibility to adjust to opportunities offered by new technologies, which includes learning some new subjects after one has been a certain type of engineer for a while.<br>
Not long ago mechanical engineers were being relegated to the bottom of the engineering world since machinery was becoming more and more automated and mechanical engineering less and less new and exciting. However, the relatively recent upsurge in development and marketing of new medical devices such as prosthetics suddenly made engineers who understood mechanics (guess who) and whop could adapt that understanding to working on a small scale in demand - at least until fully trained biomedical engineers became widely available (and in the meantime mechanical engineers could learn biomedical subjects to add to their credentials).
The same will be true for nanotechnology, which is just beginning to catch on at the commercial level and which will make opportunities for several types of engineers available, as long as they can keep up with current developments and changes in the technology.</p>
<p>I agree with dadofsam's latest post and would say that the truth is, most of the specific things you learn in college (or in high school, for that matter), you will never use. The value of an education is not so in much the specific tasks that you learn, but rather in developing the general ability to think logically, and, to a related extent, to put you on a career path where you will be given opportunities to learn, as opposed to having to take a brain-dead job (of which there are a lot of).</p>
<p>You may want to consider majoring in a very general engineering topic and minor in a more specific concentration. To become a nanotechnology engineer, I would doubt a requirement is majoring in it.</p>
<p>Suuuure, sakky, until the robots become self-aware and start designing THEMSELVES.....!!!</p>
<p>//looks for Sarah Conner...</p>
<p>Anyhow... my personal thoughts are that engineering fields only die when there's a radical change in technology. If some elec comes up with a cheap and reliable teleportation system, traffic and transportation engineers are all going to be out of jobs. Likewise, if someone comes up with a Mr. Fusion, a la "Back to the Future," then petroleum engineers will probably fall onto hard times. Y'know, kinda like telegraph engineers and operators when Bell figured out the whole "telephone" thing, but on a larger scale.</p>
<p>I wouldn't worry about dying engineering fields just yet, though... Last I heard, teleportation and portable cold fusion devices were still in beta testing.</p>
<p>Aibarr, then you would need robot engineers who would be able to figure out how to defeat the armies of evil self-constructing robots who are trying to wipe out humanity. </p>
<p>But all kidding aside, this is why it is important for engineers to develop a strong academic foundation. Specific vocational skills will inevitably become obsolete, but the theoretical knowhow and the logical mindset that a proper education is supposed to develop does not become obsolete. What is important is not getting the specific skills that happen to be 'hot' at the time, but to develop a logical foundation that allows you to quickly learn whatever skills happen to be 'hot' at any particular time.</p>