<p>Im currently a chemical eng major and I am contemplating a change to mechanical engineering.</p>
<p>I was wondering what you all think would do better in the 2016 job market? a 3.5 chemical gpa or a 3.8 mechanical gpa. thanks</p>
<p>They are both so good that you should find other reasons to switch.</p>
<p>I would advise to switch to mechanical engineering if it’s not too much trouble. Coming from my experiences, there are more opportunities for mechanical engineer, and it doesn’t look like chemical engineering is growing despite government prediction ([Chemical</a> Engineers : Occupational Outlook Handbook : U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics](<a href=“http://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/chemical-engineers.htm]Chemical”>http://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/chemical-engineers.htm)).</p>
<p>anyone else have any input on the outlook of chem eng?</p>
<p>The more important question is why are you thinking about changing?</p>
<p>I think it’s stupid to speculate about job outlooks. </p>
<p>You’re doing a degree and it’s what you’ll be stuck with possibly your entire life, unless you decide to go study another degree later on. Thus I would emphasize studying something that is about something that you could imagine working with for 40 years. All STEM subjects give broad enough coverage to make jumping from field to field possible later on, but it would be still good, if you could study what you’re most interested about and what you wish you could be working on.</p>
<p>Also, despite projections for jobs, remember that there are fields and jobs that never disappear, and they have to be fulfilled by some people in a given generation, or be offshored or be lost. Thus almost anything that interests you is quite safe, unless it’s something that is trendy (and thus disappears when the trend goes off).</p>
<p>Mech Eng is more flexible though, because machines, tools and mechanical design of some sort is always needed. The topics that Chem Engs are concerned are large scale (thus they almost always require large funding) and limited by the amount of substances that we wish to process.</p>