I am currently a freshman and I was thinking of changing my course of study from pre-med to chemical engineering. I would like anyone to provide any insight or advice they have for me please?
1.(Obv) How hard is chemical engineering, but not just how hard it is, but how hard it would be for someone who doesn’t “have the engineering mind”/ “think like an engineer”
^^^^ Can someone please explain what the above statements mean, I've seen it in a lot of engineering posts.
3.Realistically do you spend 70-80 hours per week including class doing hw/studying? Is it that crazy?
4.Have you or anyone you’ve known struggled with traditional concepts in engineering like math/physics/chem but survived chemE?
5.^^^^How would the above statement compare for biomedical engineering, in terms of someone who also doesn’t like to “tinker” or take apart and build stuff?
Reasonably hard and also a lot of work. More work for someone to whom math and science don't come naturally.
That would be my guess, that it means math and science are more of a struggle for those people.
Not quite that much but definitely 40+, not including class time. I do a lot of work on weekends. I do not have any "days off."
Be realistic about it. I have a friend who just dropped out of college entirely after 2.5 years of declining grades and emotional struggles. You could tell engineering was not really what he wanted to do and he had trouble doing well at it. Conversely, English has always come more naturally to me than math or physics, and yet I'm doing fine with a 3.96 GPA and an internship lined up for this summer. If you decide you want to try engineering, try your hardest from the very beginning (NO SLACKING) and reassess after your first year or so.
BME is probably very similar. You don't need to be a tinkering type to major in engineering.
@bodangles thanks for your response. So after the first year, if you decide not to pursue it, you can transfer back to another major? My two main problems with engineering is that first, math and science don’t come very easily to me, and second, that I’m more of a theoretical person, and don’t really like stereotypically “building or fixing” things.
For example this semester, I did really well in all my classes:
Intro to Psychology: a+
Sociology: a-
College algebra: a
Spanish 1: a+
english: a
I did put in work, mostly for math and psych, but not too much.
I’m afraid that math and science wont come like that to me and that I’d lose motivation along the way.
Any insight?
I think your grades so far are excellent. Are you at a four-year school in the US? Your school’s policies will affect how easy it is to transfer programs – I’m familiar with American schools so that’s why I ask. At mine (Penn State) you don’t enter your major until 4th semester, so switching majors is as simple as starting to follow the new major’s list of classes instead of the old one.
You will have one or two math classes between algebra and where most engineering programs “start,” Calc 1. You can push through not being a “math person” if you work hard enough, so I wouldn’t be too worried about that unless it becomes a severe issue where no matter how hard you study, you keep having to drop or failing classes or something. Just be aware that it’s going to be a lot of work, especially for us mere mortals.
Motivation I can’t speak to. As for theoretical/practical – a lot of engineering education is in fact theoretical, because you have to understand the theory to do it in practice. But perhaps the best way to figure that bit out would be to investigate what different types of engineers do and see if that seems too hands-on/tinkery for you. I’m sure there are blogs online that have first-hand accounts. Maybe you could even shadow someone at their job.
When an undergraduate and later an admissions officer at an engineering college, the ChE major was generally considered the most challenging of all engineering majors. A popular point of comparison was the difficulty of the ME thermodynamics compared the ChE thermodynamics treatments. The ChE majors in my fraternity house were held in the highest esteem by all of us.
Think like an engineer? I don’t really know what that means either. I see engineers as problem solvers looking for solutions. As far as I can tell, physicist do the same thing. Both require creative new solutions to problems.
I am sensing a long held belief, by the world outside of modern engineering, that engineers need a lot of mechanical aptitude and interest. For better or for worse, this is no longer the case. About fifty years ago, those schools offering BS degrees in engineering, as distinguished from engineering technology, dropped the requirement for mechanical drafting (even in Mechanical engineering) to make more room for math and science courses. As engineering has evolved, emphasis has shifted away from mechanical aptitude and moved more into math and the sciences.
While working in a gas station to help pay for my education, a French professor from a very highly regarded women’s college remarked about my industry and asked where I was going to school. When she learned I was an engineering student she assumed that my goal upon graduation was to operate my own gas station. To her, engineering involved working with your hands. I wondered how “liberal” her education had been and wondered how she would fair in a thermodynamics course.
I raise this issue in the context of our culture’s seemingly persistent belief that engineering is a male domain and not to be pursued by young ladies who are not familiar with wrenches. Chemical engineers are interdisciplinary scientists. You will need to master a lot of theory at the interface of chemistry, math and physics.
You would need to partner happily with a lot of math and science for ChE. Math and statistics are also becoming a most important tool in the development of the social sciences.
@bodangles Yes, I do go to a four year college in NY. Next semester I am taking gen.chem 1 and precalc for my math and sciences. Hopefully to catch up, I would take calc 1 in the summer. I think my biggest stigma was the one that @retiredfarmer mentioned, about engineering being a male dominated field where people like me, who are unfamiliar with the discipline think that its all about building things and manually working on things to fix them. The thing that appealed to me about chemical and biomedical engineering was that they were in my field of interest-life sciences and that they dealt with problems in medicine and such. The thing that deters me most is feeling too incompetent for the major. I am working really hard and I want to succeed in college, but i think that I am too slow to process material of engineering.
To give a little bit more background, the highest math i went up to in high school was precalc, which was junior year(bad decision i know, but i didn’t take ap calc in senior year) so i cannot speak for my math aptitude except that the highest score I got on the math section of the sat was 510… I didnt really do that well in ap chemistry, but i think that it was because i was distracted that year by personal stuff and didnt have the motivation to study. I got a 3 on that ap test.
^^ and its especially daunting when you read about horror stories that the engineering students are going through, and that they were the ones that got 600-800 on their math part of the sat and got a 4 or 5 on ap physics or chem and calc. makes others feel like they’re not good enough.
Also one more question to anyone who can answer, would it look bad if I were to take less classes per semester in order to make the program more manageable? Like if I were to span out my classes to finish in 5-6 years? Would employers look poorly upon that or no?
Your course selection for next year looks like a good choice given your interests. Modern science (including biology) has become more dependent on the use of math as a tool. Women actually out perform men in math in elementary school. In the early teens the culture bug appears to take over and girls drop back in the subject. The good news is that almost 50% of the WPI Chemical Engineering majors are now women.
Work with your professor and share your interests so you can better develop and understand your choices.
@Floraldress1 the best thing you can do is to check in with either your advisor or someone from the chem e dept to see what the requirements are to transfer into the engineering department. Every school has a different policy and some are quite strict. My DD is a sophomore chem e and she finds the math challenging but doable. She took AP BC calc her senior year. Overall the curriculum is very challenging and it takes her a lot of time to stay on top of all the classes and labs, go to all the study sessions, etc. but she manages to have a social life and outside activities. she doesn’t really have an "engineering mind " either, but still feels pretty good about being in the field. It’s great that you are looking into this early in your college career. In terms of how long it takes you to complete your major, taking 5 years to get your degree probably isn’t a red flag to an employer, but 6 years might be. That’s just a guess on my part. Good luck to you!!
