ChemE degree a good start to a career in biotech?

College Majors Engineering Majors
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<p>Hey CC. This will be my first post on this forum, despite having lurked for a while now.</p>

<p>Just a rough bit of background info: Until halfway through senior year this year, I thought I wanted to be a software engineer. That was until I took an actual class, and realized that the vast majority of what a computer science degree entails bores me to tears. Physics and AP Bio were another story, though; I was fascinated by mechanics and heat (electromagnetism not as much) and human biology. I took AP Chem the year before and enjoyed that, too. So although I've got some time to really choose my major, I've narrowed it down to either ChemE or MechE. I live in Seattle (probably one of the reasons I somehow felt drawn at CS at one point) and there's a growing biotech presence, and even if that doesn't work out, Boeing hires people by the boatload to make airplanes, which sounds pretty sweet as well. Hell, there's even a fairly large BP oil refinery an hour north of here, if I choose to get into that.</p>

<p>And so my main questions are
1. What's the difference in difficulty between ChemE and MechE?
2. Have either found a niche in the biotech industry?
3. Which major is more fun? (This one comes down to personal opinion, but I'm interested in hearing what people have to say.)</p>

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<ol>
<li><p>MechE vs. ChemE: in a nutshell, for biotech, a ChemE will define parameters a piece of equipment needs to meet and the MechE will design/help design and ensure that the equipment can meet those parameters. ChemEs in biotech will fill more process engineering type roles where MechEs will exist as equipment engineers.</p></li>
<li><p>Both are heavily present in the biotech industry, myself included.</p></li>
<li><p>Depends; do you like to tinker with equipment or with processes?</p></li>
</ol>

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<p>Have you considered Biomedical Engineering or Bioengineering?</p>

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<p>I have, but BME sounds too restricting to me. I’m interested in biotech now, but that might change in a couple years, so I want to go for a more versatile degree.</p>