<p>How is the job outlook for chemical engineers? I've read different articles about this and heard conflicting ideas. Some say there are more chemical engineers than jobs and others say they have good job opportunities. My dad thinks I will be easily laid off if I pursue a career in engineering. </p>
<p>Also, is it true that pharmacists have better job stability than chemical engineers?</p>
<p>I think chemical engineering is a pretty stable profession. Get some co-op experience if you can. You might not want to match up chemical engineering with pharmacy. When you go to pharmacy school you come out with a Pharm.D. That is a professional degree for actual practice in like a retail pharmacy or drug store or whatever. Are you sure that is what you would want to do? By the way, pharmacists are always needed so yes it is stable...but they are on-call often times and can work long hours.</p>
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Some say there are more chemical engineers than jobs and others say they have good job opportunities.
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<p>If it was really true that there are more chemical engineers than jobs, than the free market would dictate that salaries would fall. That's simple supply and demand. </p>
<p>As it stands, chemical engineers have the 2nd highest average starting salary of any bachelor's degreee (2nd only to petroleum engineering), and the 2nd highest average salary of any engineer.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos029.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos029.htm</a>
<a href="http://money.cnn.com/2005/04/15/pf/college/starting_salaries/%5B/url%5D">http://money.cnn.com/2005/04/15/pf/college/starting_salaries/</a></p>
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My dad thinks I will be easily laid off if I pursue a career in engineering.
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<p>Look, you can be easily laid off in pretty much any career. You have to look at it from a relative standpoint. You have to ask - what's the alternative? What else are you going to do.</p>
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Also, is it true that pharmacists have better job stability than chemical engineers?
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<p>Well, I'm not really sure that that's a fair comparison. As mentioned above, you need a PharmD to become a licensed pharmacist, and that requires at least 6 years of postgraduate study, usually more. It is true that pharmacist jobs pay better, on average, than chemical engineering jobs, and the field will probably grow more than will chemE because of the rapid aging of and consequent burgeoning health-care needs of the Baby Boomers. However you have to factor in the extra time you would be spending in school to become a licensed pharmacist.</p>
<p>Thank you Charman20 and sakky for your responses.</p>
<p>Charman20- No, I'm not sure I want to do pharmacy. I just asked about it because my dad is really pushing me into that field, but I'd much rather study chemical engineering. He sees pharmacy as a safe field, and I wanted to find evidence that chemical engineering is also stable (not necessarily as stable).</p>
<p>running - listen to your dad!....engineer is <em>really</em> unstable. You'll live a cozy rest of life in the medical field...but a bad move now can ruin your life.</p>
<p>Golubb_u, if engineering is 'really' unstable, then what's the alternative, for a bachelor's degree? What other bachelor's degree is better? Again, last time I checked, engineering bachelor's degree make more money, on average, than any other bachelor's degree. </p>
<p>You constantly talk about how great the medical field is. The problem is, you can't enter the medical field with just a bachelor's degree. How many doctors in the country have just a bachelor's? I would venture to say about zero. </p>
<p>I am not saying that being a doctor is bad. But on the other hand, the question is, can you get into medical school? Keep in mind that according to the AAMC, over half of those who apply to medical school get rejected from every school they apply to. That's right - every school. </p>
<p>And that's just talking about those people who actually apply to medical school. Lots of people try to do premed, then get bad grades or bomb their MCAT, so they don't even apply, because they know they won't get in. Let's face it. If you score a 15 (total) on the MCAT, you're probably not going to apply. Why? Because you know you're not going to get in. </p>
<p>I am not saying that engineering is heaven. However, it gives you 'career insurance'. If you can't get into medical school, or in this case, if you can't get into pharmacy school, you gotta find something else to do with your life. An engineering degree at least gives you a defined career with good starting pay. While it's not like investment banking, it's still far far better than what a lot of other people have. Believe me, there are PLENTY of people with liberal arts or science degrees who wish they were making an engineer's salary.</p>
<p>But anyway, I'll put the ball in your court. You say that studying engineering for undergrad is no good. Fine. Then what do you recommend? Again, remember, I'm talking about UNDERGRAD. You can't cop out with 'go to medical school' because to go to medical school, you need an undergrad degree.</p>
<p>"Keep in mind that according to the AAMC, over half of those who apply to medical school get rejected from every school they apply to. That's right - every school. "</p>
<p>That's untrue. 80% of them get in somewhere if they have a GPA of 3.5 or above. The GPA is the key!</p>
<p>Sakky, you're right....for ugrad ONLY engineering is not a bad thing to go into by comparison. HOwever, the OP is deciding on pharmacist as well.....he'd be wise to go into pharmacy instead of ending education at ugrad.</p>
<p>I cannot conceive of a more unfulfilling career than a pharmacist. Take a bunch of chem courses you'll never be expected to use again. Dispense pills. Dispense more pills. Perhaps supervise others to dispense pills. Heh. Manage a bunch of surly high school students making $7/hour if working retail. Get patronized all day long by MDs if working in a hospital. I don't care how well it pays, just seems like a total dead end career to me! Just my opinion, of course.</p>
<p>"Sakky, you're right....for ugrad ONLY engineering is not a bad thing to go into by comparison. HOwever, the OP is deciding on pharmacist as well.....he'd be wise to go into pharmacy instead of ending education at ugrad."</p>
<p>If I go into engineering, I won't end my education at undergrad. Btw, I'm a girl, not a "he." =P</p>
<p>Pharmacy doesn't seem very interesting to me anyways. Memorizing drug names, their effects, and whatever details doesn't excite me too much. (Not that I disrespect a career in pharmacy in any way) The anaylitical thinking required of an engineer intrigues me more.</p>
<p>Stay away from the medical field! Only one in eight hundred of all students who enter college planning to become doctors ends up as a doctor with a stable family and not bankrupt from a malpractice suit!</p>
<p>If you want to be relegated to working your while life away(167+ hours a week!), never having a family, and then losing all of your money for malpractice, be a doctor! Otherwise, stay away!</p>
<p>Look, I can exaggerate and spread hearsay, too! I'm even proficient at making up figures and then being arrogant enough not to supply a source!</p>
<p>i agree with golubb, i saw people warning me about engineering as well before i started college. me and my friends just thought its some random people stereotyping. But, more I learn about career opportunities, the worst engineering looked and this is the consensus among most of my friends who majored in engineering. You will most likely study hard, harder than ever before, you will get sick some times from lack of sleep/food. and then u will see that engineers don't really have more options after graduation than biology/chemistry/or economics majors.</p>
<p>Uggh! So many different responses and views adding to my confusion...</p>
<p>About that skewed view of a doctor's life, I'm not interested in becoming a doctor, just a pharmacist (who have less stressful lives) if I pursue a medical career.</p>
<p>jeffl- "and then u will see that engineers don't really have more options after graduation than biology/chemistry/or economics majors."</p>
<p>Anyone know how true this is?</p>
<p>interesting point that i heard at a presentation re. the future of the hubble space telescope at goddard space flight center:</p>
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During the 60's space race, numerous high school and college students went into engineering and science fields, intent on joining the ranks of NASA and working on sending an American to the moon. While the majority of those never worked for the government or even on the Apollo project, they went out and applied their eng. and sci. knowlege to other projects. </p>
<p>Since that time, there has only been a decrease in the number of science and engineering graduates in the US. The space-race era students are now in their 60's - old to be retiring when the current classes graduate. As a result, current engineers will move up to fill their ranks, and positions right for new college grads will open up.
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<p>Maybe a bit biased, but the argument does have some validity to it. The BLS states, for example in Aerospace Engineering, that while the number of engineering jobs will be steady or decline slightly, the outlook for future engineers is good, due both to an aging workforce as well as a perceived lack of opportunity.</p>
<p>I'd imagine the same for ChemE.</p>
<p>:)</p>
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That's untrue. 80% of them get in somewhere if they have a GPA of 3.5 or above. The GPA is the key!
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<p>First of all, even if what you said is true, how does that make my statement untrue? I am not talking about only those applicants with a 3.5+, I am talking about ALL applicants. The fact of the matter is, the AAMC-published data shows that 53.4% of ALL applicants don't get in anywhere. </p>
<p>Secondly, I would ask you where you got this stat that 80% those with 3.5+ get in somewhere? Don't tell me you just made it up. Where's your reference? Show me a link.</p>
<p>Thirdly, let's look at one specific case. I think we can all agree that UCBerkeley is a quite good school. Yet the data shows that even those Berkeley premed with a GPA of over a 3.9 and an MCAT of over 35, still 8% of even them didn't get in anywhere. Yeah, that's right, their statistics are awesome, and they STILL couldn't get in anywhere.</p>
<p>So, care to explain your comment about how GPA is the key? These guys have a 3.9+, and they still didn't get in. What's up with that? </p>
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Sakky, you're right....for ugrad ONLY engineering is not a bad thing to go into by comparison. HOwever, the OP is deciding on pharmacist as well.....he'd be wise to go into pharmacy instead of ending education at ugrad.
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<p>And, pray tell, how does one get into pharmacy? You need more than just an undergraduate degree. According to the pharmacy licensing stipulations, you have to have at least 6 years of college work to be eligible to get licensed, and most pharmacists have more than 6 years. In fact, the standard educational track is to get a bachelor's degree in SOMETHING, and then get a few more years of specific pharmacy-related study. After all, you may find out that you don't like pharmacy, or you can't do it, or whatever, in which case you have to fall back on whatever your bachelor's degree is. </p>
<p>Which then begs the question that I've been asking you, what should you be getting your bachelor's degree in? You keep saying that engineering is not the way to go. Ok, fine, then what should he get the bachelor's degree in? Biology? English? History? Psychology? Are those really better? I don't know about you, but I would surmise that most people who graduate with biology degrees wish they could be making the kinds of salaries that those with engineering degrees make. But again, I'll leave it up to you - if the engineering bachelor's is not the way to go, then what bachelor's should he get? </p>
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u will see that engineers don't really have more options after graduation than biology/chemistry/or economics majors.
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<p>Oh, I disagree. Engineering have one very big option that is not available to most other majors - that is, they have a set professional career path laid out before them. Engineers can do anything that anybody else can do. For example, engineers can get into investment banking. Many do. Engineers can get into management consulting. Again, many do. Heck, two of the biggest recruiters of MIT and Stanford engineers are McKinsey and Goldman Sachs. Engineers can also get into professional school like medical school or law school. Again, many do. I don't see any reason why an engineer couldn't continue onto pharmacy school. </p>
<p>But in addition to all that, engineers also have the option to start working as engineers, and making decent money. They're not going to break the bank, but it's nice to have this 'career insurance'. </p>
<p>Look, I'm not saying that engineering is paradise. But think about the alternatives. So let's say you major in biology. You graduate, what are you going to do? Medical school, maybe, but what if you can't get in? Keep in mind that, according to the AAMC, over 50% of all medical school applicants nationwide get rejected from every med-school they apply to. What if that happens to you - what are you going to do now? I guess you could just go out and get a job, but look at the starting salaries that biology majors make. Chemistry majors don't do much better. Even economics majors don't make the kinds of starting salaries that engineers make, on average. </p>
<p>So again, I pose the question, if engineering for undergrad is so bad, then what's better? What's the alternative?</p>
<p>Thank you again, sakky, for your very informative and well thought-out posts.</p>
<p>And thank you, karthikkito, for your inspiring quote.</p>
<p>I think I'll major in engineering in undergrad. At least that would give me "career insurance" if I ever decide to do pharmacy and happen to not get into medical school.</p>
<p>Hahaha. I find it funny how everyone here is referring to me as a "he" when I am in fact a "she."</p>
<p>i believe the demand for engineering will increase, but will be increasing in india and china. not the united states.</p>
<p>i've read that over 70% of fortune 500 companies plan on outsourcing next year. 7 out of 8 of my engineering uncles w/ 20+ yrs of experience in IT one is mechanical, are unemployed. the one that is employed works almost 60 hrs a week and vehemently discourages myself and his son from entering the engineering profession
if everyone thinks outsourcing is ********, check out how fast these firms have been growing and splitting
WIT, INFY, these are the 2 largest business processing firms in india. these firms have market caps of almost 20 BILLION dollars, this outsourcing phenomenon is no joke.</p>
<p>i researched the avg. starting salary is 12- 15000 for engineers in india. that is 25% of the starting salaries of u.s. gradutes.<br>
how the f.u.c.k. are you and I going to compete with that?</p>
<p>i have another uncle who is an mech engr, he has 20 yrs experience, and his job is to overlook design and check the designs of the products. all the basic drafting desgin and production is done over in china.</p>
<p>oh yeah, china and india have over 1 billion ppl each. they are producing around 3 to 4 times the number of engineer graduates each year compared to america. and don't think that ppl from these developing countries are any less qualified than you, they're are every bit as smart, if not smarter than americans. chinese and indians have dominated information technology for the past 20 yrs in america, from now on they will dominate globally.</p>
<p>also my friends family just got laid off from engineering after 20 or 30 yrs experience.</p>
<p>also there's a different type of visa called L-1 visa, means that corporations that have companies in china or india can bring an unlimited number of workers from china to work in the u.s. they do not have to pay these workers competitive u.s. wages.</p>
<p>do some research into outsourcing. then again if u're super brilliant nobody can replace or outsource your position. but not too many ppl have iqs of 140+.</p>
<p>i do not mean to spread bad news, but just letting everyone make an informed decision. i'm also saddened by the outlook of engineers.
i did not post any sources on some of my claims, but do a google on it. or better yet get first hand knowledge and ask some of ur relatives and family friends in the engineering profession.</p>
<p>seriously before u judge my post, ask ppl already in the profession on their opinion</p>
<p>But the question stands - what ELSE are you going to study for undergrad. You guys keep talking about engineering not being a good thing to study, with the implication that there is something better out there. Yes, of course, there is going to be outsourcing of engineers. But guess what - there is also going to be outsourcing of everything else too. Plenty of business services, like accounting, bookkeeping, and basically any desk job, can be outsourced. Medical services can be outsourced, as demonstrated by medical tourism, remote Xray analysis, remote medical test analysis, and other things. In a few years, people who need certain kinds of surgery, like ACL repair, might opt to fly to Asia to have it done to save money. Certainly I would expect that procedures that are not covered by insurance, like plastic surgery or LASIK, will probably be outsourced to Asia. Lots of legal services, like (especially) paralegal research, can be easily outsourced. </p>
<p>So the question stands - what's better? I am not saying that engineering is great. What I am asking is, is there really anything else that's really that much better to study for undergrad? What's the alternative? Engineering might not be great, but the other choices are not that great either.</p>
<p>i think a field like economics, biochemistry, or math is better than engineering. (NOTE: at a top 50 University) Engineering is good for lower ranked schools, where there might not be so many recruiters as the top schools, because u are guaranteed a job after graduation provided that your grades are above 3.0.</p>
<p>So many of the brightest high school students enter MIT/Caltech doing engineering when they could have chosen something else. a bystander might argue that students major in engineering because he/she loves it. Theoretically this is possible I suppose. But chances are, most students these days pick majors based on the potential earning, and whatever they are good at in high school.
I think engineering is great for developing analysis skills, math skills, etc, but engineering schools are essentially trade schools to a certain extent. A lot of the things I learned are tailored for a career in engineering. Most other majors allow freedom in course selection. Engineering curriculum is fixed, u can probably squeeze in only 3 or 4 classes that u really want to take outside of engineering in your whole college career.
My writing skills have declined since college, technical communication is not like a regular college english class. I know when I started college, I dreamt of taking language classes, philosophy classes with obscure names, and Archaeology, getting some legal background with a few law classes. You cannot do this if u are an engineering major.
also, by senior year, people will be applying to med school, law school, and jobs. a lot of the high paying investment,consulting jobs have high requirements, like 3.3, which is pretty easy for liberal arts majors, but not an easy task for engineers. med, law, needless to say requires more.</p>
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i think a field like economics, biochemistry, or math is better than engineering.
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<p>Well, I'll put it to you this way. Here is the starting salary data for graduates of UCBerkeley. Check out the starting salaries for the econ, biochem (which is known as molecular and cellular biology or MCB at Berkeley), and math, compared to engineering graduates. I think we can all agree that, if nothing else, the engineers are making more. The MCB graduates, in particular, I'm sure wouldn't mind making an engineering salary. </p>
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But chances are, most students these days pick majors based on the potential earning, and whatever they are good at in high school.
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<p>And I see nothing wrong with that. Higher pay, in any field, encourages more people to enter it. That's how free market capitalism is supposed to work. Greater pay serves as an incentive. </p>
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My writing skills have declined since college, technical communication is not like a regular college english class. I know when I started college, I dreamt of taking language classes, philosophy classes with obscure names, and Archaeology, getting some legal background with a few law classes. You cannot do this if u are an engineering major.
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<p>I agree that you make sacrifices to become an engineer. But that's how it works. There is no 'easy' professional track. For example, iIf you want to become a doctor, you gotta make sacrifices too. The sacrifices you make to become a doctor far exceed those in becoming an engineer, you must agree. </p>
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also, by senior year, people will be applying to med school, law school, and jobs. a lot of the high paying investment,consulting jobs have high requirements, like 3.3, which is pretty easy for liberal arts majors, but not an easy task for engineers. med, law, needless to say requires more.
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<p>Two points I would make here. Point #1 - I agree with you that engineers find it difficult to get into med-school and law-school because of their relatively low GPA's. In fact, I myself have discussed this point in great depth in the med-school and law-school sections of CC. However, the same does not hold true with consulting and banking. Uh uh. Believe me, I have seen PLENTY of people get jobs in banking and consulting with quite mediocre grades. For example, I know several people who got into consulting with GPA's of barely a 3.0, and they weren't even engineers. Others have gotten into finance with GPA's around 2.5 (granted, they were engineers). On the other hand, I have also seen plenty of people with stellar GPA's get no consulting or finance job offers. </p>
<p>The fact of the matter is that grades are only a minor consideration to consulting and finance companies. What is far more important is your personality. Yes, it obviously doesn't hurt to have a high GPA when you go interviewing with those kinds of companies. Yet high grades, by themselves, are neither necessary nor sufficient to get a job offer in those fields.</p>
<p>Point #2 - You contradicted yourself. On the one hand, you're saying that having a high GPA is important to get you into med-school, law-school, jobs, etc. On the other hand, you said previously that a field like biochem or math is better than engineering. These are not compatible statements. The fact is, majoring in biochem or math is no picnic. The grading in biochem or math tends to be just as difficult as the grading in engineering. </p>
<p>In particular, take the math major. I would say that this major is brutally difficult in the sense that majoring in math basically comes down to whether you can do math proofs. Upper division math classes are all about proofs. If you're good at doing proofs, OK, it might be easy. But if you can't, you're going to find it very tough sledding indeed. Math proofs are not one of those things that you can do by simple hard work alone. You need certain brilliant insights, a certain creativity and ingenuity, and if you just don't have that, you're going to be getting some very bad math grades. It's quite cut-and-dry, either you can do the proofs, or you can't. In some literature class, you can just bullshi* your way through a paper. You can't bullshi* your way through a math proof - it either works, or it doesn't. And if your proofs don't work, you are going to get a bad grade, no matter what sort of BS-ing you do. </p>
<p>Or take biochem. It's no secret that biochem classes are usually chock-full of premeds. And you know how premeds are - they work like dogs because they all want to get the 'A'. That means that if you want to get the 'A', you'll have to work just as hard as they do to keep up with them. That's a LOT of work. </p>
<p>The point is, if anything I would argue that when it's all said and done, the people who are majoring in the natural sciences or math have it the worst of anyone. The engineers might be struggling along to get high grades, but at least when they graduate, they have 'career insurance' with high starting pay (for somebody with just a bachelor's). The science and math majors also struggle along to get high grades, and they don't even get the career insurance or the high starting salary.</p>
<p><a href="http://stats.bls.gov/oco/ocos028.htm#outlook%5B/url%5D">http://stats.bls.gov/oco/ocos028.htm#outlook</a> is the link for BLS claim i made earlier. :)</p>