<p>I just finished my freshman year of college and just recently changed my major to chemical engineering. I am already on track to be an engineer but I dont know if I would be able to do it. I am not a naturally smart person but I did manage to get a 3.7 gpa after alot of studying my freshman year. I did enjoy calculus but I didn't really enjoy doing chemistry or physics though I got an A- in both. I want to do chemical engineering because I want to help the environment in some way like making hydro cars or something like that. Is my goal realistic?</p>
<p>I think hydro cars might not be realistic.</p>
<p>However, chemical engineering is more practical application of science than the hard science itself. You need to know the science, so you need those classes. However, ChemE will be more fluid flow, material, mass and heat balances, and general troubleshooting than it will be math or the actual hard science.</p>
<p>Just replying to let you know that you’re not alone. In fact, our situations are almost exactly the same. I also just finished my freshmen year with a 3.7 GPA. And I am signed up for a full ChemE load in the fall. I’ve came a long way. I had to first get accepted into the engineering college. It’s been a long process and I feel I’ve come too far to back out now. That being said, I’m completely terrified of my fall schedule. I’m taking Material and Energy Balances, Thermodynamics, Biology Function of the Cell, and DiffEq. I guess everyone who has done engineering has been in this position. I wouldn’t say I breezed by my freshmen year, but I definitely did not study as much as I could. I would say I studied efficiently and a lot of the material just flowed naturally for me. My biggest fear is that’s not going to happen this year. I just have this massive fear that the first day of class things are going to be thrown at us that I just won’t be able to do.</p>
<p>Chemical Engineering is a very good segway into Environmental studies in either grad school or the workforce. ChemE is going to be hard, but as long as you have the drive to do it you’ll be fine. Surprisingly, there is not as much Chemistry involved as you would think (it depends largely on where you specialize in ChemE), but this may be either good or bad for you depending on how you like the subject. Just a note, Gen Chem only scrapes the surface of chemistry. Just wait until you take Organic and Physical Chemistry, those will really start to show you what chem is all about. </p>
<p>Nate09 - I wouldn’t worry too much about your schedule. Material and Energy Balances can be difficult, but if you just keep doing practice problems you’ll be fine. I had a somewhat hard time with it initially (the book problems assigned were much more difficult than the professors problems), but once I got the hang of it it wasn’t bad at all. I will be taking Thermo and a Foundations of Biology for Engineering class this coming semester… so we’ll see about that. Differential Equations are not hard at all. As long as you practice them and get the process down you’ll be fine. Just give each class the time it deserves.</p>
<p>Best of luck!</p>
<p>Thank you for the replies! I am feeling alot better about my decision</p>