Chemical Engineering Substitution

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>Yeah, I totally have a dumb question. If I wanted to do chemical engineering, but I can't even begin to afford the program because of a lack of parental support and no chance of paying back loans, how well would this plan work out?:</p>

<p>Double major in mechanical engineering and applied chemistry for my B.S.Eng and then attempt to go to grad school for chemical engineering.</p>

<p>For those who say "SCHOLARSHIPS!" No. I've tried that, and despite having a 4.0 in terms of GPA and lots of enthusiastic extracurriculars, I can't get that many scholarships because I'm apparently no prize (Yes I was told that by a lot of college counselors back in high school when I tried leaving for college the first time). I'm looking to spend as little time in college as possible. Where I live, I can go to school for REALLY cheap and graduate almost (if not completely) debt-free, but I can't do chemical engineering since my hometown university doesn't offer it--I have to leave town and relocate.</p>

<p>And not to mention, I don't even know if I'll end up liking it after the first year. So if I relocated, said "screw it, I hate this more than I thought I would," I'd still be out a LOT of money in loans and whatnot and wouldn't be any closer to a degree.</p>

<p>I know that this plan WOULD work, but how painlessly would it work? Would I have another three years of university just to make up for all the chemical engineering pre-reqs? Should I just take the social and financial plunge, relocate, and hope for the best? Or prove to myself that I can even survive university, then think about grad school? I'm only 18, so my resources and whatnot are a little limited. What do you think?</p>

2

<p>Well, to say the least it’s pretty strange that no merit scholarships come from a 4.0 GPA alone. Are you in a hyper-competitive state?</p>

<p>I assume your parents have enough money so that you don’t qualify for financial aid, but they just don’t want to give you any. That really does suck, and unfortunately that’s going to be painful.</p>

<p>You don’t have money nor any especially promising way to get it, and you definitely don’t want to mortgage your life on student loans because what guarantee do you have that things will even work out the way you want them to? If they don’t, you have crippling debt and nothing to show for it. A double major into grad school is just asking for trouble because so many things could go wrong on the way.</p>

<p>My suggestion: go to a good community college, take a solid basic curriculum (physics/chemistry/biology/ochem/calculus etc) and then do one of two things:

  1. Transfer. You might get merit scholarships if you do well.
  2. Find a job and get a degree slightly later.</p>

<p>Community college is actually affordable. Don’t waste your life on loans when you don’t know if it’s worth it.</p>

3

<p>I live in Texas, so yes, it’s a hyper-competitive state. I need to go ahead and say that I’ve already completed the community college track. I’m done with the physics, calculus, humanities, and social sciences requirements. The only thing I don’t have done is the college-level Chemistry requirement. I REALLY liked Chemistry in high school, I just haven’t tried it on the college level yet.</p>

<p>I’ve completed my first two years of college already, and it’s only cost me I think $5,000 doing community college, which I think is nice. My 4.0 IS the college GPA.</p>

4

<p>Chemical engineering is actually much more about physics than about chemistry. You may or may not learn to hate it. </p>

<p>As I said, it’s really odd that you have no scholarships. Why is this the case?</p>

5

<p>@NeoDymium, If that’s true, then I love Physics! I probably will love it then.</p>

<p>Well, in high school, I was within the top 4% of a class of about 600. I tried padding my resume as much as I could that year with nice achievements like straight As, all-state band, community service, and taking dual-enrollment classes all at the same time (which I still made straight As in). I succeeded, but I had really bad SAT scores. Because of that, I fell flat on my face, was denied every scholarship I applied for, was told that I was no prize, and that loans were going to be the only way I was going to be able to afford college. I later fell into a deep depression the summer after my senior year. I thought I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was because of that, along with a variety of other complex reasons that I nor you have time to read.</p>

<p>I’d planned to transfer into my new university this upcoming spring, but I found out that they don’t allow for spring transfers, so the best bet would be to transfer in this fall. I didn’t find this out until earlier this month. Likewise, because of my late epiphany, I missed all the scholarship deadlines. I’ve been frantically trying to figure out what I’m going to do. I’ve got enough for ONE year saved up at my desired university, but who’s to say that I’m not going to fall flat on my face AGAIN trying to jump through the scholarship hoops? Except this time, it’ll be on the college level!</p>

6

<p>Honestly, it’s pretty obvious even from just your posts that you’re not emotionally stable right now, even before you mention that you’ve recently been dealing with depression. And the truth is, you can’t go to a university with depression because you’ll just fail and owe far too much money in the process.
Either take the year off or go to community college. If you’ve already taken AP/IB credits for everything, then you’ll have an easy time repeating those classes. Doing well there will help get you merit scholarships if you do well (which isn’t hard), and more importantly it’s a very good way to fix your problems without wasting time or money.</p>

<p>Crippling debt is the second best way to ruin your life, after ingesting chemicals. People work for decades in jobs they hate because of it. A year from now, you’ll be much more qualified to judge whether or not it’s worth it. For now, avoid it.</p>

7

<p>Is it really a good idea to wait another complete year to transfer? I’m pretty much done with all my credits except Chemistry. There’s almost nothing left for me to take, so I’d be kinda strapped to attempt to even make full-time credits while in community college for the next two semesters.</p>

8

<p>In your situation? Yes.
What do you honestly think will happen if you go straight to university right now?</p>

9

<p>I truthfully could not say for sure. I will admit, I’m not completely prepared for living on my own. I can barely do my own laundry.</p>

<p>And I technically lied, which I apologize for. There’s a transfer scholarship that I DO qualify for, but it will only cover two years of costs. It’s not really “merit,” but rather just something they give to people who’ve completed the CC track. And even then, I’m probably going to have to spend four more years at university because of my lack of the Chemistry credit this far into my college career.</p>

<p>That scholarship would “help” but it’s not even half of the total cost I’d incur for one year.</p>

10

<p>Frankly, I don’t see this ending well. A double major course load (horrible idea in and of itself by the way) with clear signs depression, along with the added worry of having to deal with crippling debt AND living alone? That’s a recipe for disaster if I’ve ever seen one.</p>

<p>It would certainly be better if this problem didn’t exist. But it does, and wishing it didn’t will not change reality. Don’t buy off more than you can chew, and especially don’t borrow against your future to do it. You absolutely will regret it if you do.</p>

11

<p>I think you might’ve misunderstood what I meant.</p>

<p>I wouldn’t be living alone or going into debt for the double major. That would be at a university right here in my hometown that I could live with my parents to obtain.</p>

<p>But if I did Chemical Engineering, that would mean I would have to relocate to another university in a different city, live alone, and probably go into lots of debt to finish the last 3 years of university.</p>

12

<p>Either way, I suggest you don’t go for a double major. Applied chemistry is not chemical engineering and a double major is trouble.</p>

<p>I tend to be of the opinion that crippling debt is better avoided, so I’ll obviously suggest you don’t go that way. Stick with just MechE and maybe a chemistry + ochem sequence. You’ll still have to make up about a year’s worth of material if you ultimately choose to go for the ChemE MS, but that’s better than the alternative.</p>

13

<p>You’re going to have to learn to live on your own at some point in time, so don’t let that preclude you from moving to go to a school. That said, you do not sound ready to, so perhaps you should take some time off and clear up issues. Speaking to a therapist about your issues is an excellent idea, and taking a year or two off of school is not only not a bad idea but will help you get a job so you can get used to the working world.</p>

14

<p>If you do decide to do the gap year route (seriously, don’t worry about it, there are tons of non-traditional students that do fantastic), you might want to get a job and see about moving out to live with a roommate. You won’t be able to save as much money up, but the experience of living out of your parents’ roof might be the confidence builder you need as a kick in the butt.</p>

<p>Also, how much debt are we actually talking about with this transfer scholarship? $10k a year for three years isn’t an unreasonable number, especially if those loans will be from the government (and at a pretty low rate). $30k with a 3.4% interest rate is only a payment of ~$300, which is certainly doable as a chemical engineer.</p>

<p>Edit: I also want to say that just because you have some sort of depression doesn’t mean you’re going to be a failure at school. I’ve dealt with it since before going to college, and I was still able to excel in all of my schooling. You know how much of a problem it presents to your school work more than any of us do.</p>

15

<p>Uh, if you are in Texas, why don’t you just go to Texas A&M for a fairly cheap amount? If you are completely unable to afford paying, I’m sure you’ll get SOME scholarships and graduating with ~30k of debt is pretty manageable.</p>

16

<p>If cameraphone missed the preferred FAFSA deadlines for whatever school he/she is interested in (like I did), there may only be need based aid in the form of a Pell Grant and Federal Loans. And, if cameraphone is still a dependent student, his/her parents will badly affect the EFC number, resulting in even less money. Late June is a bad time to be starting to look for scholarships, as most have already picked their candidates for the upcoming year. If I wasn’t an independent student with a family to back me up, I’d be in just as bad of a spot. The universities are super serious about getting your FAFSA in to them by THEIR deadlines, which are often no later than mid-March.</p>

<p>You can’t go to school if you can’t pay your tuition or rent.</p>

<p>Cameraphone, let me give you some advice that I didn’t know until I was sitting in my first engineering orientation session: engineering internships are often paid. I was given numbers like $15-30/hour, full-time for 12 weeks in summer. Though this will set you back a semester, if you can manage to pay for your first 2 semesters, you may be able to intern to help put some money in the bank, or pay loans back.</p>

<p>Have you tried speaking to a chemical engineering adviser at any universities you’re interested in, regarding means of paying for schooling? There may be scholarships/grants offered only through the college/department you’re going through that don’t rely on what’s happening in the financial aid office. A phone call won’t cost you very much, and you could be pleasantly surprised at the results.</p>

17

<p>I am actually thinking about applying for a few internships to help make that amount back. I do have a considerable amount saved up for college at the moment. I’m just a little scared about what to do. The university that I would like to transfer to offers a $6,000/yr scholarship to transfers that transfer in from a community college. To me, that’s a lot of money and could potentially mean the difference between getting my degree and having to do a fallback degree. </p>

<p>Well, as I’ve said before, I’m literally… done with community college. Here are the last things that I could really take:</p>

<p>Chemistry I & II (for solid credit) (4 hours and 4 hours)
Computer programming (Basic engineering requirement) (4 hours)
Calculus III (4 hours)</p>

<p>How do I make 16 hours spread out over the course of an entire year while I wait to get into this school (If I take a year off). I’m also planning on attempting to take calculus during the summer, which means I would probably only have 12 credit hours. I can’t take organic chemistry just because they don’t transfer to where I’d like to go since it’s a junior level course there, yet it’s a sophomore level course in community college.</p>

<p>I would pretty much have to decide right here and right now in these next few days what to do. If I bring in ANY credits at all from a university, then I lose that really nice scholarship. Just saying “forget it” and pursuing my education for mechanical engineering would bring me closer to actually getting a bachelor’s degree, but having to spend time community college for a whole year taking random credits to make full time for financial aide reasons really doesn’t help all that much.</p>

<p>On a more positive note… I’ve been devising a backup plan for my mechanical engineering degree. Taking calculus III in the summer would allow me to get tons of my engineering credits done and out of the way allowing me to probably graduate in just two years rather than 3 like I thought.</p>

18

<p>Take electives, take something you find interesting, or just take something useful that isn’t necessarily a requirement (like a statistics or accounting class). </p>

<p>You’re not wasting a year because you’re still getting credits (and too much debt wastes way more than a year of your life). You’re not wasting money because this is the cheaper route. And you’re not sidetracking yourself by getting a degree you don’t particularly want.</p>

<p>Also, don’t rush graduation by taking summer courses - I say this as someone who has skipped a year before. If you can graduate early without rushing it or overloading yourself, there’s nothing wrong with that. But rushing a degree can cause you a lot of trouble down the road.</p>

19

<p>Cameraphone, </p>

<p>I am in a similar but different situation than you are. In my town I can get a Mech E or EE degree. However I too want to do chemical engineering. I live in the DFW area. I know UTA and UTD offer engineering courses. I have been taking my lower level courses at a local CC. However I simply cannot up and leave and move to another location.</p>

<p>I am older, 28, work a full time job and have the full load of an adult on my hands, rent, bills, car note, insurance. I totally understand what you mean by not being able to afford it. However I have considered Texas Tech and they offer a pretty large scholarship for transfer students. I have a 3.7 gpa right now. Funny thing is that hurt my gpa, history and government. Made a C in government and B’s in the other two histories and other government class. The rest of my lower level stem courses I aced. </p>

<p>Either way. Aside from that, since I work full time and have little extra money because of bills, I have no one to help me pay for school. Community college is suppose to be cheaper and it is, but when you literally have no family helping and no one supporting you financially, it becomes expensive almost like going to university. I had to take out loans, and getting my associate degree working full time and maintaining high gpa took more than two years. </p>

<p>I really want this, engineering, and I do not want to settle. I considered doing biochem but please… I do not want to work at a bench all my life. I have worked at a micro/chem lab for almost two years now and the pay sucks and people with Phds barely make over 50k. To me that realm of science is just not financially worth going into. </p>

<p>I do enjoy math and chemistry, but in the end I want to see it come to life, made into creation or see my work actually become something. What I do now basically is perform something over and over that someone else did ages ago. I need a challenge.</p>

<p>When you take into consideration, at least my case, all the things that will or will not make you happy, you then have your decision. </p>

<p>I have decided for engineering, yes, now the hard part is to up and move to Lubbock or stay here and do Mech E. Both are great careers and allow me to do science and use my math skills. </p>

<p>If you choose to make the jump to go locally for a Mech E degree or move to get Chem E, both will reward you within your spirit and financially. If you get a job you dont like, you can simply change to a different area that you do like. From my understanding engineering is highly versatile. While others degrees are not. </p>

<p>I wish I was your age again because if I were you, I would go for it. Do whatever you feel passionate about no matter the financial cost. You can pay it back when you are done with your engineering degree. Now I cannot say that about all degrees people go into. I know engineering can pay well as opposed to a simple biology degree. </p>

<p>You can move into a dorm, take the scholarship, study hard, save the playing around for later after you get your degree finished. Take loans if you have too, take summer internships, find a mentor at the university. I actually feel your pain and passion at the same time, I too am living it, just in a different way. Do not give up buddy, and dont let something as simple as money hold you back. If there is a will, there will be a way. You can pm me if you want.</p>