chemical engineering

College Majors Engineering Majors
21

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My guess is it may be true that one of the historically biggest employers--oil industry, isn't hiring many chemEs as before. sakky, I actually heard that oil company isn't hiring many of them because there's not much R&D going on anymore. After all, the processing and refinering of cruel oil is pretty much the same for quite a while.

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<p>Well, your information conflicts with mine, because from what I can tell, the oil industry is hiring a LOT of chemical engineers. However, it is true that they're not really being hired for R&D. Rather, the really big hiring is going on for the oil exploration/production rigsite engineering jobs, especially offshore work. I think I read somewhere recently that the number of rigs operating in the US, onshore and offshore, has reached near-record highs and there's an especially large amount of work in constructing offshore LNG (liquefied natural gas) facilities. Now, it is true that a lot of the exploration/production engineering jobs tend to prefer petroleum engineers, however, they hire plenty of chemical engineers as well. </p>

<p>Besides, the fact is, exploration/production has always been by far the most lucrative place to be if you're going to work in the oil industry - far more lucrative than refining and petrochemicals are, and not just from a business profit margin standpoint, but also from a salary standpoint. This is especially true if you can get classified as an international field engineer and get an expatriate's salary (which means that the company pays for all your housing and all your living costs). If you want to travel around the world and see truly exotic places, and make very good money, it's a pretty good deal. Granted, the places you might be sent to aren't always the most fun places in the world (i.e. Saudi Arabia) and some of them can be downright dangerous for a Western expat (i.e. West Africa). And the lifestyle can be gritty and boring, especially if you work offshore (where the big salaries tend to be). However, if you're young and you want adventure, it's not a bad deal. You won't make the kind of money that investment bankers make, but you can still accumulate a pretty good chunk of change. </p>

<p>But anyway, I digress. The point is, I believe the oil industry has been doing quite a bit of hiring, and will continue to do so. You can't just look at only R&D or only downstream refinery work. The real hiring is happening upstream.</p>

22

<p>Well, I think we have gone over the issue enough and it is best we agree to disagree. As I have said, through my experience, I believe chemical engineering has horrible prospects and would suggest that people thinking of taking a ChE degree choose ME or CE or EE. </p>

<p>Just my expierence and I hope yours is better.</p>

23

<p>does carnegie mellon give financial aid to international students?</p>

24

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I believe chemical engineering has horrible prospects and would suggest that people thinking of taking a ChE degree choose ME or CE or EE.

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<p>I believe you give FAR too much weight to the specific kind of engineering you're in. The fact is, after you've graduated and been working for a few years, nobody cares what specific kind of engineering degree you got. The only thing they care about is what your job was, and how well you did it. For example, I've seen plenty of people work in the auto industry, the electronics industry, the pharmaceuticals industry, etc. and find that after a couple of years, nobody cares what specific engineering degree they got. You just get branded as the auto guy, or the microchips guy, or the pharmaceuticals guy, etc.</p>

<p>Heck, in certain industries, it doesn't even matter whether you have an engineering degree or not. This happens most often in high-tech. I've known guys who've worked in software for years, and have hence become known as software guys, despite not having a CS degree (but rather, a degree in math or physics) and in some cases, not even having a degree at all. Similarly, I know PLENTY of people who've gotten into Intel for wafer-fab jobs without engineering degrees, but rather degrees in chemistry or physics. </p>

<p>The only time that the specific degree really matters is on your very first job. But even then, it doesn't matter as much as people think it does. Intel hires for its wafer-fab engineering jobs people with degrees in EE, ChemE, ME, IndE, MSE, Chemistry, Physics, and a few others. True, certain disciplines are easier to use to get into Intel than other disciplines are, but let's not overstate the effect. Similarly, I've seen plenty of oil refineries hire for their refinery engineering jobs people with ChemE degrees, but also ME's, CivilE's, and other kinds of engineering. What matters FAR more than what specific degree you have is your work experience as evidenced by summer and coop internships. Similarly, P&G recruited every single kind of engineer at Berkeley. </p>

<p>Which is why I don't understand how people can really complain about a ChemE degree being terrible. An engineering degree is a fungible commodity - it can be used for a wide variety of employers. Just because you have a ChemE degree doesn't mean that you have to take a chemical engineering job or work for a chemical company. Toyota is not going to say "Oh, I see that you have great experience and are just what we need, but since you have a chemical engineering degree, not a ME degree, we're not going to hire you."</p>

25

<p>There are some things that, as an engineer, I never believed, heard of, or considered until I got to see what 18-year-olds write on these boards. Primary among them is the notion that a chemical engineering degree is useless.</p>

<p>Sakky was diplomatic. I'm not diplomatic, so I'll just go ahead and say that's a bunch of b.s. that no actual engineer really believes. You can use your deductive reasoning (fewer advancements in refining = worse prospects) but REALITY does not comport with your reasoning. It's like saying that, because humans are evolved from monkeys, we have prehensile tails. Welcome to reality, folks. Reality is that chemical engineers make more coming out of college than any other major surveyed in Money Magazine's annual list. Reality is that every chemical engineer in my graduating class who didn't immediately start a master's or Ph.D. got a respectable job in a crummy economy. Reality is that finance firms were drooling over one of the girls in my graduating class because she knows software programming. </p>

<p>I do understand that there is room for reasonable, intelligent people to disagree about the same thing - but, folks, it is clear to anyone with a brain that a chemical engineering degree is incredibly valuable and marketable. Do me a favour: please stop guessing or talking out of your butts, because it does get a little frustrating to correct all of the mis-infromation that y'all post here.</p>

26

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The only thing they care about is what your job was, and how well you did it.

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<p>Let's say I work for Exxon Mobil for a couple years as a chemical engineer. Would that look really good on my resume? Almost as good as working for .....Mckinsey, yahoo, google, and / or other top companies? I'm just trying to compare having good chemE jobs on my resume as opposed to having top notch i-banks listed on my resume.</p>

27

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Let's say I work for Exxon Mobil for a couple years as a chemical engineer. Would that look really good on my resume? Almost as good as working for .....Mckinsey, yahoo, google, and / or other top companies? I'm just trying to compare having good chemE jobs on my resume as opposed to having top notch i-banks listed on my resume.

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<p>To be honest, ExxonMobil probably won't look as good as those top companies you mention, although it will certainly look a whole lot better than a lot of other companies you could have worked for.</p>

<p>All of those companies are highly respected and famous companies. What gives companies like Mckinsey and Google that extra spark is the extra selectivity that they have in hiring. A Harvard degree is valuable precisely because it's so hard to get into Harvard - hence having a Harvard degree is a signal to the market that you were good enough to get admitted. {In fact, a McKinsey recruiter of MBA grads once said that she didn't really think the MBA education was all that valuable at all - what was valuable was the admissions selectivity, and hence McKinsey would rather interview people who got admitted into, say, a Harvard Business School or a MITSloan but chose not to go. Hence, you could say that McKinsey has partially outsourced its HR department to the B-schools admissions staffs).</p>

<p>Similarly, having McKinsey or Google or Yahoo or a bulge bracket Ibank on your resume is a signal that you were good enough to get hired there. While the opportunities and responsibilities at ExxonMobil are also high quality and the experience is extremely valuable, the fact is, it's easier to get into ExxonMobil, which detracts from its resume-pumping value. </p>

<p>But again, I would emphasize that ExxonMobil is still a lot better to have on the resume than a lot of other companies out there. There are PLENTY of companies that are neither highly selective nor do they provide good experience.</p>

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<p>Then again, Sakky, if the goal in mind is to boost one's credibility as a chemical engineering candidate, working for google ain't gonna do you much good...!</p>

<p>Working for Eli-Lilly or Pfizer or Merck will boost your credibility. If you want to go into the petroleum industry, working for Exxon-Mobil or Halliburton or one of the others will boost your credibility. You've got to consider who's looking at the resume. An I-Banker will look at Google and say, "Ooh!" but a Chem Eng will look at Google and say, "Uh.... What sorts of chemical engineering did you do while you were at Google...? Any?"</p>

29

<p>I agree with that, but you gotta place the question in the proper context. The guy was asking to compare good ChemE jobs vs. Ibanking jobs, and if you're asking about IB, then clearly you're not all that wedded to an engineering job. Working as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs ain't gonna boost your credibility for an engineering job at Pfizer, but will boost your credibility immensely if you want to get into the Corporate Finance department at Pfizer. </p>

<p>This gets back to something I've been saying for awhile. A lot of people who pursue engineering degrees don't really intend to work as engineers forever, and some of them don't intend to work as engineers at all. They're pursuing the degree for its marketability and its 'backup career' potential, not because they're really champing at the bit to work as engineers. These people are just looking for a solid career. And let's face it - consulting and banking are about the 2 most high-powered business career tracks you can get, and are well-recognized as the fast track to get into top management even at chemical engineering firms. I would submit that if you want to get into the top management at a pharmaceutical or a top petrochemical firm, you would probably get there faster by working as a McKinsey consultant than working as an engineer. Whether that's fair or not fair, that's the reality of the game. </p>

<p>This extends even across industries. Google and Yahoo surely have nothing to do with chemical engineering. But again, a lot of people who pursue chemical engineering aren't all that wedded to chemical engineering anyway (which is why they consider running off to consulting or banking). Let's face it. If some biotech company were to raise its desirability as an employer to the level of Google, then it would attract not only bioE's and ChemE's, but also EE's, ME's, even Civil E's, heck, maybe even some PetroleumE's. Everybody wants a good job, and they're going to be attracted to whoever is offering a good job, even if it's outside their realm of expertise. </p>

<p>A central point that I am stressing is that an engineering degree is just a bachelor's degree. You're not choosing a career for the rest of your life. It's just a degree. Just because you have a chemical engineering degree does not mean you are obligated to work as a chemical engineer. All degrees are fungible to some extent - you can use them to go into other fields if you want. It's obviously easier to get into certain fields with certain degrees but there is no hard and fast rule. I know software companies that hire humanities majors that happen to have computer programming skills. Heck, those same software companies hire some people who have no degree at all, but who have computer skills. And like I said, after you've worked for a couple of years, nobody is going to care about what sort of degree you have anyway. I know a girl who's worked as a wafer-fab engineer at Intel for years, but doesn't have an engineering degree (instead, she has a BS/MS in chemistry). Nobody cares that she doesn't have an engineering degree because she's proved that she's a competent engineer on the job. In fact, her "engineering" career has been so stellar that Intel is sponsoring her to go to MIT LFM (the dual MBA+MS program) while paying her salary + stipend while she's there. </p>

<p>However, the larger point is that if companies want to prevent the top engineering students from thinking of other careers, then they have to improve the offerings of their engineering jobs. If they don't, then many top engineering students will inevitably run off to consulting/banking or law/med school. I see that this even holds true for the guys who graduate with PhD's in engineering. You would think that somebody who gets a PhD in engineering truly loves engineering. Yet even some of them get enticed to go to fields like consulting. Heck, right now, I see that one of McKinsey's 'featured' consultants is a guy who joined McKinsey right after completing his PhD in EE at Stanford. </p>

<p><a href="http://apd.mckinsey.com/jump/consultant.asp?pid=1%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://apd.mckinsey.com/jump/consultant.asp?pid=1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>On the one hand, I'm happy that these people have these other career opportunities that clearly fit them better. On the other hand, it saddens me to notice that companies and academia can't or won't offer strong enough opportunities to stay in the industry and prevent the braindrain out of engineering and to fields like consulting/banking.</p>

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<p>Only bad thing about going for a CE degree is these guys grade like they're in the 1950's A B is often considered a top graded, and you can forget about getting out wit a 3.6 -3.8 index. Makes getting into a good Med school tough</p>