<p>okay im like really new here :p please help me guys. im from indonesia and im going to foothill college in less than 2 weeks. i really dont know which major should i take. in my highschool, i aced all awards for chemistry,so chem is really one of my strongest, if not the strongest, subject. so naturally, im thinking of taking chemical engineering as my major. but im also interested in petroleum engineering and nuclear engineering.</p>
<p>can anyone help me with the following questions,
1. which major out of the 3 is the hardest?
2. which major out of the 3 has the highest average salary,
3. and average starting salary?
4. which university should i go to for each major? (assuming i have a GPA of 4.0 or almost-4.0, joined lotsa clubs, active in school organizations and stuff like that.)</p>
<p>sorry if my questions seem stupid and irrelevant but im really confused. please help me :) thanks!</p>
<p>I’m not sure about Indonesia, but in the US petroleum generally has the highest starting salary and for that you should try to go to University of Texas, or Texas A&M University.</p>
<ol>
<li>Whichever subject you are least interested in will be the hardest. Although it is generally accepted that Nuc Eng/Chem Eng are the hardest.</li>
<li>If your only interested in money for becoming an engineer, you are doing it for all the wrong reasons.</li>
<li>Same thing as 2.</li>
<li>Colleges with PE are somewhat limited to those in Texas and Oklahoma. Nuclear Engineering is also limited too, usually at the higher end engineering schools – most have removed it from their curriculum. Chem Eng programs are mostly everywhere.</li>
</ol>
<p>Petroleum and Chemical have a lot on common, but petroleum has much smaller class sizes. Some say it’s the most noticeable difference at times. Stanford and Colorado are the next best places for PE, so I wouldn’t say it’s limited to Texas, but the best jobs are in Texas, so you might as well go to the top programs (U Texas & Texas A&M) if you can.</p>
<p>Nuclear undergrad is definitely harder to find and they only rank grad programs now. These are the top 5 nuclear engineering grad schools:
Univ. Mich. - Ann Arbor
MIT
Univ. of Wisc. - Madison
Texas A&M
Penn State</p>
<p>If you just go somewhere with strong chem and petrol programs you can probably change your major pretty easily if you decide you like the other better and after that you can make the decision to do a nuclear grad program if you’re still interested.</p>
<p>thanks for the answers guys really appreciate it. i think i’ll take chemE since i personally think it’s the most diverse and general out of the 3, it’s not focused on one thing like petroleum or nuclear. and eventhough it might not be the easiest and highest paid engineering, but majman is right, money’s not everything. anyway, i really hope i’ll get great grades so that i can get into the top notch univs such as MIT, stanford, caltech, ucb, texas a&m, etc. although i think MIT, standford and caltech are pretty much impossible -_-</p>
<p>but then again, i just remembered that MIT and Stanford (and other universities in their calibre) dont accept transfers from CCs (my targets are too high, i know. MIT, stanford, what was i thinking? ^^)</p>
<p>If you have completed two or more terms at an accredited college, university, technical institute, military academy or community college, you may apply for transfer admission to MIT.</p>
<p>A number of prestigious private institutions encourage transfers. Richard H. Shaw, dean of admissions at Stanford, calls community college transfer applicants mature and interesting candidates. Every year Stanford has 1,400 to 1,600 applicants for about 70 openings in the junior class. This year 26 percent of those accepted came from community colleges, he says.</p>
<p>oh from what i heard, MIT just dont accept transfer students from CCs, nevertheless what’s written on the transfer admissions site. it’s just too competitive. Stanford, well, i heard that they accept very few students from CC every year or so. so what i said bout stanford’s not entirely true but i think i do in the case of MIT. hmm but im not sure so idk :p</p>
<p>Ummm I think MIT accepts like 16 transfers an year. I THINK so. Oh and Nuclear Engineering is a very, very competitive program to get into. Only 20 or so schools have such courses, and even fewer have Nuclear Engineering Majors. Look at “Nuclear Engineering” in Wikipedia. University of Wisconsin - Madison is great for it too, so is University of Michigan - Ann Arbor.</p>
really appreciate it. i think i’ll take chemE since i personally think it’s the most diverse and general out of the 3, it’s not focused on one thing like petroleum or nuclear. and eventhough it might not be the easiest and highest paid engineering, but majman is right, money’s not everything. anyway, i really hope i’ll get great grades so that i can get into the top notch univs such as MIT, stanford, caltech, ucb, texas a&m, etc. although i think MIT, standford and caltech are pretty much impossible -_-</p>
(my targets are too high, i know. MIT, stanford, what was i thinking? ^^)</p>