Do employers look at research experience? I am a chemical engineer right now.

<p>I am currently chemical engineering major and I am wondering if I should do research with a professor in the chemical engineering department. I don't have any work experience. Is this a good way to get work experience? Do employers, not grad schools, care if you did research or would they rather you do industry work. I am unsure if I should do research because I am not sure if employers will look at that favorably and if I would be better off getting an industry internship, but I don't know if I would be qualified for that without experience. Also does the type of research matter because what if I don't want to be in that field anymore in the future. Any advice? Thanks.</p>

<p>1) Chemical Engineering is a versatile, difficult but very high caliber engineering degree. It basically says, “I can be a bioengineer, a mechanical engineer, process engineer or a chemist”. Your major will always have a strong foot in the door with a lot of firms.</p>

<p>2) Grades will always take precedence over a lot of other things. Do you have a 3.0 or higher? If not, you should probably focus on high grades instead of experience. It’s true experience can carry you a long way but it will NEVER be more important than your GPA. Especially for graduate school. </p>

<p>3) Definitely try to get experience related to what you’d do for a job. Sadly, there’s not a lot of ground breaking chemical engineering research at UCSD. But there’s a lot of nanoengineering, bioengineering and some mechanical engineering as well. A part time job as an engineering intern would benefit you more. </p>

<p>4) Your technical electives are more important. Don’t take easy ones for grades. Take very useful ones to your major.</p>

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<p>This seems to suggest that a good GPA can outshine lack of research experience for graduate school. This is NOT true. A stellar letter of rec from your PI and loads of research experience can more than offset a mediocre GPA (talking low-to-mid 3s). Obviously if you got a 1.5 nobody’s going to look at your application. But grad schools are evaluating your potential as a researcher, not as a memorization monkey.</p>

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<p>I lol’d .</p>

<p>haha, are you kidding me? i used to employ engineers. i didn’t hire them directly but it was strongly based on my recommendation. GPA matters for people with less then 4 years experience. i would rather hire someone that graduated with a 2.5 GPA from CSU hayward with 2 years experience than some kid who graduated from Cal with a 4.0 GPA and no experience. this is not a hypothetical scenario. the the hayward kid got a $250k 1-year contract and the Cal kid was offered an unpaid internship (both electrical engineers). i say “offered” because my department didn’t use interns so he was referred somewhere else and i don’t even know if he even ended up getting a job.</p>

<p>as far as research goes, i don’t see many entry levels list research on their resumes. in the grand scheme of things, the level of accomplishment and significance of research that an undergrad does is pretty mediocre and doesn’t count for much.</p>

<p>then again, my experience is just with mech, aero, electrical, structural, and material engineers. chemical is kind of another thing entirely. i guess i can see research being a little more significant in that field but still not a great deal. the only place (in california at least) where i have seen any notable undergrad research is cal tech. mostly because it seems like undergrads have a pretty good chance of doing research with a masters or even phd student</p>

<p>ps, heres a secret no one is telling you. you dont NEED a degree to be an engineer. get an engineering JOB. paid or unpaid. whatever you can get. build experience while in school.</p>