<p>Hi there. Kudos to you for asking about this very important question. </p>
<p>I have a BS degree in Chemical Engineering and 15 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry.</p>
<p>Knowing what I know now, if I was in your shoes, I would storngly suggest acquiring the second major in Chemistry. You, of course need to look into your overall costs. If you’re paying $40,000/yr at a private school vs $15,000/ yr at a state school, you will need to take that into consideration. The second degree will likely be an extra 1-2 semesters.</p>
<p>Why a second major in chemistry?
- Knowledge base. In laboratory/research work, there is a high degree of overlapping skills. In the process development area of a pharmaceutical industry, as well as other industries, you need to be competent at doing lab work, even as a chemical engineer. In one major pharma company I worked, each engineer had their own HPLC and was expected to use it on a regular basis. Moreover, process analytical technologies are critical to every field and they are essentially a marriage between chemical engineering, chemistry, and electrical engineering. The extra classes in analytical chemistry, inorganic chemistry, biochemistry, advanced organic chemistry will all be big resume builders for your experience in the lab.</p>
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<li><p>The same line of thinking applies for your knowledge base and your ability to be conversant with PhD chemists. Like it or not, PhD chemists will be the designers of the main chemical process that chemical engineers need to scale up. Your abilit to talk in their terms, to an organic chemist, biochemist, or any other specialty will servd you tremendously well.</p></li>
<li><p>There are tons of chemist technician/technology jobs that although don’t pay as well as che jobs, pay a lot better than walmart. In this economy, camping out in a job at $20-25/ hr is a nice backup plan if you don’t secure a che job or in future times of transition.</p></li>
<li><p>If you ever want to have the option to teach high school or community college, a bachelor’s in chemistry provides that background. You can get a masters in education and teach chemistry very quickly in high school. These are in demand jobs that are easily accessible with a chem major. With a che degree, you would essentially have to complete extra chem classes to do this teaching, which would essentially add to a second bachelor’s anyway, but with a lot more pain than getting it straight out.</p></li>
<li><p>You will have options for what future graduate path you take. Regarding materials science, your inorganic chem classes and physical chem classes provide a strong foundation for materials science classes to bridge into that later.</p></li>
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<p>Two semesters sounds like a long time, but if you talk to your adviser more, I think you’ll discover there will be many more options available to you in your professional and academic career!</p>
<p>If I had the opportunity to my bachelor’s over again, I would definitely have gotten a second bachelor’s. Chemistry, as you mentioned, is relatively low hanging fruit, since it’s only another 4-8 classes. It is also a great pairing to have a professional degree with a traditional science degree.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>