I just feel the need to mention that chemical engineering isn’t the same as chemistry. Has your child looked at career possibilities and thought about what area of chemical engineering they might want to get into? Chemical engineering is actually less chemistry and more physics and math. I just want to make sure that your child has a good idea of what each degree would lead too. There are some really cool engineering jobs out there and there are some that might not be so exciting. It’s not all about money either. Job satisfaction can go a long way.
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A ChemE degree is not required to work as a ChemE, and a CE degree is not required to work as a CE. Choosing one in college won’t pigeonhole a student forever.
It would probably be easier to work as a CE with a ChemE degree than the other way around. But the broadest engineering discipline is mechanical. A person can do anything with an ME degree, including ChemE and CE work. If a kid is confident that engineering is the right field, but not sure of the discipline, mechanical is worth consideration.
I’m not sure if this is still the case today, but ChemE was once thought to be the hardest undergrad major in the entire university, and CE the easiest of the engineering disciplines. This could be worth considering, depending on the type of student.
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Yes, great program. In Chicago they worked with very large, known firms but had fun and great experience.
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He understands that. What he wants to do – I think that is a big ask of an 18 year old. Since, >50% of freshmen change majors, many multiple times, I think it is going to take a bit of time before he settles on what he wants to do.
Perhaps! But I must say that those are fighting words! I have a neighbor that is a ChemE and another that is an industrial engineer. I know for a fact that the ChemE had to study a lot more than the IE. Lol.
I’m not sure there’s much transference between the two. Might want to consult @MaineLonghorn and/or @momofboiler1 before running with that assumption.
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I see very little similarity between the two.
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My D interned for a chemical company one summer and there was zero overlap between the chemical engineers and the chemists in terms of roles.
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Worse, I think he was discussing Civil vs ChemE. 
My bad but yes, even less overlap!
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I don’t think there is a lot of jumping around once in engineering. My daughter took general engineering for one semester (really just one class as the rest - calc, chem, and physics applied to all engineering majors) and then settled into her major. I believe my nephew switched immediately into ME and stayed there. There just isn’t time to be switching as each specialty has its own classes.
My other kid? Theater to Art History to history. She was definitely in your 50% who switch, but she never could have switching INTO engineering.
Yes, I did have quite a few friends who switched out of engineering, but I can’t think of anyone who switched to a different type of engineering (this was back in the day when it wouldn’t have been hard to switch).
Math and the natural sciences have the highest change rate - and then engineering at 32% - in 2018. See attachment.
Also and my son experienced this in one of two summer jobs where he said they wanted people who think like engineers - Data gathered by the Washington Post suggests that as many as 75% of those with science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) degrees don’t work in their respective fields.
Finally I’ve read different studies showing 40-60% but this note shows how many drop out. I hear so many stories of difficulty, etc. I’m impressed by anyone who can complete the degree.
“The attrition rate for engineering students is higher than for most majors. In fact, some studies have found that 50% of engineering majors change majors or drop out prior to graduation. The primary reason why students drop out of engineering programs is a lack of preparedness for the high level of rigor. It’s important to keep in mind that top engineering programs at schools like MIT and Caltech have the lowest freshman drop-out rates, in large part because their classes are comprised exclusively of students who took multiple high-level math courses in high school.”
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We met a person at Bama who started out in ChemE and wanted to do water resource management. But switched over to Civil and still going to do water management. I suppose some of the disciplines are close enough that this is possible. Also, there is room for trial and error for many kids that go into engineering as they often come in with a lot of credit. My son went in with I think 27 or so credit hours or some such? So, maybe they can pay around a bit with classes to see what they like beyond the usual stem weedout classes?
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It is situationally dependent on the program and such, but there is overlap between programs that you can get jobs in different industries even if you didn’t focus on it (ie mechanical engineers getting jobs as aerospace, aero’s getting jobs in EE, etc).
My son is in this situation now, with his first choice being EE, but he’s missing a class and everything kind of stems off of this, and he can get a semester behind with little room to catch up because of the way everything stacks, and narrowly focused electives. But he’s on track for his other potentials so if it doesn’t work out, he can do aero with a focus on electrical systems and focus on the robotics side of things like he wants to anyway.
Interesting that this thread got resurrected. I’m a chemical engineer that ended up working in water resources. I work with tons of CE’s all the time. ChemE’s are pretty equipped to do CE jobs, but not the other way around. ChemE is for sure a harder major. Employment prospects for both majors are really good where I live on the gulf coast/Houston.
My oldest is at Bama but he is computer science. My second child is looking at ChemE and prefers a better program so probably won’t end up at Bama.
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We struggled with this a bit ourselves as son was admitted to NCSU. Can you elaborate your thought process a little more. When you say better program, do you mean a more selective school, more research, more employment, or something else? He chose Bama for the generous $$ and because he felt he would do better as a named scholar with more opportunities than fight for scraps at NCSU along with direct entry to the major at Bama over another round of secondary admission related stress.
One thing that my son did pick up on during the fall job fair at Bama is that most of the 30 or so companies looking for ChemE were in the water, paper & pulp, traditional chemicals, food and a couple of petroleum/O&G. There were no biotech, pharma, renewable, green energy companies. To me, it is not a big deal but kids are more interested in emerging and leading edge areas it seems.
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Define ‘better’.
The OP’s son is already at Alabama so please keep the discussion focused on answering his question about employment outlook and program considerations for his student.
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