Graduate Engineering Without Engineering Degree

<p>I need some advice... </p>

<p>I would like to apply to udel and upenn for graduate chemical engineering with a concentration in pharmaceuticals, but i do not have the undergraduate degree. I have a pharmacology and toxicology undergrad degree instead, with a 3.97 gpa, research experience (but no publications), TA experience, and work experience as well. i have not yet taken the gre's. </p>

<p>right now, pharmacology grad programs are my main interest, but i wanted to know from any established people in chemE, is it feasible for me to apply? their websites say that they accept science majors with conditional admission. i also spoke to admissions at udel and they were fairly encouraging, but i still have my doubts as to whether or not i should bother applying. </p>

<p>can anyone also let me know: with my science background, much of the material was conceptual and not technical as in engineering. i personally love math, but is engineering harder and much different from science? is it more time-consuming? I only have Calc I and II...is this a major disadvantage? in short, am i in way over my head trying to start engineering now? </p>

<p>i would appreciate any comments. be brutally honest if you must, because i would rather not waste the application money. thanks to all</p>

<p>Higher level engineering classes tend to turn more into rigorous math and science explanations rather than the approximations that are so nice in lower-level engineering.</p>

<p>I imagine the "conditional" acceptance they talk about would be requiring you to take a bunch of extra classes that the rest of the ChemEs wouldn't. Mathwise I'm sure you'll need to take at least Calc 3 and DiffEq, and possibly one in PDEs (depending on the school). You might need to take a few other lower-level classes depending on what your background is like, too.</p>

<p>hey thanks...i don't think i would have to take beyond calc III, b/c the undergrad curriculum at my school of interest (Udel) does not go beyond this level of math. </p>

<p>how would you compare science to engineering? i like both science and mathematics, but I have heard that engineering hw and studying is more intense than even a biomedical science. would you agree?</p>

<p>Science tends to deal a lot more with "idea" systems than engineering does. Like, if you're doing physics, you're usually talking about point particles that are massless and blah blah blah. In engineering, you've usually got weird shaped things with non-ideal behavior and you need to figure out how to approximate that as more ideal systems. The mathematics can be difficult in both, you really use a lot of the same methods in one as the other.</p>

<p>I think my engineering homeworks tend to be a lot more figuring out concepts and what in general will happen instead of rigorously proving a certain property about a system or something like that. I know for me, the engineeering type is easier, but I have a few friends that have a really hard time that way and find the more mathematical method that science (physics) tends to use a lot more intuitive.</p>

<p>You'll DEFINITELY need to take linear algebra and diff eq, in addition to calc III. I spent a year at UD (that's the proper nickname, not UDEL) and that's how far the curriculum goes up until, as do ALL engineering programs. It's imperative for engineering courses, especially graduate ones, that you take these.</p>

<p>With that said, I think you'll still have a good shot at UD. It's pretty easy to get in and the program is decent. You probably will not get into UPenn considering that you're so far behind in required courses.</p>

<p>Like others have said, you need to broaden your toolkit, so take the math. Maybe Thermo and heat transfer also.</p>

<p>thanks dontno...but if you look at UD's and UPenn's curriculum for undergrads on their websites, it only goes up to analytical geometry/calc c and calculus part IV, respectively. are those other math courses you speak of "technical electives?"</p>

<p>also, to both dontno and dr. horse, how do you feel personally about chemical engineering in comparison to science? my major, pharmacology/toxicology, is more conceptual rather than mathematical. do you think the transition would be difficult? </p>

<p>thanks</p>

<p>p.s. i thought ud was a top chemE program...it's easy to get in?</p>

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With that said, I think you'll still have a good shot at UD. It's pretty easy to get in and the program is decent. You probably will not get into UPenn considering that you're so far behind in required courses.

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p.s. i thought ud was a top chemE program...it's easy to get in?

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<p>I too am quite taken aback at the notion that UPenn would be harder to get into than UDel for grad chemical engineering. If anything, the reverse would be true, as chemical engineering is one of UDel's top programs.</p>

<p>I'm not going to go and look at the curriculum, but I am certain that every single engineering student in the country must take linear algebra and diff eq. These are both necessary for further work in engineering. For example, using matrices (learned in linear algebra) is imperative for computer modeling. Also, knowing diff eq. is imperative for control volume analysis, which is used in flow problems in chemE. </p>

<p>Onto the comparison between UD and UPenn. It is true that chemE is easily UD's top program. Everyone at the college, including one of my ENGLISH profs, knows this. However, and this is often a contentious point amongst people on grad school forums, I believe that the difficulty of acceptance is dependent on the school as a whole, rather than the individual strength of the program. For example, Harvard doesn't have a great engineering program and probably ranks below UD in chemE (at least as far as prestige wise amongst chemE profs). Yet, I imagine that not only is their acceptance rate much lower (Harvard's is around 13% so I think that's a good assumption), but also the quality of applicants is higher for Harvard because of the prestige of Harvard as a whole. UD-UPenn is an analogous situation. Most people disagree with this, but I think that despite a specific department's strength, the people in that department tend to match the general population of a college.</p>

<p>I can't answer your question about chemE because I was a mechE. bUt I can tell you that higher engineering is almost entirely mathematical. All my upper level courses were taking complex systems and putting them in mathematical terms (such as a differential equation or a system of linear equations, etc...). Maybe I had a different experience, but academic engineering seems to be highly analytical.</p>

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I believe that the difficulty of acceptance is dependent on the school as a whole, rather than the individual strength of the program. For example, Harvard doesn't have a great engineering program and probably ranks below UD in chemE (at least as far as prestige wise amongst chemE profs). Yet, I imagine that not only is their acceptance rate much lower (Harvard's is around 13% so I think that's a good assumption), but also the quality of applicants is higher for Harvard because of the prestige of Harvard as a whole. UD-UPenn is an analogous situation. Most people disagree with this, but I think that despite a specific department's strength, the people in that department tend to match the general population of a college.

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<p>I'm afraid that I don't find it to be analogous, for the simple reason that UPenn isn't Harvard. I can agree with you that a lot of people will apply to Harvard for grad engineering just because of the Harvard brand name and hence Harvard will be able to attract a higher quality of student than one might expect given Harvard's engineering ranking. But UPenn? That's dubious. Let's face it. Most people don't even know that UPenn is part of the Ivy league. Heck, most people think UPenn is just another state school. </p>

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Yet, I imagine that not only is their acceptance rate much lower (Harvard's is around 13% so I think that's a good assumption)

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<p>Even if this logic is correct, the fact is that, according to USNews graduate edition, UDel admits 27.4% of applicants into its grad engineering program, whereas UPenn admits 35%. Hence, your point regarding differential admissions rates doesn't help your case, it actually hurts it, as UDel actually admits a lower percentage.</p>

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I'm not going to go and look at the curriculum, but I am certain that every single engineering student in the country must take linear algebra and diff eq. These are both necessary for further work in engineering. For example, using matrices (learned in linear algebra) is imperative for computer modeling. Also, knowing diff eq. is imperative for control volume analysis, which is used in flow problems in chemE.

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<p>Actually, as a materials engineer, I didn't have to take linear algebra. Neither, to my knowledge, did any of my ECE friends. I did learn about eigenvalues/vectors in my diff eq. course as well as my engineering ones, but I never had to take a class dedicated to its study.</p>

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Onto the comparison between UD and UPenn. It is true that chemE is easily UD's top program. Everyone at the college, including one of my ENGLISH profs, knows this. However, and this is often a contentious point amongst people on grad school forums, I believe that the difficulty of acceptance is dependent on the school as a whole, rather than the individual strength of the program. For example, Harvard doesn't have a great engineering program and probably ranks below UD in chemE (at least as far as prestige wise amongst chemE profs). Yet, I imagine that not only is their acceptance rate much lower (Harvard's is around 13% so I think that's a good assumption), but also the quality of applicants is higher for Harvard because of the prestige of Harvard as a whole. UD-UPenn is an analogous situation. Most people disagree with this, but I think that despite a specific department's strength, the people in that department tend to match the general population of a college.

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<p>I'm a Materials Science student at Caltech. There's no way in hell I'd ever get in here as Physics or Chemistry. Likewise, I have friends that are doing materials science here that were physics and chemistry in undergrad, and they knew they wouldn't get in to those programs, so they applied under MSE.</p>

<p>^Did your friends apply MSE just to study in Caltech?.. </p>

<p>Are they like what Sakky said in his previous posts.. get into top engineering schools like MIT/Caltech so to switch careers.. even tho they're not in the most selective program of their outstanding school</p>

<p>Some of the professors here will take students in multiple fields, so they applied through the one they were most likely to be admitted in.</p>

<p>As far as I know, none of them are planning to leave technical fields upon graduation. All of us either want to be professors or work in a research lab.</p>

<p>so then i might have a shot at upenn? </p>

<p>assuming i get accepted into both chemE programs (upenn and udel), is it wiser to opt for the penn brand name, even though udel consistently ranks in the top 10 for the field?</p>

<p>It's a lot more about the advisor you're working with and the research you do when you're talking among top-rated schools. I turned down a #2 ranked school as well as some others in the top 10 for one which isn't as high, though my advisor is considered one of the best in his field, so in the end I'm sure I made the right decision, even if I was just going off of "prestige."</p>