<p>My son is coming in as an undecided Engineering Major. He is torn between Civil versus Chemical (with eventual biomedical).</p>
<p>We’ve been on DegreeWorks but son is confused as to what his slate of classes should be? Any advice?</p>
<p>Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>is he coming in with any AP or dual enrollment credits?</p>
<p>Yes, depending on what credits he is coming in with, I would think the Freshman Engineering block of classes, Freshman comp, chemistry, math, and maybe a H/SB or honors course.</p>
<p>Hi! I personally like looking at the whole list of courses and not at DegreeWorks. So here are some pages to look at.</p>
<p>[Undergraduate</a> Majors: Civil Engineering - The University of Alabama](<a href=“Page Not Found | The University of Alabama”>Page Not Found | The University of Alabama)</p>
<p><a href=“Page Not Found | The University of Alabama”>Page Not Found | The University of Alabama;
<p>[Undergraduate</a> Majors: Chemical Engineering - The University of Alabama](<a href=“Page Not Found | The University of Alabama”>Page Not Found | The University of Alabama)</p>
<p><a href=“Page Not Found | The University of Alabama”>Page Not Found | The University of Alabama;
<p>Freshman year is very similar for all engineering tracks. The significant difference is a 1 credit class for the area you are intending to go into and if he has room in his schedule perhaps he’d want to take the one for both civil and chemical to help him decide.</p>
<p>Other than that he should take math - whatever level he needs to begin at Calc I, calc II, calc III…</p>
<p>Civil requires chem, physics, your choice of the 2nd semester of chem or physics, and one additional science elective, so he can take his choice of science.</p>
<p>He’ll need frehman comp if he doesn’t have credit.</p>
<p>He can take an honor’s seminar if he’s in honors and has room in his schedule.</p>
<p>And then he’ll take the new 3 credit freshman engineering course.</p>
<p>Although the engineering tracks start to diverge during sophomore year - with statics and dynamics and differential equations, they still maintain a lot of similarties.</p>
<p>It is really not until junior year that the tracks completely diverge from one another.</p>
<p>^ Huh, jrcsmom?! I find these two tracks very different, from the get-go. I.e., they diverge much earlier than Junior year! Civil takes CE/AEM classes and Chem takes Chem/Chem Eng’g classes. Starting in 1st semester of Fr year, if someone wants to do Chem Eng, they better pay close attention to the prereqs for classes required to continue in that track. The links that Cuttlefish put up are very helpful to see clearly these differences.</p>
<p>I guess it is a great idea to take both CE and Chem E 1-credit class to decide between the two, if you have the gumption to do so. You could probably only fit this in if you had AP credits for Chemistry and/or Physics, in order to have room in schedule to go down both tracks simultaneously. </p>
<p>These are completely different branches of eng’g. If you’re eventually going biomedical, then Chem Eng is the track to do, not Civil, IMO.</p>
<p>i would say mechanical or chemical … not civil.</p>
<p>Thanks so much everybody. He does already have some AP credits from junior year classes. He just took AP Physics and Calculus BC, so we’ll have to wait for those scores.</p>
<p>Thanks again for the links and info!</p>
<p>*i would say mechanical or chemical … not civil.
*</p>
<p>exactly. If there’s a grad school goal of biomedE, then mechE or ChemE for undergrad. CivilE wouldn’t likely be the right eng’g discipline.</p>
<p>What is his career goal? </p>
<p>I think he should choose one eng’g discipline that he thinks is best for him, and go with that sequence.</p>
<p>My son started out in Chemical Engineering then switched to Mechanical second semester. The intro to Chemical 1 hour class will actually fulfill the intro to Mechanical requirement, which was nice. I don’t know if that happens with all the Engineering classes, but if so, I wouldn’t take both intros since the University seems to find them interchangeable.</p>
<p>^^
That’s good to know. If undecided, then try that.</p>
<p>Does it work the other way around? Will the intro to MechE count for the intro to ChemE?</p>
<p>We had this conversation with Engineering Students and Advisors last summer during Bama Bound… The message was clearly that the 1 Hour Intro classes are intended just to give an overview of the branch of Engineering, mainly as a way for the student to get an early idea of whether he/she liked that area. If not, no big deal, take another direction. I would also suggest setting up an appt and talking to a Professor in Mechanical and one in Chemical. S did the tour of several subject areas in this way and found that Professors are always will to take the time to convince good students that their subject area is the way to go.</p>