Help Picking Major According to Interests

College Majors Science Majors
1

<p>The following is critical and might seem confusing, so please put up with its format and thank you for your help!
I am in high school and the following are my interests:
I want to do research in the area of science.
To be specific, I want to research the following: (In order of importance to me)
1)A new form of energy for society
2)Ways to improve the human body's immune system through medicine or any other ways
3)Ways to provide stronger and longer-lasting energy to humans
4)Ways to improve the human brain, mostly the brains of those considered to be below the average in intelligence level of everyone else</p>

<p>So, basically, what I am asking is what I should...
1) Major in (Bachelor's Degree)
2) Minor in
3) Get a Master's Degree in
4) Get a PhD in
.... and, most importantly, my degrees will have an emphasis on the research of a new form of energy, but will still allow me to do minimal, or on the side, research regarding 2), 3), and 4).</p>

2

<p>I’m in the same boat as you. I also wish to help research a new type of energy. So the path I am taking is Chemical Engineering. As a chemical engineer, you will be able to do research, but let’s say you went through a chemistry program, you wouldn’t be able to be a engineer unless you go to grad school for Engineering. A chemist does research at the molecular level. A ChemE does research for a global scale. If you’re interested in humans as well, may I suggest Biomedical Engineering? You’d help create new forms of artificial limbs, help grow new tissue, etc.</p>

3

<p>Thank you, I’ve been thinking ChemE and this has made it a 99% chance for it to be my Bachelors major! About BioMed, I’d like to do it, but i think it would drag to far away from Energy, so maybe as a minor?</p>

4

<p>Scientificmind is wrong again. My PhD is in chemistry, and my first job out of grad school was in engineering. I took two graduate level courses in civil engineering while I was a chemistry grad student, along with graduate level courses in geology and microbiology. My defense committee consisted of professors in chemistry, biochemistry, marine science, and engineering. Once you put the textbook away, there are no walls between disciplines in science. In the real world, science is multidisciplinary.</p>

<p>The best path is to not worry so much about which major is “best,” and just follow your interest. If there’s a professor whose research interests you, it doesn’t matter what department he’s in. You’ll see work in solar power going on in chemistry, chemical engineering, material science, and even biology. You’ll see alternative energy research being done in chemistry, physics, geology, biology, and a half-dozen flavors of engineering. In the real world, saying “I did research in electrically conducting polymers in Dr. Smith’s lab at XYZ University,” will open the doors you want open a lot faster than saying “I have a degree in chemical engineering – not in chemistry – from XYZ University.” Industry cares less about what’s written on the paper and more about what you bring to the job.</p>

5

<p>Actually your title may have been “Engineer”, but does it mean that you were actually an engineer? No, it doesn’t. There are disciplines within engineering where an engineering degree is actually required. In fact, the majority of engineering jobs I see specifically require a degree in engineering. If you’re hiring at a nuclear plant, and you need operators or designer’s, are you going to hire a physicist or the person who has his degree in NukeE, who actually has the training and knowledge of how to operate the reactor. You’re probably going to hire the NukeE, and maybe the physicist for theoretical research.</p>

6

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<p>Silliness abounds. Do you honestly think you know my job better than I do and better better than the engineering firm that hired me?</p>

<p>I admire your enthusiasm for wanting to help people here, but all too often you just don’t know what you’re talking about. The forum is called Science Careers; IIRC you’re still in high school, but you’re arguing against someone who actually has a career in science, even to the point of telling me you know my job better than I do. If you think this will make your other posts more credible, you’re mistaken.</p>

7

<p>spdf did the first job you got require Ph.D? In that case the job’s prob research-related and it doesn’t matter if it was in chem or chemE since the two disciplines become similar at higher level like you just said. I think Scientificmind was talking about employment at BS level and jobs such as research assistant.</p>

8

<p>Actually I’m not in high school. I’m 26 going for a change in career. It’s actually also a question of economics. A potential employer is almost always going to hire the one with a B.S. in Engineering over the Ph.D in a hard science not only because the one with an Engineering degree will know about building reactors and how to transport the chemicals, but he is also cheaper labor. A company will hire the best person for the job at the lowest price without low balling too much, and that is the engineer. A Ph.D will demand too much money just because they have a Ph.D and automatically think they should be paid more.</p>

9

<p>Also, you need an ABET cert. degree in order to even sit down for the PE exam. Good luck doing that with just a hard science degree.</p>

10

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<p>…It is hilarious when clueless people try to portray themselves as knowledgeable but yet fail so hard. </p>

<p>Since you seem to be an expert on the field, tell me, in what ways does the work of a nuclear physicist differ than a nuclear engineer? Let me guess, you think nuclear physicists only do research and while nuclear engineers are only involved in design and application?</p>

11

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You know nothing of engineering, little of what a scientist does, and yet here you are babbling as if you have 40 years of industry and academia under your belt. Please, first pass a differential equations class before talking about such things.</p>

<p>If you actually knew anything about the engineering industry, you would know that most scientists would be happy working for the salary of an engineer. The only problem with employers is those employers willing to hire engineers are either told they need an engineer to do a specific job or they hire them to develop products, the latter of which most scientists are not interested in. As for those that hire engineers but aren’t exactly aware of just exactly what they do, they are just as clueless to the fact that a scientist could do the job just as well and for even a lower pay than the engineer at times.</p>

12

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A PE is only required for civil engineering and some mechanical engineering jobs (HVAC systems). Most engineers with engineering degrees do not take the PE nor do they need it, especially chemical engineers.</p>

13

<p>Scientificmind, you’re really not helping your cause. When I was hired, my employer was looking for a PhD chemist, not either a PhD chemist or a B.S. chemical engineer, whichever is cheaper. No company hires like that. Anyone with a high school diploma (if even that) can transport chemicals, and most engineers do not build reactors. The more you talk about these things, the more you reveal how little you know.</p>

<p>Thanks for the refreshing breeze of sanity, Glasss. :)</p>

<p>Yes the job required a PhD, but no it wasn’t research. I’d guess the majority of jobs in industry that require a PhD in science are not research positions.</p>

14

<p>I really wasn’t expecting to open this thread and find myself with some sort of debate. But, nevertheless, I was interested by it. hahaha :)</p>

15

<p>OP, if your primary interest is energy research, you can do this from the perspective of a number of basic and applied disciplines, as another poster noted. (If I correctly understand your list of interests, I would lump #1 and #3 together.) Some possible undergraduate majors for your interest in new forms of energy: Physics, chemistry, plant sciences, biological/agricultural engineering, nanotechnology, optical science/engineering, and earth sciences. If you are interested in improving existing energy technologies, you can add nuclear engineering, materials science, electrical engineering, chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, and probably some others. There also are an increasing number of interdisciplinary programs in energy engineering. At the graduate level, you also can add programs in applied physics. It’s probably premature to try to lay out your whole progression from bachelor’s to master’s to doctoral degree. Your interests or focus likely will change in several ways before you complete your education, and as long as you have a solid grounding in core math and science disciplines, you usually can enter disciplines that you did not necessarily study at a lower level. In fact, as another poster also noted, innovations often come about at the intersection of disciplines.</p>

<p>For your interest in the immune system, several majors could provide appropriate preparation at the undergraduate level. These would include general biology, and the various subspecialty bioscience concentrations, such as molecular biology, cell & developmental biology, biochemistry, genetics, microbiology, and chemistry. These disciplines would be appropriate at the graduate level, too, but add other specialties not typically available at the undergraduate level, including immunology, and pharmacology. You can pursue a research pathway or a clinical pathway. For the latter, you might want to consider an MD degree or a joint MD/PhD program.</p>

<p>For your particular interest in the brain, appropriate undergraduate majors include biology, psychology, or neuroscience (also available as a subspecialty track within many biology and psychology depts.). The same fields would be appropriate at the graduate level. You can pursue a research pathway or a clinical pathway. For the latter, you might want to consider an MD degree or a joint MD/PhD program. As a researcher or clinician, you can pursue subspecialty training in developmental disabilities.</p>

<p>Energy, immunology, and brain science are quite separate disciplines, and, I believe, you’ll probably have to choose one of these to focus your interests. You might be able to put this off until you decide on a specific graduate pathway, but ultimately, it will be difficult to do research “on the side” in the fields not chosen as your primary interest.</p>

<p>As for minors, you can choose any of the fields mentioned under each of your interests. For your energy interest, you also could consider an area like environmental economics & policy since understanding the impact of those factors is as important as understanding the science and technology in terms of adoption of new technologies. In that respect, you also could consider a business degree (e.g., an MBA), focused on a relevant area such as entrepreneurship or technology management.</p>

16

<p>In general, scientists don’t get hired into engineer positions especially now. In the past sure when it was a applicants market and companies were desperate for skilled workers they were willing to relax their standards and hire people who were a partial fit rather than an absolute 100% perfect fit for their job requirements. I’ve have heard of chemists in the past working as engineers though even then it was pretty uncommon.</p>

<p>In general companies will hire ChemE’s to do a chemist’s job (though the pay is so much lower that most ChemE’s don’t want to) but not vice versa. Chemists work in a lab at doing QC or R&D at the bench scale and ChemE’s work on scaling up the processes to a mass production scale. They also work on process design and optimization. A typical chemist does not have the classes in design and heat transfer to do a ChemE’s job but ChemE’s typically have more than enough chem classes to operate in a lab. </p>

<p>I’d definitely recommend engineering over science and you have much better job potential and options.</p>

<p>Also, most engineers can have a fine career with just a BS where as most Chemists require a PhD and post-doc to have an acceptable career.</p>