How popular is ChemE?

College Majors Engineering Majors
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I received my alumni newsletter and the engineering faculty mentioned that electrical engineering department now gets more than one-half of all applications to the faculty. The reason there are so few chemical engineers is that growth is rather limited in that field. They are no longer building chemical plants and many are being shut down or major projects are being scaled-down. Here in Canada, they recently announced more plant closures.</p>

<p>I think honestly, you are better off taking mechanical

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<p>Here's what the BLS has to say about job growth in ChemE, ME, EE, and GeotechnicalE:</p>

<p>*Chemical engineers are expected to have employment growth of 8 percent over the projections decade, about as fast as the average for all occupations</p>

<p>Electrical engineers are expected to have employment growth of 6 percent over the projections decade, slower than the average for all occupations.</p>

<p>Mechanical engineers are projected to have 4 percent employment growth over the projections decade, slower than the average for all occupations. *</p>

<p>[url=<a href="http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm#outlook%5DEngineers%5B/url"&gt;http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm#outlook]Engineers[/url&lt;/a&gt;]&lt;/p>

<p>Hence, if anything, ChemE will actually provide better job growth than will EE or ME, at least in the US, and presumably in Canada also, as I don't see any reason to believe that the engineering industry in Canada is much different than it is in the US.</p>

<p>I will agree that Civil Engineering will grow fairly quickly, so if you were to leave ChemE for CivE, I couldn't fault you. But it should be noted that CivE's tend to be among the lowest paid of all engineers. </p>

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I think ChemE is very limiting option.

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<p>Like I've always said, you have to be willing to move to where the jobs are. ChemE jobs tend to be where oil is, and there are relatively few ChemE jobs in Toronto because there is no oil there. On the other hand, if you were in the Gulf Coast (if in the US), or in Alberta (if in Canada), then you'd be in ChemE heaven.</p>

<p>Now, if you're not willing to move to where the jobs are, then I don't know what to tell you. That's like saying that you want to be an actor, but not being willing to move to Hollywood. That's not how it works. You have to be willing to move to where the jobs are, and if aren't willing to do that, then you shouldn't blame the industry.</p>

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<p>^^^You can move to New York. LOL</p>

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but they are the least in number of all the engineers. I don't know why though...

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<p>Some of the 'specialized' disciplines such as PetE and MiningE are smaller. They're so small that many schools don't even offer these majors. </p>

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At MIT it was wildly popular. Between ChemE and BiochemE (which were both under the ChemE department), last year they were 5.8% of the undergrads. Not the engineering undergrads. The undergrads. It was the third most popular department for undergrads (total, not just in engineering), after EECS and MechE.

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<p>This may have been true in past years, but in terms of bachelor's degrees conferred at MIT these days, #3 is now mathematics (including course 18C: "mathematics with computer science"), #4 is biology (including course 7A: "biology undesignated"), and #5 is Sloan management. </p>

<p>Number</a> of Degrees Awarded, 2002-2003</p>

<p>To be fair, surely some of these people are completing double degrees. Nevertheless, the point is that there are quite a few other majors at MIT that confer more bachelor's degrees than does ChemE.</p>

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<p>I am Chem major and everyone and I love the 'oohh' response I get when I tell people that. Even other engineering students I meet say you must be really smart. It seems that chemical engineering is generally accepted as one of the harder engineering majors. This probably plays a factor in why it isn't as popular. Another poster made a great point about how mechanical, civil, and even EE seem more hands on, tangible, or cooler to those deciding to major in engineering. </p>

<p>As far as jobs, I know a couple recent grads who say they would choose chemical if they could do it over. My soon to be brother in law makes great great money as a civil but he said the chemicals make even more than him. And chemical isn't as limited as you would expect. We can easily get into R&D, a chemistry major is only a few classes away for most programs. I would argue that only mechanical engineers have more vast opportunities than us.</p>