<p>Hey everyone,</p>
<p>Title says it all. I'm literally going crazy I'm so undecided about what to lock into as my major. I'm currently a freshman (2nd year in college, first year at a community college to catch up on math as I came from a less than good high school) at OSU with a declared major of chemical engineering. As I said above, I didn't go to a very good high school so when I got to college I really had no idea what I was good at. I just always knew that I loved solving complex problems, and was very good at math and science in a general term. I picked chemical engineering when I got to OSU cause I thought: "Yeah chemistry! Fun stuff! Labs, math, that will be perfect for me." In my second semester at OSU and I'm really struggling to get through these classes. Not at all because they're too hard, I got an A in my first gen chem class and will probably get an A in the gen chem II class I'm in now, but because I find chemistry really boring as a pure science. Right now I have a chem book cracked open in front of me trying to read about 3-D crystalline solids and I can't get through a paragraph without getting bored and looking at my wall for a few minutes. </p>
<p>I absolutely love science, but just reading page after page of text without any math or problem solving just feels so mundane to me. The first semester in gen chem one there was stoichiometry, basic thermodynamics, and other more interesting topics, but even then they felt watered down and a bit too easy. So here I am left wondering if I should continue perusing a degree in chem eng when I just don't really enjoy chemistry as a pure science that much. That may sound silly at first, but I guess I just keep wondering if I'll love the chemical engineering classes in comparison to the straight chemistry classes, and in the long run it will be worth it to power through these less than interesting parts of the degree. Also, what initially drove me towards a degree in chemical engineering was my interest in the applications of chemistry which find absolutely great like biomedical engineering, and biotechnology. Both of which I could peruse in graduate school and I'm sure I would absolutely love. </p>
<p>Since I never really applied myself in high school, I kind of feel like I'm taking physics for the first time and it's a little too early to say if I'm as good at it as I am at chemistry and calculus, but I got an A on my first exam so I'm assuming I'll do fine in it, so mechanical engineering would also be an option, as would electrical.</p>
<p>So thats my pickle. I'm still undecided and at the end of this semester I'll have to decide which major to lock into because I'll be taking the first engineering course. Are there any other chemical engineers that have had similar experiences, who trucked through the more boring parts and found the other parts great? Or is it just silly that I'm trying to stay in a science I don't find all that interesting.</p>
<p>Sorry for the book, and thanks in advance to everyone that took the time to read all that!</p>
<p>If the “pure” science bores you, you may like the applied sciences more, in terms of your engineering discipline. The good thing about engineering majors is that since a lot of the classes are intertwined you can change majors in the department fairly easily. Chemical engineering might be slight more different since it has more chemistry-based classes, as opposed to civil, industrial, mechanical, etc. which are are pretty related. </p>
<p>But of course the stuff you are doing in chem will stay in chemical engineering for the long haul so get used to what it is now. Not so much the abstract side of chemistry but how it is used in the engineering process. Since most engineer majors take the same classes freshman year see if you like the kind of stuff that mech/electric engineers take and see if you like that more.</p>
<p>If you are unsure about which engineering discipline, I’d go with Mechanical Engineering or Electrical Engineering since they can be applied to a broad range of areas including the automotive industry, biotechnology, medical devices, aerospace, etc.</p>
<p>Thanks for the responses.</p>
<p>Ctesiphon, I was thinking this myself. Chemical engineering pretty specific in comparison to mech or EE. even the thermodynamics class in the curriculum is specifically focused on thermochemistry so that’s why I’m so worried about locking into chem eng as a major.</p>
<p>j814wong, yeah I was thinking mechanical engineering would be a solid choice. my only uncertainty is there seems to be a whole lot of mech engineers, so I worry about finding a job, which in turn kinda seems like graduate school would be required.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t write off chemical engineering quite yet. The difference between the classes offered through the science departments and the engineering departments can be substantial. I just graduated from aero. If I had judged how much I liked aero from my experiences in physics, I would have jumped ship my first semester. </p>
<p>Also, at least in my experience, freshman classes can be excruciatingly boring. It wasn’t until my second year that I really started to get excited about my coursework, even the aero stuff. </p>
<p>You have time as well. Maybe try to take some classes in both ME and ChemE? If you decide to go ME, you can probably still count the ChemE classes towards tech electives or a minor (at the very least). And vice versa with ChemE. </p>
<p>Lastly, at least from what I’ve observed in industry, what type of engineering you study in school only roughly correlates to what you do for a career. For example, I worked in gas turbine combustion for a while. We had ME, ChemE, aero, IE, EE, pretty much every engineering major represented in our team, and we all did more or less the same thing. So what you choose in school does not lock you in to a specific job.</p>
<p>ME/EE I think does give you the most flexibility though. And graduate school is certainly not required. Your industry experience is what eventually specializes you. Yes, there’s a lot of MEs, but there’s also a lot of jobs that MEs can do.</p>