DS was invited to join…he’s in ChemE (Freshman, but Junior in standing) and I believe this is a ChemE Honor Society (but we know nothing about it) is this one of the “worthwhile” Honors Societies to join?
I’m not familiar with that one.
My ChemE son did join Tau Beta Pi, the engineering honor society which is nationally recognized. He even won a scholarship from them his junior or senior year.
Can our students join both Omega Chi Epsilon and Tau Beta Pi? Would it make sense to do so?
It looks to me that Omega Chi Epsilon is specific to ChemE majors. While Tau Beta Pi looks to be all disciplines.
There is a virtual ton of scholarships for ChemE folk, like, serious dough to vie for. I know this because I used to scour scholarship websites. 
If you plan on applying for these, it is very wise to be a member of your engineering branch’s main/top honor society and any other industry groups (AIChE comes to mind) applicable to your major. You can often join these industry groups for free, as a student, or at greatly reduced rates. It is free to join AIChE as a student: http://www.aiche.org/community/students .
It is also an honor to be nominated for these honor societies early on in one’s university career, so be sure to mention that (i.e., year that you were inducted) on your resume/applications.
Thanks everyone for the input.
@aeromom interesting…how did you find those ChemE awards?
Omega Chi Epsilon is one of the more worthwhile honor societies to join. Not only is it an honor, but it is an active society. OXE holds tutoring for students in CHE254 and Thermo (which your son can help with once he has completed those) and has development opportunities like company visits and speakers.
In answer to another question, yes students can join both OXE and Tau Beta Pi. I believe the requirements for TBP are more stringent. I think OXE just requires some minimum GPA and to be a rising senior in ChemE. TBP requires that you be among some top percentage of juniors or seniors in the college of engineering (and you must be an upperclassman based on graduation year, not just by hours). So Tau Beta Pi is more prestigious, but the UA chapter is not very active. There are very few TBP activities throughout the year.
Sorry for the delay in responding to your question @mom2collegekids .
RE scholarships: Any good online scholarship search engine will do to start. The more detailed your student can be with their initial profile, the better the search will result. Three good ones are Cappex and Fastweb and Niche. (My son used Cappex and Fastweb. I’m going through this process now with my daughter, and I must say she has found some very interesting, tailored, highly relevant scholarships through Niche. She is non-STEM, so probably one search engine is better than another, based on one’s profile/major?)
The majority of the larger industry groups have some sort of award, scholarship, co-op, and/or student development program. Also try honor societies, individual companies, not-for-profits, specific societies (like Women in Engineering is not just for women!). Try engineering education groups (ASEE comes to mind and AL has some eng’g education groups as well). Try professional engineering societies. The National Society of Professional Engineers has a free student membership, and they also offer scholarships across multiple engineering disciplines. Each professional engineering group (and often their state and/or local chapters) has scholarships.
Each branch of engineering, has a large umbrella industry group, and then several smaller sub-industry groups. I’ll give you an example: in Aero, the overall umbrella groups are probably considered to be AIAA and NASA, and in ChemE, it is probably AIChE. Then, there are smaller groups, depending on one’s concentration within that industry. So, for Aero, if you were interested in air traffic control, you would join ATCA; if you were interested in vertical flight, you would join AHS; if you were interested in experimental aircraft you would join EAA; if you were interested in business aviation you would join NBAA; and so forth. Another huge space area is the Alabama Space Grant Consortium.
In ChemE, you might be interested in petroleum engineering, or process engineering, or composite materials, or food processing, or waste management, or cosmetics/esters, or plastics/polymers, or biomedical, or … you get the picture. Pick some area/company that you are interested in studying and interested in eventually getting a job in. Each of those will probably have a scholarship.
So, once you find one scholarship, it will probably lead to others in terms of names of industry organizations and companies that you can try. If you tunnel in far enough to various avenues of scholarships, you will see just how much opportunity there is out there. ChemE is such a broad field, that there are literally 100s of scholarship opportunities.
And here’s the cool thing: students often believe most scholarships are usually for graduating high school seniors, and therefore many students give up looking for money once they enter college. But don’t stop there! In each higher grade in school, there are fewer and fewer applicants from that grade, so your chances are improving as you move through university, not diminishing. Most industry groups and companies actually want to give money to deserving students who have a documented interest in that specific industry and/or company. They don’t want generalists: they want those kids who have figured out their concentration, their true passions, and who have clear career goals. You can only get the experience necessary to apply for these (and compete for these) after a couple of years of school, so keep applying! (There are myriad graduate scholarships, too, with even fewer students applying for those.)
Here’s the other cool thing about UA, in my opinion: our students get so much opportunity there in the college of engineering than at the larger, ‘name’ schools, so those students who seize those opportunities have more things to put on resumes and applications, at an earlier date, than perhaps other students around the nation. I don’t have data on that, but our UA students are competitive with these larger schools, based on the number of national awards UA students are getting in the Goldwater, Hollings, etc. (UA has a number of special awards through its HC: http://honors.ua.edu/current-students/honorsscholarships/ , far right column has these ‘special’ scholarships listed).
Try to find those scholarships where you have a high probability of being selected, obviously. You can often see how many awards are given out, and the number of applications they receive, on each scholarship website, by viewing the list of past recipients. Figure out for yourself if the odds are commensurate with the effort you want to put in. Even if you consider yourself in the top 5% of your peers, then vying for 1 of 5 awards from 3500 applicants is vastly different than if there are only 50 applicants. Many of the highly specific, tailored scholarships will have very few applicants. Spend your time on these, would be my advice. If you (parents) have the time to help your students, you can do the digging and present them with a short-list, so to speak, of the best opportunities to apply for. Then they do all the easy work of writing the essays, filling out the applications, getting letters of recommendation, etc. I say ‘easy’ because your kids in their later years of university have a lot better idea of what to write about than when they were only 17 yrs old. Those deserving of scholarships will be able to articulate what it is that makes them so passionate about their field of study and where they want to go in life.
As stated, OXE is a useful honor society to join for ChemE. Best of luck, students, with your scholarship applications!