Only one semester chemistry for mech eng major

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>Son's college only requires one semester of chemistry for the mechanical engineering major. Students can choose another science elective from a list of approved courses. Most students take the second semester of chemistry, giving them a full year of chemistry.
Others have had enough of chemistry after one semester and choose a semester of another science elective, which could even include geography. </p>

<p>Looking at other school's engineering curricula, it seems many of them require a full year of chemistry.</p>

<p>What disadvantage would a student have if they only took one semester of chemistry and chose another science elective to fulfill their degree requirement?</p>

<p>I can see where it would hurt grad school applications and perhaps even internship opportunities, but for somebody just applying for a basic mech eng job with a bachelor's degree, is the employer going to notice and discount the application? Would not taking a full year of chemistry also affect performance on the professional engineer's exam?</p>

<p>DISCLAIMER: This is not my son. My son is planning on grad school for biomedical engineering, so he's taking the full year of chemistry. He has friends who like to "do the minimum" and parents are asking advice.
A couple of those friends have parents/relatives who are engineers, so the kids can probably take basketweaving and still get a job as an engineer. No surprise our levees broke, as that's how things are done in my neck of the woods. It's not what you know, it's who you know.</p>

2

<p>Looks like several highly regarded ABET-accredited ME bachelor’s degree programs require no more than one semester of chemistry:</p>

<p>Berkeley ME requires one semester of chemistry.</p>

<p>MIT ME does not specifically require any chemistry, but one semester of chemistry is required for all MIT undergraduate students.</p>

<p>Stanford ME requires one quarter of chemistry if the student chooses three quarters of physics; the alternative is three quarters of chemistry and one quarter of physics.</p>

<p>Michigan ME requires one semester of chemistry as part of Michigan’s general engineering requirements (however, what is typically a single chemistry course including lab is split into three courses – lecture, lab lecture, and lab).</p>

<p>Georgia Tech ME requires one semester of chemistry.</p>

3

<p>No one is going to care if they only have a semester of chemistry unless they are trying to get a job in some chemistry-heavy field. That isn’t really that common for a ME so chances are these people will be fine.</p>

4

<p>I think a ME would benefit much more from a Materials Science class over more straight chemistry Chemistry. At Olin most of my classmates took Materials Science instead of Chemistry so we ended up with 0 semesters. And it has not prevented any from getting into PhD programs or industry.</p>

5

<p>chemistry is almost useless for an ME major, but yes, we are required to take 1 sem of chem.</p>