<p>If you are sure that you want to do premed, then I would not recommend chemE or any other engineering for that matter. Simply put, it's very difficult to maintain the high gpa in engineering coursework that med-school adcoms demand. You would think that the adcoms would account for the difficulty of your coursework when determiing admissions, but the evidence seems to indicate this is not so. </p>
<p>At very least, I wouldn't chance it. If you know you want premed, you want to maximize your chances of getting high grades, and you don't do that by doing engineering. Sure, there are engineers who managed to get into med-school, but the point is, they made things more difficult for themselves than they needed to. </p>
<p>By doing ChemE, you're also not going to avoid the infamous cutthroat premed culture as much as you think. You still have to do the Bio 1 sequence, which is overflowing with premeds. Chem 112 doesn't have as many premeds as the Chem 3 sequence, but it still has its fair share. You will avoid most premeds by taking the Physics 7 (sequence rather than the Physics 8 sequence. But the point is that you will still encounter a decent number of premeds along the way. Hence,by doing ChemE, you are not really avoiding the premeds. </p>
<p>I do agree with your third paragraph - chemE does provide you with a solid career if you don't get into med-school. Since more than 1/3 of all Berkeley premeds who apply to med-school get rejected from every single med-school they apply to (yes, that's right, every single one), this 'career insurance' is nothing to sneeze at. However, you have to carefully weigh whether that insurance is worth the increased chances of your not getting into med-school because of the lower grades you would receive in ChemE as opposed to what you would have gotten had you studied something else.</p>
<p>ChemE is significantly different from a career standpoint than MCB/plain-chem/biochem because ChemE is a true, accredited engineering degree, which means that you are eligible to take a true engineering job right after graduation. The biggest traditional employer of ChemE's have been oil companies (especially oil refineries), and the related chemical industry (plastics factories, general bulk chemicals, etc.). Lately, many ChemE's have been taking jobs at wafer fabs in semiconductor companies like Intel, because many of the processes to required to create microchips are chemically oriented. The legendary former CEO of Intel, Andy Grove (Time Magazine's Man of the Year in 1997) has a PhD in chemical engineering from Berkeley and is a noted authority on semiconductor manufacturing. Chemical engineers have also been actively recruited into pharmaceuticals, biotech, and materials companies. </p>
<p>Basically, as a chemical engineering, you are able to marry the knowledge of chemistry with a knowledge of engineering in order to efficiently and profitably produce large quantities of materials that have a chemical component. That is why ChemE's often times end up working in factories and plants. </p>
<p>Being a chemistry major provides you with the knowledge of chemistry (obviously) but not necessarily a lot of knowledge about how to produce chemicals in a profitable manner. In short, you may know how to make stuff, but not necessarily how to do so on a large scale at low cost, which is what is required in industry. Now obviously there is no solid line that separates chemical engineering and chemistry, for there is a lot of overlap between the two. Basically, think of chemical engineering as an engineering-accredited version of chemistry.</p>
<p>There is little practical difference between the BS and the BA in chemistry. The BA allows you to take a few more non-chem courses whereas the BS in chemistry means that you are formally enrolled in the College of Chemistry which does give you a few college-specific perks, like access to the college's advising system.</p>