<p>Hello everyone,
I need some suggestions since I am in a serious confusion about my major. I am a chemical engineering major and i completed my freshman year. I go to a school which has coop program and I had my first coop in a chemical production plant and i got $19.75 per hour. Now the problem is I took a cs course(Algorithm and data structure(using java))in this quarter and i feel like I enjoy computer science classes. The confusion gets worse when i got a second coop offer from a leading chemical/petroleum company where i will get $21.75 an hour. I really didn't like working in a plant as these are typically located in a remote place far away from the city. Now i am very confused. Should i stick to chemical engineering major or I should change my major to computer science as it seems more interesting to me.
Any comments will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you very much</p>
<p>I’d switch.</p>
<p>Do what makes you happy, that’s what matters.</p>
<p>Do remember however that “no pain, no gain”. I.e. I’d make sure that you aren’t changing based on a false motive. Chemical Engineering is a respectable and important field (more so than some of the bs that one can make with a CS background, like e.g. Angry Birds 
) and not liking the field or the work conditions doesn’t change that. Someone’s got to do it anyways (and most jobs are “routine” and thus may suck anyways), but perhaps that isn’t for you then, if it doesn’t motivate you.</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply.
Just before taking the java course, I was very optimistic about chemical engineering. I worked with process control engineers during my internships. I liked solving problems about PID, model predictive control etc. What i didnt like is process engineering. Many of the chemical engineers were process engineers. And most of the time they were busy with pipe sizing, valves and ordering other instruments. I took fluid dynamics, thermodynamics etc but the real process engineers dont seem to use any of the concepts they learned from school. May be, the situation is not same everywhere.</p>
<p>Well, it’s somewhat known that many, especially entry-level, engineering jobs are different from the “theoretical approach” that one may practice while doing one’s degree. In the real world many of the problems are already solved, rather than solved every time, because recycling good solutions is more efficient and getting things done is more important.</p>
<p>Now if you perceive that you like specifically the theory, then CS and focusing on engineering simulations might be a good fit. Or continuing Chemical Engineering, but focusing on issues in research (possibly by utilizing computational modelling), rather than in running existing processes.</p>
<p>You’re only in your first year, certainly not too late to change. My brother did accounting for 3 years, and now he’s going for for a career change in CS</p>
<p>Wow! You are lucky that you have experience with PID controls and predictive modeling after freshman year! I’d be interested to hear more about your internship! Please share here</p>
<p>You use words like I feel like and it seems when talking about CS. To me that says you really don’t know how you feel about CS. As for chemical plants being in remote locations, what do you consider remote (I see Drexel and Villanova in your past posts). There are refineries in Philadelphia and nearby place. DuPont is in Delaware. In one of my lives, I was a ChemE and worked in Salt Lake City. Also, process controls engineers are pulled from MEs, EEs, and ChemEs.</p>
<p>What I am trying to say don’t change because you think you will like something.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone. During my coop I worked with the advanced control engineers who used MPC to control and optimize the gas separation process from the air. I actually didnt do anything important. I designed some HMI, helped the engineers to dump and analyze process datas from DMCA+ and aspen.
I liked what I did during the internship. But i hated the location. I have been living in big cities all of my life so far. But for this internship, I had to go to deep south (LA and SC) where people are kind of weird and that made me feel that chemical plants are in remote places with no diversity and i will feel isolated.
But on the other hand, I earned a lot in 6 months that I paid my first years loan full. I dont know. This is probably the most hesitant period I am passing.</p>
<p>What makes you think you won’t just jump ship with CS at the first sign of trouble?</p>
<p>lol. Thats the question I have been asking myself many times. I didnt find any answer. But i know from previous experience, I can spend many hours to try to solve programming problem. I dont know if the later CS courses will be same exciting as the introduction to java programming class.</p>
<p>It’s never the same. Let’s just say you’d better hope you have a burning desire to learn some serious number theory. Digital logic, computer design, algorithms, discrete math, etc are full of that stuff.</p>
<p>I’m going to assume you had some reason for choosing ChemE. So here’s a bit of advice: programmers are a dime a dozen in the tech industry, but scientists and engineers who know how to program are not that abundant (in my personal experience, most of those who aren’t doing research using numerical methods don’t really know how to program). Knowing how to make simple computer tools for specialized purposes has a lot of application within an engineering major.</p>
<p>hmm…Thats a good point. But Doesnt CS grads have way more opportunities than a ChemE grad? I went to several career fairs in my school and it looked like CS is a very hot field. I saw everybody was hiring CS people even Macy’s-the clothing store and staples.</p>
<p>Yes, there are most certainly more CS jobs. There are also more CS students, and there are also many jobs that simply want any engineer. But what are you looking for?</p>
<p>Any job? You already had a paid internship and a second offer. That already gives you a big boost in the job search.
Stability? You won’t find it in CS. It’s pretty much the fashion business with computers - keep up with the latest fashion trend or you’re useless after 3 months.
Geography? CS wins here. Not to say there aren’t ChemE jobs all around, just that mostly the profession is geographically concentrated around resources.
Salary? ChemE is better.
Being able to do something “cool”? It’s like fashion - it’s a fad that dies quickly. It soon won’t matter in the slightest.</p>
<p>There are problems in every field, but your reasons for wanting to switch seem to be very weak.</p>
<p>I don’t think CS is a hot field, although that depends on how one personally views it (for some it could be a hot field). There’s a lot of need for people that know how computers work and how they are used or how they are programmed, because most don’t and a huge number of our processes are ran using computers and software and that number will only increase, and that’s not going to go anywhere. However, the software industry is a bit volatile, unless you happen to work at one of the staple companies, whose products, whatever they are, are always bought and there’s a lot of invested money. There’s a lot of room for being very innovative in software, lots of interesting research concepts and projected changes in uses of computer technology as well as new software, but for that you need to have ideas or hook up with people who have ideas.</p>
<p>CS is excellent as a general study of concepts and practice that’s applicable almost everywhere, even if there aren’t computers. But per se it’s not straightforwardly applicable, because it depends on where and how it’s applied (I think you need a bit of creativity for figuring out the really interesting things). Notice that I don’t consider mainstream IT to have much relevancy to the topics CS education and research really deals with. Mainstream IT is the described “fashion industry, where you keep up with trends”. CS is about figuring out new uses for computers and better and novel ways for doing computation.</p>
<p>
This is exactly why a bit of CS knowledge in an unrelated field will do wonders.</p>
<p>Thanks NeoDymium and Reactor .It seems like everybody including my advisor and professor are suggesting me not to switch. I agree that future CS courses might not be that interesting. In my CS classes, i created some gui applications and created multiple classes with data encapsulation. I felt like this is very easy and interesting. Also, I love math and i didnt get any B in any math courses so far. So I thought i can do well in CS.
One of the surprising things I have noticed that when i talk about CS with anyone, they talk about outsourcing, off-shoring, H1b,CS shortage myth etc.
Also someone told me anyone can be a computer scientist and i dont need to go to school for that but nobody can be a ChemE without college.
Anyway, I dont know if I should go against the current. I have to decide in this summer before fall.</p>
<p>
From my experience, all of these are true. </p>
<p>What makes you so intent on switching even though everybody thinks it’s a bad idea?</p>
<p>1)Location. I want to live in NJ,PA,DE,NY area. I know there are many plants in these mid Atlantic region but CS probably has more opening and opportunities in this region. My first internship location was in Louisiana(3 months) and South Carolina(3 months) and the second offers assignment location is in Texas. I really dont wanna go to those areas again.
2) I think I liked writing small programs like bank account creation or creating small games or building snowman using java MORE than solving heat flow, thermodynamics problem. I didnt say i hate those heat transfer problems but i like programming more.
3)I can graduate 6 months earlier if I do CS because I took many math courses and I will have a math minor without taking any extra math courses.
4) I have been doing research in this whole week and i have found that generally CS grads are happier. I saw some posts here in CC that people aren’t satisfied with their ChemE degree.
5)I dont like hands on work. I like to work in a office setting with a lot of coffee and exercising my brain. I saw process engineers often have to go to plant and monitor the processes and production. Sometimes they ahve to draw P&ID(very boring thing) and pipe sizing and calculation. When I remember these things, i feel like its not my field.
On the other hand, i liked process controls as they sit in front of the giant pc , develop and maintain programs to control the process. They dont really have to deal with operators or anything.
6)Last one might sound illogical and dumb. But, I have come from a country which is often blamed to take many CS jobs from this country. In fact, I saw many of my native people working as a software developer, SE, DBA etc. So I think i will be successful like them also.</p>
<p>I think anyone can do well in CS even if the job market sucks or the economy is bad. It’s all about the ideas that you can get out there. And in terms of education and work, it’s about the motivation and interest that you have towards the topics and practices.</p>
<p>Think about it, we have the internet and a huge load of computers and more are being acquired constantly. Who writes programs and knows how the internet works? Programmers. </p>
<p>Or think about all the daily software that you use. Who designs and writes them? Programmers.</p>
<p>Or think about scientific computation. Who figures out novel ways to compute and verify unsure, inaccurate or previously laboriously calculated scientific truths? Or figures out computations/simulations for engineering problems? Programmers.</p>
<p>The world is your oyster, so to say. Not to make CS any more important than many many other (or we could say all) fields, just “pretty powerful” in today’s world.</p>