Switching Major For Master's, Anyone?

Graduate School
1

<p>My GPA is an OK 3.4 (last 2 years was 3.6, but probably still considered low to all of you guys...:{ ), but I guess I can still compensate that with my 1400s GRE.</p>

<p>I graduated from UFlorida (rank# 25) last year, with 1 year of working experience in my Industrial Engineering field (but not researches, I guess my major is the more practical kind. Sorry, lab geniuses here, you guys can be really discouraging sometimes...) </p>

<p>My question is, will I still have a shot at upper-mid schools top 20-30, like 14 UCLA, 21 Columbia, and 23 Pen State, or at least top 40s for their CHEM Eng programs? Since I don't have any experience for Chem, even though ppl say IE majors can go to any Engineering field for their Master's.</p>

<p>P.S. I don't have time to make up for my lack of experience, unfortunately.</p>

2

<p>…I guess the answer is no then.<em>_</em>… or it is just no one switch majors between BS and Master’s…</p>

3

<p>B.A. Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology
M.S. Soil Fertility</p>

<p>Been there. Done that. In my case a year and a half of coursework in agriculture, biology, and chemistry made the shift possible. Read the catalogues of the grad programs that you are interested in and see what pre-reqs there are for each of the courses.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

4

<p>I’m a newbie, so hard to find the original post… yeah, thank you for your advice. Glad I’m not the only one…</p>

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<p>IE is a versatile major, but i think it’s not quite versatile enough to make the jump to chemE…</p>

<p>if you really want to walk this path, be prepared to retake a boatload of undergrad courses, namely transport phenomena, separations, materials/eng balance, reactor design, thermo, and kinetic controls</p>

6

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<p>I think that depends on the school. I know many people who majored in IE as undergrads and became Civil Engineering master’s students at MIT. {Heck, in an admittedly extreme case, one guy who majored in Biology earned a master’s in CivE at MIT.} None of them had to retake any undergrad courses. The philosophy at MIT seems to be that if you can pass the grad level courses, you can dispense with the undergrad work.</p>

7

<p>^^ Agreed, the key is getting admission. I think once you’re in, they obviously already thought you’re master’s level material, and it’s up to handling the graduate level material.</p>

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<p>Thx a lot, guys:) I talked to some people, I guess I’ll just have to look around more and find a program that’s more lenient on this issue. </p>

<p>USC said I need to complete OChem, Thermo, Statics, etc. probably a list of 7 courses in total. </p>

<p>UF said I can get into their Master of Engineering right away. M.E. is a nonthesis program that includes several more undergraduate courses besides the minimum of 30 graduate-level semester hours. Since I probably won’t go beyond Master’s, this is suitable.</p>

<p>here’s the website in more details, if any one’s interested: <a href=“http://www.che.ufl.edu/Pro_Grad_Std.htm[/url]”>http://www.che.ufl.edu/Pro_Grad_Std.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;