<p>Hi, I'm really want to switch my major to Chemical Eng. My original plan was to pursue pharmacy, but it's not something I want to deal with in the long run. I would rather deal with creating and perfecting drugs, which brings me to chemical eng. I really do enjoy chemistry, but not sure if I love it enough to gain a PhD in it.</p>
<p>I used to have problems with math, however, I started applying myself and gained a solid foundation for more complicated math courses for engineering. I actually enjoy it...most of the time, haha.</p>
<p>I’m a ChemE at GaTech. I would heavily advise getting a REALLY good understanding of what the major is. It’s a lot different than straight chemistry. While there definitely is quite a bit of chem involved, there’s just a lot of other stuff that goes along with it. It’s a pretty difficult major</p>
<p>Personally the classes so far have been way more physics than chemistry. ChemEs at my school have to take organic and physical chemistry (almost a chemistry major), but the cheme classes haven’t had much chemistry, at least not yet. It’s not the same as a chemistry major, but you could definitely work in pharmaceuticals with it. I don’t think you would be making new drugs from scratch though, not with a Bachelor’s degree, maybe a PhD. Moreso figuring out how to make large quantities of some new drug researchers just discovered.</p>
<p>There is likely a ChemE professor at your school that has an interest in pharmaceuticals, if you are at a research university. Or chemistry, biochemistry, something. It’s a popular field. Try asking an advisor or look online more.</p>
<p>Thank you for the advise! This helped me a lot actually. There is a chemical eng teacher at my school and I think I will talk to her about.
I signed up the eng lab for first years so I can really so everything!</p>
<p>Making new drugs is generally the task of a Ph.D. in Synthetic Organic Chemistry and the Biologist/Biochemist who does the initial testing of efficacy. The Chemical Engineer is most often the one who develops the scale-up and processes to manufacture the drug in the right form and with the right yield in massive quantities. And, yes, Chemical Engineering is almost more about physics than chemistry.</p>
<p>I have a PhD in Physical Chemistry but I should have got a BS in chemical engineering. I make a lot of money where I work but it’s because I’m not doing chemistry, I’m doing engineering. I realized that I don’t like to be in the lab all the time, I like D better than R (R&D), I realized that I like product development and scale up the products. Research is just too boring for me…and if you are looking for money D is the way to go.</p>
<p>From what I read, the person who discovers the potential of a certain drug is not usually the same person who perfects it. Drugs go through a life cycle and not everyone who works on it sees it all the way through from idea to product. Perhaps the only people who see the it through the entire development cycle are project managers who keep track of the progress. I may be wrong though so don’t trust me on this.</p>
<p>Chemical engineers don’t perfect drugs, per se; they take the work of chemists and make the process more efficient for companies. Penicillin for example was discovered a long time before it could be heavily prescribed to people because of how hard it was to mass produce the drug. If that’s what you like, go for it.</p>