The Lack of ChemE?

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

Hey CC,

So I was just curious, is the reason ChemE is a small major because there is a lack of people wanting to attempt the major or is it because there is lack of jobs?

I was recently looking at some schools that really interested me (like Duke) and found out that they don’t even have ChemE which really surprised me because schools like Duke seemed to be the types of colleges that would offer it. Not just Duke, but it also seems that the general consensus is that ChemE is the least taken major in Engineering. Anyways, that got me worried that it’s because ChemE’s job prospects are extremely low, as I feel like an adequate amount of people would take it because its highly regarded as one of the highest -paying majors.

Thanks!

2

“…it also seems that the general consensus is that ChemE is the least taken major in Engineering.”

Perhaps that’s because ChE is the hardest engineering major; at least that’s what ChE students say!

3

There are plenty of ChemE majors, and a fairly large portion is there because they heard it was a nice way to get large money in petroleum. Of the smarter ChemE students, many of the ones I knew graduated without much interest in doing ChemE work, academic or industrial. Something about working in an environment with known carcinogens, potentially explosive products, and every safety hazard you could and could not dream up tends to discourage the smartest students from any further work in that field. There are some exceptions, mostly those who enjoyed their undergraduate research work.

Job prospects aren’t exactly bad. But for the kind of work a ChemE degree requires, those who feel they could do better generally don’t stick around. Maybe that has something to do with it.

4

I took ChemE for the process engineering. Lots of physical, chemical and biological applications in manufacturing (and other business); design, control and optimization.

5

There are enough chemical engineering majors for there to be 164 ABET-accredited chemical engineering majors. Compare to:

124 industrial engineering
87 engineering science, engineering physics, or general engineering
58 materials engineering
57 aerospace engineering
22 nuclear engineering
17 petroleum engineering
3 ceramic engineering
1 fire protection engineering