Which Major For Someone Like Me?

College Majors Engineering Majors
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Chem E including biochem E has very little to do with biomedical engineering, fields that cross over easier are ME (biomechanics), materials (biomaterials), electrical (instrumentation, electrical implants), and even comp sci (software related to engineering). If you have a specific interest in one of these. you could pick biomedical engineering classes as electives and still graduate with a traditional degree.

Chem E often concerns process engineering or making of chemical or biochemical products. So, ChemEs can make pharmaceuticals or green fuels and such, but not really protheses.

I think discounting BME if you are interested in it, merely due to current job trends (and I am guessing low oil prices will make ChemE volitile like PetroE based on the mid 80s job market), is a bad idea. 50% of people not going into industry means there are less people going into the job market. If you want to work for a medical equipment company, the BME would help, if you want to work for Ford or Boeing, it seems a bit crazy.

BME seems to lead to graduate study more than most engineering degrees, so depending on whether you find that good or impossible, that may make your decision.

Where do you go ? Each school is really different in terms of ease of minors or double majors or electives from various engineering disciplines.

The 3.0 rule is an urban legend. Not to pick on umcoe16 too much, but his opinions are not really consensus for the most part, probably a student. I would assume his UMich comments are very valid.

Why do you need a 3.6 ? That is pretty high for engineering.

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OK U-Utah, the 3.6 min for your scholarship is pretty punitive, but if you were able to get a 4.0 this semester, it should be doable (but beware that you have to keep ratcheting up your work hours and efficiency every year, and that AP does not help your odds of getting an A in say organic chemistry … at all ).

Fluid flow and thermo are part of ME too, if you chose to specialize in those.

But for chem E, the reason they focus on that is that you have to figure out the pressure drops, heat transfer, chemical process heats, etc that occur in your process.

I would recommend looking at some top BME programs such as Hopkins or Case or Georgia Tech and see how the different tracks relate to the core majors I mention above (ME, MatSci, EE, CS). Material Science is a chemistry based major, but you improve materials instead of producing them (grossly).

Getting all As in everything you try, including liberal arts classes and STEM classes does make it a bit easier to choose, but think of it as just having lots of options. I would only go into IE if you really are interesting in production and the whole IE major.

Personally I like ME best since you can design real hardware for a myriad of uses.

I would try to get some exposure to upper level chem E classes both the standard ones and the specialties like biochemical and living organisms, maybe by sitting in on a class or a lecture in that department. Personally, my interest in ChemE ended about mid-junior year, but everyone is different and my internship was more interesting than my classes, so maybe there are more interesting jobs out there than I think.

I also don’t know if Biomedical companies have much interest in ChemEs, I would definitely look at that (pharmaceuticals and biologics, yes, interest there).

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@PickOne1, Utah has a very generous scholarship program for high achievers (1 or more years tuition free), but it comes with VERY high achievement expectations. Personally, I think they should cut the engineers some slack. Certainly the difficulty is directly related to the school’s grading culture and I can’t speak for the U specifically. I know that at my son’s school a prof dropped a standard bell on the class at the end with the median C being 82%! Gulp!

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At lots of schools getting an A is pretty unusual for most students … in difficult engineering classes like engineering physics, calculus, and some of the advanced classes (I had one professor give me to C+s in two separate classes because he thought a C was a good median grade, even for seniors).

EE is more abstract and math based and likely includes a lot of programing these days. Mechanical engineering may be easier, but I agree with eyemgh that it all depends on the grading culture at the school and like I mention above the grading ideas of each professor.

Happy my daughter just needs a 2.0 to keep her scholarship, although she is doing far better than that so far.

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I took my daughters for aptitude testing at Human Engineering Laboratory (Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation) in Boston. They have several locations across the country. They have an excellent testing system, and provided invaluable insight into their natural strengths. …testing provided insight such as: you want a profession with endless problems to solve, you need to work with your hands, you will do well in large size classes, advertising is not for you, you need a profession with an emotional connection…one daughter plans on majoring in Animal Science, and the other Forensic Psychology…I’m hopeful this testing provided insight, so they wonk’t be changing their college majors. Check out their web site. It’s all very scientific.

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Requiring a 3.6 CUMULATIVE GPA is fairly doable if you got a 4.0 the first semester. However, requiring a 3.6 TERM GPA every term would be a lot more difficult.

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A 3.6…“fairly doable”…certainly it isn’t impossible by any stretch, but the OP has taken only two tech classes, both fairly easy relative to the most difficult parts of an engineering curriculum. I am not in any way taking away from the OPs accomplishment. Nor do I mean in anyway to portend any future failure, but to predict “fairly doable” based on that is a stretch. Maintaining a 3.6 in engineering is hard. My guess, and don’t take this as disrespect, but that you haven’t yet hit those harder classes yourself yet. Am I wrong?

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@PickOne1, Thank you for your advice. You said, “My interest in ChemE ended about mid-junior year.” Did you still graduate with a major in ChemE, or did you switch majors? You and @eyemgh both recommend ME, so I am going to meet with the advisor this week. I have been ignoring it because it would be difficult to switch to, but it would be a lot easier to switch to now than a year from now. I don’t know if I can take a ME course this semester, so I think I will continue with ChemE and BME. The ChemE class is supposedly styled to simulate a real-world engineering career, so that class could be used to either rule out or confirm my ChemE major. The BME class is the most similar to ME that I can easily get into, so I will use that class to determine if I actually like making a product, as opposed to processing products like in ChemE.

My dislike of ME probably comes from the one engineering class I took in high school, which was ME. I really do not like working with power tools. I also do not like making robots just to make robots. I think that is what I liked about BME. Everything that we work on has the potential to help people’s lives. Does you think it is possible for someone who has no interest in cars, planes, robots, etc. to be a good fit with ME?

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What DO you have an interest in? Give a list if possible.

BTW, HS “ME” classes really have nothing to do with ME per se. ME, for the most part aren’t wielding hammers and drills.

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Women only comprise 8% of mechanical engineers, but you should join us !

I finished up in ChemE (bio chem option) to get it over with, found a job in the aerospace industry, and got my masters in ME at night at an excellent university near home. But being a freshman, there is no reason to go down a path you don’t like … but also no fear that you are locked in even after you graduate …

The class that will give you some insight into whether you like ME is Physics 1 aka Mechanics.

Spatial reasoning is helpful, but honestly with any CAD package including some free ones, you can really rotate any geometry enough that you can see the 3D and I think train your brain to think in 3D points, shapes, etc. 3D models are used for lots of design and analysis activities. Few MEs really use drills … either someone makes you something or you watch them make it for you … and I think fewer than 25% of the MEs I know really touch hardware on any regular basis (then again we design one-off satellites, so the pace of production is slow, lots of design and analysis … then build … then test).

The BME program at Utah has tracks like I mentioned.

If you love chemistry, BME biomaterials track or material science may also be a good match to your interests. Materials science is a small field in engineering, but job prospects are there in a variety of industries and I think there are jobs. You do not design parts in terms of drawing them or analyzing them, more design the materials that they are made from …

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@eyemgh, I’m interested in: entrepreneurship, business, health/nutrition, new drugs/medicines, (anything that has to do with history, current events, public policy, literature, etc.) I am interested in inventing new processes and products to solve problems, but I do not like the hands-on side of this (welding, etc). I like big-picture projects, like thinking how a company will make a deal with another company to benefit both sides. I would be interested in working for a small company or start-up, so I could help with a wide variety of things, and not all product development. I like management, advertising, business, and multi-disciplinary problem solving. Mostly, I really need to know my work is directly helping people, so not designing video games, sports cars, etc. I mention medicine and health because that is what I have the most exposure to, and I can easily see how it helps people. I’m sure there are many other industries that I would be happy in, like national (or personal) defense, improving crop output, and other industries that I have had no experience with and do not know very much about. I think that engineering in real life is probably completely different from the engineering problems in class. Context is everything for me. I need to know how this physics problem I am solving is affecting the bigger picture, and I am just not seeing that in my classes… although it has only been one semester.

(I might not respond as much now that classes are starting, but I really appreciate all of your advice, not just in this thread, but from many others I have read.)

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“Hands On” in general is not to teach engineers how to ultimately DO it themselves. It’s so they have a general understanding of how things are made, not so they can be made to their specifications. You can design anything without ever having put your hands on the tool(s) used to build it. Many, maybe most engineers do. If you know though, for instance a TIG welder head won’t fit into the place that you’re calling for a weld to be done, because you have a clue of what a TIG welder head is, you won’t make that mistake. You would think it wouldn’t, but theses things happen, put a bolt that can loosen that you can’t get a wrench to in order to tighten it for instance.

The reason your HS class seemed hands on is simple. How much engineering can you really teach without the proper foundation of knowledge? None. So they build stuff and call it engineering. As a Utah Chem E you won’t see anything that is engineering for real until you get to Statics and Thermo your second year.

I’m simply not sure, and you can clarify, how Chem E gets you to any of your stated goals.

As for options, a parlayed engineering degree by adding an MBA or JD is very powerful if you don’t want to be an engineer, which it sounds like you don’t.

I just keep getting the sense that you’re bulling through with ChemE because someone or something tells you “that’s the best way to go.” Am I way off base?

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Being interested in engineering in no way is incompatible with some of the other interests you have. Do you want to be part of building things and solving technical problems or determine the value and our risk of certain technologies ? Do you want to develop a life-saving drug yourself, or do you want to help produce it, or do you want to help finance it, or do you want to bring it to the third world or do you want to run for office or be part of NGO ?

If the tech part of this could easily be replaced by say … being interested in bringing music or art or democracy … then I would skip engineering … you can make more money in other fields … if you are driven and inspired.

If the tech part is important and you see your math and science skills as being part of what you bring to your job (and maybe even to world improvement) … then study engineering … it is sort of the HOW … rather than the WHY …

I think you should view college as a chance to learn things you are interested in. Neither engineering (any, and I mean any field, including BME) or business is a degree without job prospects … maybe you make 60K to start, but gosh, that is a nice salary, especially after a big scholarship.

You seem really talented in many ways … you have a good future … find your path …

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@PickOne1, Thank you for your advice. I will try to spend more time asking myself the questions that you listed, and less time trying to force myself to like engineering. I have been raised to not view college as “a chance to learn things you are interested in,” but I think your way might be better for me… Somewhat spontaneously, I just signed up for a computer science class, which I might try for the first week…starting tomorrow. :-?? I don’t know much about it, but it seems like it could be applied to more non-engineering businesses. I am somewhat surprised that CS is in the college of engineering based on the lack of science in the curriculum. Also, I think you are right that I will know more about my feelings toward engineering after I take physics.