<p>Really! I have no clue. I find the academic rigour very interesting and challenging, and I think the field has such widespread appeal.</p>
<p>What do y'all think?</p>
<p>I am a chemical engineer and I am here.</p>
<p>I find the academic rigor soul-crushing and sleep depriving, yet I stick with ChemE anyway. It's commonly regarded as the most hard-work intensive major where I go to school (math and physics are more conceptually difficult, but require half as many hard classes).</p>
<p>Because most ChemEs realize that MatSci is actually more interesting. :cool:</p>
<p>Psh! Aren't you the only matsci regular on this board anyway? =P</p>
<p>We had one other for a day or two. :(</p>
<p>I was in it for interest, now I'm staying in for the money. Unfortunately, later on I may switch fields completely just to be able to live where I really want to (a place where there are no chem eng jobs).</p>
<p>I'm also a chemical engineer. Technically, I'm a biochemical engineer :)</p>
<p>ChemE right here. Over here ChemE is probably regarded as one of the hardest majors. That truth carries over at most universities.</p>
<p>Chemical engineering is considered one of the hardest engineering majors and considering engineering in general is one of the hardest majors you can do in college...well you get it.</p>
<p>ummm... what is chemical engineering?</p>
<p>I think the problem is that many people don't really know what it is, and what chemical engineers do. Its easy to imagine that they "work with chemicals," wearing goggles, lab coats, and face masks, in a steamy lab room around a bunch of huge hissing machines, ladle in hand stirring what looks like a witches brew.</p>
<p>Thats a probably a very naive interpretation, but I don't think most people have the right idea in mind when thinking of chemE (including myself).</p>
<p>well from the websites i looked around they did say that chemE is very umm.. extensive? and well i guess that it is one of the most difficult major probably explains it.</p>
<p>i am a chemE wannabe. dunno if i can make it!</p>
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Its easy to imagine that they "work with chemicals," wearing goggles, lab coats, and face masks, in a steamy lab room around a bunch of huge hissing machines, ladle in hand stirring what looks like a witches brew.
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</p>
<p>That was my first job. Only I was making drugs. And the facility was three and a half stories high and about 1/2 mile wide, but only about 500 feet deep. I was the grunt who made the buffers, ran the separation equipment, ran the pipe chases to find the problems, and cussed at centrifuge pumps in the middle of the night.</p>
<p>My second job was more office based with "visits" or stents in manufacturing facilities.</p>
<p>My third job I don't like to talk about because the people there were idiots, didn't care about their plant or product, and I left after a year.</p>
<p>My fourth job was much like my first job, but I was more in charge of troubleshooting and creative process optimizations.</p>
<p>I'm on my fifth, because I was laid off from my fourth after 2 years. So, 2 years at the first, 5 years at the second, 1 year at the third, and 2 at the fourth, and I've been here about 3 months. I now design ethanol and biomass facilities, assist companies in technology transfer and scale-up operations, and help give advise to VC firms on whether they should pursue certain interests or not. I am mostly in an office. Once in a while I will find myself in a facility or at a plant site, mainly because I will have to help oversee it's construction.</p>
<p>I spend a lot of time contemplating how stuff "flows" through pipes and pumps, if the materials of construction are correct for a specific application, if the safety devices are adequate, how to control temperature and pressure and other conditions of a process, and whether instruments and controls will give me the required readings and functions. Right now, for example, I am trying to figure out what combination of heat exchangers will give me the right duty (heat transfer) at the right pressure drop (due to pump selection) for a high fouling non-newtonian fluid with huge changes in viscosity across the temperature range in question due to an enzyme addition. </p>
<p>It is really much more conceptual than it sounds. Once you have the schooling. However, people who don't hire people like me to think about these things end up spending a million bucks on something that doesn't work and should have cost them $300k and would have worked. Of course we consider operating and maintenance cost and utility consumption as well as the initial capital investment.</p>
<p>I think it is because it is often said to be one of the higest paid engineering jobs and because there are so many sub divisions, so many different paths to choose with in chemE.</p>
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It is really much more conceptual than it sounds. Once you have the schooling.
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<p>I think thats part of the reason why chemE may not be as popular as other engineering disciplines. It is difficult to imagine yourself working on such specialized tasks. EE and CS have the advantage that as end-users we get to use so many cool things/gadgets that have been created by them. Most of the things chemEs work on, we probably take for granted.</p>
<p>Though of course, even in EE and CS, engineers tend to work on very small and specialized tasks. Its much cooler to think that you're working on, say a satellite communication system. However, you'll probably only work on a small module, maybe just the power supply. But we can still relate to these innovations. When chemE becomes a lot more applicable to our daily life, we'll probably see more people entering this field.</p>
<p>ChemE daughter at Vandy is too busy studying!</p>
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Most of the things chemEs work on, we probably take for granted.
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<p>True. ChemEs are like BASF; we don't make the things you buy, we make the things you buy better. Or, we make the things that make the things you buy... ad infinitum. </p>
<p>Ivory soap floats, and no one cares why. However, there was probably a team of chemical engineers toiling away at P&G some years ago tasked with figuring it out, and making big bucks doing so.</p>
<p>I had no idea Ivory soap floats...</p>
<p>ChemE freshman right now. Is it worth it?</p>
<p>If you know it's the one thing you want to study.</p>