<p>Alright fellow princetonians. Help me. Up until now, I was fairly sure I wanted to do EE, but a thought occurred to me (yeah...I must be pretty slow) that the job I get may not be what I want to do. I fancied working in an R&D department researching and developing new technology. I do plan on getting a Ph.D. if I follow this route. What are the chances of me, assuming I do medium-well in college and grad school, getting this kind of job?</p>
<p>Now, ChemE is another possiblity. What exactly is ChemE? I imagine material science mostly...anythign else? How's it different from just a Chemistry major? </p>
<p>I won't be offended if no one replies to this because my thoughts are so mixed up right now. I understand it's like impossible to do EE and get into Med school. Is that true? Help me Ringo!</p>
<p>You can major and do anything you want as long as you take the premed courses.</p>
<p>Correct in theory but less so in practice. It's not "impossible." Princeton tries not to install too many rules that might limit a student, and if you want to do ELE/pre-med and can fit in the courses, you are welcome to try. That said, doing well enough in pre-med to get into med school while majoring in ELE (arguably the hardest engineering major) will be a challenge and a half even if you think you're well prepared. Would have interesting applications in the realm of medical devices though...</p>
<p>Also, remember that if you aren't set on applying to med school, you can pick and choose bio courses of interest rather than taking the predetermined pre-med sequence. While your degree is important, grad schools do pay attention to your other coursework.</p>
<p>ChemE's an easier match with pre-med because they share a couple courses, like Orgo, but that alone is not a reason to give up on ELE if you're interested in it. ChemE goes beyond chemistry in its focus on industrial processes, for instance, but I'd ask someone who knows more about it. </p>
<p>If you're interested in R&D, I'd <em>definitely</em> take a closer look at the materials science certificate. It's an interesting multi-disciplinary sequence with really great professors, and I'm almost certain that you'd find it helpful if you want to go to grad school and on to R&D, no matter which science/engineering major you end up with.</p>
<p>If you're looking for specifics, the best place to go is <a href="http://www.princeton.edu/pr/catalog/ua/%5B/url%5D">http://www.princeton.edu/pr/catalog/ua/</a> (recently updated for 2006-7). This will tell you the exact requirements for each major and program, and should give you a better idea about what they are. For example, the Chem Eng. core reqs are:
245 Introduction to Chemical Engineering Principles
246 Thermodynamics
250 Separations in Biotechnology and Chemical Process Engineering
341 Mass, Momentum, and Energy Transport
346 Chemical Engineering Laboratory
441 Chemical Reaction Engineering
442 Design, Synthesis, and Optimization of Chemical Processes
451, 452 Independent Work or 454 Senior Thesis</p>
<p>The R&D route is what I am planning on doing, so I'm majoring in ELE with a certificate in Eng. Physics.</p>
<p>wow...majoring in ELE with Eng. Phy is exactly what i'm going to do! (for now)</p>