<p>Your opinion?</p>
<p>It really doesn't matter. Both can get you to consulting just fine. </p>
<p>I would choose ChemE because it tends to be a little bit broader-based than MecE. And because if you can't get that consutling job, you will have to take an engineering job, and ChE jobs pay a bit better than MecE jobs to start. </p>
<p>But the differences are slight. Both paths can lead you to where you want.</p>
<p>I don't understand how you could say that ChemE is more broad-based than ME. ME is an extremely broad field covering energy systems, design, dynamics, control, measurement, fluids, acustics, heat transfer, solid mechanics and more. I see ME covering touching nearly everything that ChemE does but not vise-versa.</p>
<p>Oh, I disagree. I see ChemE as being everything that MecE is, plus the chemical stuff. </p>
<p>Think about it. Honestly - what do MecE's take that ChemE's don't? Thermo, fluids, heat-transfer, mechanics, process control - that's all the stuff that ChemE's take too. Now obviously MecE's have a greater emphasis on mechanical processes, and ChemE's deal with chemicals, but the fact is, these 2 majors share many similarities across the board.</p>
<p>I'm really not sure where you got the idea that ChemE and ME are very similar but I would whole hardly have to disagree with you on that one</p>
<p>"I would choose ChemE because it tends to be a little bit broader-based than MecE"</p>
<p>um....what the</p>
<p>There are all sorts of things that MEs do that ChemEs do not. Stress analysis, vibrations, machine design are some of them. And when ChemEs take things like Thermo and Heat Transfer they are more focused on chemical processes and less broad-based.</p>
<p>ChemE is a great major, but there's no way it's more broad than ME.</p>
<p>My brother and I argue about this. He is a 2005 ChemE graduate and I will be a MechE graduate next year. Just from the coursework alone, I'd have to say MechE is more broad than ChemE...and my current school is on a much lower tier than my brother's. From my point of view, working with the mechanical nature of machines as opposed to dealing with chemical processes seems to be more broad. For example, a meche and a cheme could both figure out that in order to maintain a certain production capacity, tank A must be able to hold 500 gallons of chemical x at a certain pressure and we must be able to transport x gallons/minute to other stations at the factory. Although it is a cheme's job to deal with chemical processes, a meche is also capable of computing volumes and flow rates as the cheme is. However, a meche is also capable of designing the tank and pipes so that they meet design codes and can withstand various pressures and loads. A cheme would not be able to design that stuff without having a mechanical engineering background. I don't think my brother even studied fluid forces in his fluid mechanics class...many of the students can't even recall what they learned in course. So much for the $30,000/year tuition.</p>
<p>Again, I don't deny that ME's know some things better than ChemE's do. That is obviously true. However, I am pointing out that ChemE's also know some things more than MecE's do, and I would argue that the extra things that the ChemE's know are broader-based than the extra things that the ME's know. In particular, the ChemE's have the entire spectrum of chemistry available to them - and many engineering subjects are grounded in an understanding of chemistry, from an understanding of fuels, bioreactions, foodstuffs, plastics, and things of that nature. Obviously ME's know more about things that are mechanically based, but not that much more than a ChemE would know. ChemE's have to take many (not all, but many) of the mechanically-oriented coursework than ME's do, but ME's take very few chemicals courses. Simply put, I would argue that a ChE that is dropped in the middle of the production lines at GM or Boeing would be less lost than a ME dropped in the middle of an oil refinery. </p>
<p>However in any case, I go back to my original point that I believe that the difference is slight enough to be meaningless, and the real point is that for the purposes of getting into consulting, it hardly matters.</p>
<p>I would also point out that if you add couple bio courses to chemE curriculum, you are pretty much ready to tackle one of the hottest field in America: biotechnology which I think is less vulenerable to outsourcing than computer industry. In many schools these days, their chemical engineering departments have changed their names to "chemcial and biological" engineering recently. The difference? Only 1 or 2 required bio classes thrown into the curriculum! Why is that simple?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Chemical and Biolological Engineering is the application of chemcial engineering approaches and principles to chemical and biolgoical systems and processes. Chemical engineers defined and used the terms "biochemcial engineering" and "biotechnology and bioengineering" long before they became fashionable. Chemical engineers have been involved in the "engineering" of processes for the production of chemcials, biologicals and pharmaceuticals from living organisms since the beginning of the 20th century....
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't know which one is broader. However, in civil/environmental engineering counsulting and biotech, of which both are technically neither chemE nor mechE, there are a lot more chemE in those than mechE.</p>
<p>ChemE, along with chemistry/materical science, are most closely related to another hot emerging field: nanotechnology.</p>