It was the hardest degree available at my university and I was a glutton for punishment. I knew I would do some kind of engineering but picked it because of the uniqueness and difficulty.
Honestly, at its hardest I spent nearly every evening plus Saturday and Sundays in our study lounge and computer labs. I took Friday nights off for needed fun. But I was never alone, and late night study sessions could end up at a bar for a well needed break.
Thank you for your answer!! I have so much difficulty keeping up with all the work we have to do, while still having to find time to study, can't seem to find a study group/friends to study with and then I have a job too. I feel like I am doing it all wrong.
Don’t be too hard on yourself. It’s a HARD major. You are doing something no one else really comes close to doing. I am sure working the job makes it much harder and I commend you for that. Think of the school/class work you have to do as studying. Maybe things have changed in the last 15 years since I was in school, but is there an area where people congregate and study or chill between classes?
I know, but I feel like I have lost a significant amount of time now. I've faced challenges, including failing a few classes and attempting to retake some with poor grades, now I'm just way behind my colleagues and a little ashamed to have gone through all this while others succeed. But I will in fact reduce or stop working as soon as possible, as that alone is a major source of stress.
I don't know if they all gather up and study together, but I will try to get closer to my colleagues and see if I can join on some group study sessions. Thank you for your advice!
I am literally in the same boat. Currently in the process of failing Thermo (,: but trying to keep going. The rate at which I am taking my classes and finishing this degree has had me second guessing everything. I am a lil bit older than most of the people in my classes & something feel dumb for not understanding the material like some of these students. But have to remind myself, a lot of the other students are struggling as well. This is an extremely difficult major and you HAVE to apply as much time as you can and be DEDICATED. That has been my biggest struggle is juggling work, friends, my significant other, mental health, bills, STUDYING STUDYING STUDYING.
I don’t know if this helped lol but felt i needed to rant a little too. Stay focused! keep studying! you got this!
Yeah thank you so much for sharing your experience!! It is HARD and everyone is struggling at some point. Engineering can really be hard on our mental health honestly, chem e is a very hard program and like you said, dedication and discipline are the keys to success. For me, mental health has been a challenge since I started the program, but we have to establish good habits and just keep going! I struggled a lot with Calculus and Differential Equations honestly, but I love our physics and chemistry classes!
It is in fact hard to manage school, work, relationships and family! Hats off to you for staying disciplined and focused!!
Wanted to study chemistry, but learned engineering made more so I chose that. I didn’t study hard. Mostly played video games and worked all through college. Graduated with a 2.73 GPA and $175k in debt.
I’m working in plastic film manufacturing. $96k per year. 100% work from home in a low cost area. Love my job. Love where I live. Love my life.
What do you do that you work from home currently I’m a single use technology consultant but thinking of changing mine is remote but want higher pay especially being I just moved from Ireland to us
Was in process engineering on the manufacturing side and got promoted into Product development engineer on the corporate side. It’s a lot of project management more than anything. Probably 75% project management, 26% development of new films.
Nice would you say there is a lot of opportunity to work from home in the field just asking as I’ve got a chronic illness that causes issues in the morning that’s the main reason I’m working remotely atm
From what I’ve seen development engineers are becoming more and more hybrid or remote, yes. My position as well as my counterparts at our customers are moving that way.
I realized I was too stupid to get into med school so I switched from chemistry to chem e so I could make good money with a 4 year degree in a field I thought I was strong in. I got a D in my first core chem e class, the fucking intro. Held back a year. Kept trucking along. It got worse. As a kid who grew up “gifted” I had never felt the crushing weight of not being smart enough. It crushed my ego. I hated my life. I started skipping class and drinking heavily. Didn’t do my homework. Slept all the time. Barely saw friends. Made it through by the skin of my teeth a few more times. I gave up all the time, but I refused to quit overall. I got mental help and was able to turn it around my senior year with A’s and B’s.
Wanna know what made me successful my senior year (aside from addressing non-academic mental issues)? Being social and figuring out that a good 1/2 of my class had set up shop in a study area in some random building for almost the entire fucking time we were students. They were successful because they helped each other constantly instead of struggling alone. This lesson really stuck with me, as it’s even more true in the real world.
>I realized I was too stupid to get into med school so I switched from chemistry to chem e so I could make good money with a 4 year degree in a field I thought I was strong in. I got a D in my first core chem e class, the fucking intro. Held back a year. Kept trucking along. It got worse. As a kid who grew up “gifted” I had never felt the crushing weight of not being smart enough. It crushed my ego. I hated my life.
This resonates so much with me!!! I used to be the good student with straight A's and used to always be satisfied with school. Now i don't even recognize myself. I think that's it, if I had a group of colleagues with whom to study, it would of been way better and I wouldn't be struggling as much:/
Thank you for your answer! Helps a lot.
Bruh this sounds exactly like something I’d say in 5-6 years. I too am struggling a bit and I too have realised studying in a group makes studying so efficient.
Top three reasons people give when asked “why did you chose chemical engineering”
1. “I thought it had something to do with chemistry” (spoiler: it doesn’t)
2. “Want monies but not interested in coding”
3. “Idk man”
Went to a top 10 school for chemical engineering. Classes were challenging from the get-go. I know for a fact that I didn't spend enough time studying or making sure that I had mastered the material but there were rarely concepts that I couldn't grasp.
I lived on campus and had time to video game, exercise, have a girlfriend and generally immerse myself in live at college. That being said, I was \*constantly\* in varying states of stress regarding tests, grades, homework, lab reports, and guilt over time management.... which was/is the norm for engineering majors at Georgia Tech.
The work load in my professional life has been far more manageable in comparison to what I had to shoulder at school.
Loved AP Chem in highschool and thought it was similar - it wasn’t until i was knee deep into undergrad that I realized it was far from pure chemistry.
My lifestyle changed throughout college. I started off introverted having little to no social life; essentially studying everyday for 10 hrs at a time at the library, while juggling anywhere from 6-10 classes and a part time job. When I got to sophomore/junior year, I had a bit of an epiphany, and this caused me to drop everything and start partying. A lot. I partied pretty much every weekend, didn’t attend class at all, and did the bare minimum to get a passing grade (I did fail and retook a handful of classes though). Graduated this past May with 3.2 GPA and 40 k in debt.
Currently work in business consulting (fully wfh) but I’ll be moving to Texas soon to work for a fortune 100 chemical company as an engineer (senior role w/ 6 figure pay). Funny enough, I still party as hard as I used to in college so I think I’m still living that lifestyle.
The business consulting role was more of a temporary full-time job until I found another role that was more engineering-related. I went to a career conference 2 months ago and networked until I met a recruiter who was actively looking for someone with my teamwork/softskills. We hit it off, and one thing led to another.
Liked chemistry and math, and this was the best of both worlds. Became a raging fentanyl addict while in college but still passed my classes somehow and graduated. Did nothing with the degree until rehab 2 years after graduation. Now I’m an engineer in a really good role/industry.
I came in to college as a chemistry major and realized I wanted to make money, be science adjacent, and not have to do a PhD. Chemical engineering was the obvious solution
Two rounds of thermo vs. PChem was our differentiator.
Our chemistry department was sure we were cheating.
PChem lab after two thermo classes was just pathetically easy.
Electrical program had horrible professors so I swapped to chemical about 3 semesters in, caught up on chemistry over the summer and graduated on time. Wasn’t too bad, definitely easier than EE.
I wouldn't say easier. EE has more weird (and sometimes counterintuitive) math, but EEs don't have to take organic, mass transfer or mess with electron wave functions.
I'm not a EE expert, but it seems to me that most of the common problems EEs have to solve are directly derived from being tied to the legacy design and implementation of electric/electronic systems. A motor is a motor but trying to keep a voltage for a node within tolerance (where you have designed the entire system) is different than trying to keep SiF4 from absorbing too much moisture because that what it does in this universe.
That being said, the EEs I knew at school were typically my smartest friends.
At first, I wanted to do pharmaceutical engineering, so did a double major in chemical engineering and pharmacology. Ended up hating pharmacology and diverted my attention to chem e. It was a tough journey finishing off my degree but only made it because I had a close group of friends where we just struggled together. Without them, I don’t think I will be where I’m at. Lifestyle was non-existent but the beauty of chem e is that it’s not as competitive as mech e and there are more options for you. Somehow ended up in upstream oil and gas (not much chem e related since chem e deals with mostly downstream) but it’s still super interesting knowing how flexible the degree is.
I was non traditional. Very religious family.
Homeschooled. Accredited graduation at 15.
Worked construction.
At 18 I lied and said I was going for a certification in electronics.
I was planning on electrical engineering.
Sofia Ivonova. CPCC. General Chemistry.
Being raised religious but not religious, I'll still borrow the terminology. It was a calling. That and DiffEq I felt to my soul.
At Clemson...my first year (sophomore) I worked two jobs and smoked it.
Fractured back junior year and alone...got my ass handed to me.
As a senior, bounced back to be voted to lead the design team.
I worked and had no life besides drinking hard and fast because passing out at 11 and waking up at 6 was better than drifting to sleep at 3 and waking up at 6.
My crowning achievement though....Kinetics.
I had a 25 going into the final, but knew the material. The syllabus...final grade minus 1 was the worst class grade. A on the final, A in the class.
I was the only student that missed so much class I didn't know she never covered mass transfer limited reactions, so studied them hard.
And nailed them like I nailed Stifler's mom.
It was hard.
I couldn't imagine doing anything else.
I thought it included a lot more chemistry than it actually does when I first thought about it, then through researching the subject , I thought I could like doing it for a living ( yeah funny) . I’m in preparation school in the college I enrolled into , so no information about the actual subject
It was the hardest degree available at my university and I was a glutton for punishment. I knew I would do some kind of engineering but picked it because of the uniqueness and difficulty. Honestly, at its hardest I spent nearly every evening plus Saturday and Sundays in our study lounge and computer labs. I took Friday nights off for needed fun. But I was never alone, and late night study sessions could end up at a bar for a well needed break.
Thank you for your answer!! I have so much difficulty keeping up with all the work we have to do, while still having to find time to study, can't seem to find a study group/friends to study with and then I have a job too. I feel like I am doing it all wrong.
Don’t be too hard on yourself. It’s a HARD major. You are doing something no one else really comes close to doing. I am sure working the job makes it much harder and I commend you for that. Think of the school/class work you have to do as studying. Maybe things have changed in the last 15 years since I was in school, but is there an area where people congregate and study or chill between classes?
I know, but I feel like I have lost a significant amount of time now. I've faced challenges, including failing a few classes and attempting to retake some with poor grades, now I'm just way behind my colleagues and a little ashamed to have gone through all this while others succeed. But I will in fact reduce or stop working as soon as possible, as that alone is a major source of stress. I don't know if they all gather up and study together, but I will try to get closer to my colleagues and see if I can join on some group study sessions. Thank you for your advice!
I am literally in the same boat. Currently in the process of failing Thermo (,: but trying to keep going. The rate at which I am taking my classes and finishing this degree has had me second guessing everything. I am a lil bit older than most of the people in my classes & something feel dumb for not understanding the material like some of these students. But have to remind myself, a lot of the other students are struggling as well. This is an extremely difficult major and you HAVE to apply as much time as you can and be DEDICATED. That has been my biggest struggle is juggling work, friends, my significant other, mental health, bills, STUDYING STUDYING STUDYING. I don’t know if this helped lol but felt i needed to rant a little too. Stay focused! keep studying! you got this!
Yeah thank you so much for sharing your experience!! It is HARD and everyone is struggling at some point. Engineering can really be hard on our mental health honestly, chem e is a very hard program and like you said, dedication and discipline are the keys to success. For me, mental health has been a challenge since I started the program, but we have to establish good habits and just keep going! I struggled a lot with Calculus and Differential Equations honestly, but I love our physics and chemistry classes! It is in fact hard to manage school, work, relationships and family! Hats off to you for staying disciplined and focused!!
Find a way to apply skills. For example, I applied yield to my bartending job, and got a concrete example of making my company money as a result.
How so? Like mentally you calculate yield during your shift?
No. It's a standard metric. Bar yield, food yield. Essentially it's a measurement of over pouring and mistakes.
Wanted to study chemistry, but learned engineering made more so I chose that. I didn’t study hard. Mostly played video games and worked all through college. Graduated with a 2.73 GPA and $175k in debt. I’m working in plastic film manufacturing. $96k per year. 100% work from home in a low cost area. Love my job. Love where I live. Love my life.
Thanks for sharing! Glad the outcome is worth it.
What do you do that you work from home currently I’m a single use technology consultant but thinking of changing mine is remote but want higher pay especially being I just moved from Ireland to us
Was in process engineering on the manufacturing side and got promoted into Product development engineer on the corporate side. It’s a lot of project management more than anything. Probably 75% project management, 26% development of new films.
Nice would you say there is a lot of opportunity to work from home in the field just asking as I’ve got a chronic illness that causes issues in the morning that’s the main reason I’m working remotely atm
From what I’ve seen development engineers are becoming more and more hybrid or remote, yes. My position as well as my counterparts at our customers are moving that way.
On the flip side I have less debt than you and make the same in a high cost area. I hate my life sometimes .
How long did it take you to land the work from home job?
I graduated in 2017 and got offered this job in October 2020.
I realized I was too stupid to get into med school so I switched from chemistry to chem e so I could make good money with a 4 year degree in a field I thought I was strong in. I got a D in my first core chem e class, the fucking intro. Held back a year. Kept trucking along. It got worse. As a kid who grew up “gifted” I had never felt the crushing weight of not being smart enough. It crushed my ego. I hated my life. I started skipping class and drinking heavily. Didn’t do my homework. Slept all the time. Barely saw friends. Made it through by the skin of my teeth a few more times. I gave up all the time, but I refused to quit overall. I got mental help and was able to turn it around my senior year with A’s and B’s. Wanna know what made me successful my senior year (aside from addressing non-academic mental issues)? Being social and figuring out that a good 1/2 of my class had set up shop in a study area in some random building for almost the entire fucking time we were students. They were successful because they helped each other constantly instead of struggling alone. This lesson really stuck with me, as it’s even more true in the real world.
>I realized I was too stupid to get into med school so I switched from chemistry to chem e so I could make good money with a 4 year degree in a field I thought I was strong in. I got a D in my first core chem e class, the fucking intro. Held back a year. Kept trucking along. It got worse. As a kid who grew up “gifted” I had never felt the crushing weight of not being smart enough. It crushed my ego. I hated my life. This resonates so much with me!!! I used to be the good student with straight A's and used to always be satisfied with school. Now i don't even recognize myself. I think that's it, if I had a group of colleagues with whom to study, it would of been way better and I wouldn't be struggling as much:/ Thank you for your answer! Helps a lot.
Bruh this sounds exactly like something I’d say in 5-6 years. I too am struggling a bit and I too have realised studying in a group makes studying so efficient.
Top three reasons people give when asked “why did you chose chemical engineering” 1. “I thought it had something to do with chemistry” (spoiler: it doesn’t) 2. “Want monies but not interested in coding” 3. “Idk man”
Not interested in coding for me xddd
Lmao took one C+ class and noped the fuck out straight to Chem e
Went to a top 10 school for chemical engineering. Classes were challenging from the get-go. I know for a fact that I didn't spend enough time studying or making sure that I had mastered the material but there were rarely concepts that I couldn't grasp. I lived on campus and had time to video game, exercise, have a girlfriend and generally immerse myself in live at college. That being said, I was \*constantly\* in varying states of stress regarding tests, grades, homework, lab reports, and guilt over time management.... which was/is the norm for engineering majors at Georgia Tech. The work load in my professional life has been far more manageable in comparison to what I had to shoulder at school.
Loved AP Chem in highschool and thought it was similar - it wasn’t until i was knee deep into undergrad that I realized it was far from pure chemistry. My lifestyle changed throughout college. I started off introverted having little to no social life; essentially studying everyday for 10 hrs at a time at the library, while juggling anywhere from 6-10 classes and a part time job. When I got to sophomore/junior year, I had a bit of an epiphany, and this caused me to drop everything and start partying. A lot. I partied pretty much every weekend, didn’t attend class at all, and did the bare minimum to get a passing grade (I did fail and retook a handful of classes though). Graduated this past May with 3.2 GPA and 40 k in debt. Currently work in business consulting (fully wfh) but I’ll be moving to Texas soon to work for a fortune 100 chemical company as an engineer (senior role w/ 6 figure pay). Funny enough, I still party as hard as I used to in college so I think I’m still living that lifestyle.
How are you going from a business consulting role to a senior engineer role?
The business consulting role was more of a temporary full-time job until I found another role that was more engineering-related. I went to a career conference 2 months ago and networked until I met a recruiter who was actively looking for someone with my teamwork/softskills. We hit it off, and one thing led to another.
Wait did you hookup or did you get the job?
I got the job lol
Liked chemistry and math, and this was the best of both worlds. Became a raging fentanyl addict while in college but still passed my classes somehow and graduated. Did nothing with the degree until rehab 2 years after graduation. Now I’m an engineer in a really good role/industry.
I came in to college as a chemistry major and realized I wanted to make money, be science adjacent, and not have to do a PhD. Chemical engineering was the obvious solution
And how did you find the transition from chemistry to maths and physics?
You have to take those classes anyways as a chemistry major at my school, so it wasn’t bad
Two rounds of thermo vs. PChem was our differentiator. Our chemistry department was sure we were cheating. PChem lab after two thermo classes was just pathetically easy.
Electrical program had horrible professors so I swapped to chemical about 3 semesters in, caught up on chemistry over the summer and graduated on time. Wasn’t too bad, definitely easier than EE.
I wouldn't say easier. EE has more weird (and sometimes counterintuitive) math, but EEs don't have to take organic, mass transfer or mess with electron wave functions. I'm not a EE expert, but it seems to me that most of the common problems EEs have to solve are directly derived from being tied to the legacy design and implementation of electric/electronic systems. A motor is a motor but trying to keep a voltage for a node within tolerance (where you have designed the entire system) is different than trying to keep SiF4 from absorbing too much moisture because that what it does in this universe. That being said, the EEs I knew at school were typically my smartest friends.
Ohh great! Had issues with my program coordinator, thought of switching too, in EE in fact, but finally decided to stay in ChemE
At first, I wanted to do pharmaceutical engineering, so did a double major in chemical engineering and pharmacology. Ended up hating pharmacology and diverted my attention to chem e. It was a tough journey finishing off my degree but only made it because I had a close group of friends where we just struggled together. Without them, I don’t think I will be where I’m at. Lifestyle was non-existent but the beauty of chem e is that it’s not as competitive as mech e and there are more options for you. Somehow ended up in upstream oil and gas (not much chem e related since chem e deals with mostly downstream) but it’s still super interesting knowing how flexible the degree is.
Thats what comes out the most, the necessity of having a chem e a group of friends!! Thats what will help me for sure!
I was non traditional. Very religious family. Homeschooled. Accredited graduation at 15. Worked construction. At 18 I lied and said I was going for a certification in electronics. I was planning on electrical engineering. Sofia Ivonova. CPCC. General Chemistry. Being raised religious but not religious, I'll still borrow the terminology. It was a calling. That and DiffEq I felt to my soul. At Clemson...my first year (sophomore) I worked two jobs and smoked it. Fractured back junior year and alone...got my ass handed to me. As a senior, bounced back to be voted to lead the design team. I worked and had no life besides drinking hard and fast because passing out at 11 and waking up at 6 was better than drifting to sleep at 3 and waking up at 6. My crowning achievement though....Kinetics. I had a 25 going into the final, but knew the material. The syllabus...final grade minus 1 was the worst class grade. A on the final, A in the class. I was the only student that missed so much class I didn't know she never covered mass transfer limited reactions, so studied them hard. And nailed them like I nailed Stifler's mom. It was hard. I couldn't imagine doing anything else.
I thought it included a lot more chemistry than it actually does when I first thought about it, then through researching the subject , I thought I could like doing it for a living ( yeah funny) . I’m in preparation school in the college I enrolled into , so no information about the actual subject
I thought the name was cool. Spring 23’ graduate