Is Chemical Engineering a hard major?

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If you don't have a love for chemistry I wouldn't go for it. If you do by all means but most engineering majors are fairly rigorous and require a fair amount of work unless you are truly gifted at math and science. Chemistry is a difficult subject for virtually everyone especially when you get in to college where it becomes infinitely more complex than HS. There are people who love chemistry and ace everything in it but they are rare and more than likely you would know it by now. Plus ChemE just seems like a very boring major.

sunnydays wrote:

By reputation, ChemE was one of the toughest major at Berkeley (even more than EECS), because while everyone else was taking four class on average, they had to take five. ChemE classes were "undervalued" at only three units each.

I was in a different engineering area at a good school, and the consensus there was the same. Chem Engineering was probably the most difficult undergrad major.

I have a BS in ChemE.

I was very good at math and always enjoyed science. I passed the AP exam in physics my senior year in highschool. I aced calculus, general chemistry and physics in college.

My ChemE classes were something else. I struggled at times. Barely made it through, really. It wasn't any one thing as much as the sheer magnitude of the subject. I was definitely humbled. There were many who dropped out and changed their majors to something else. It's not impossible, but it does take a certain amount of talent and some level of dedication.

I would encourage anyone with the pre-reqs to give it a shot. You can always fall back on something else and most other majors will seem relatively easy. Not just the material itself, but the course-load as well. Like someone else said above, ChemE classes are definitely undervalued in terms of credit hours. By that I mean a 3 credit hour course is more like 4 or 5 in terms of actual work.

Good luck my friends.

It's not that hard. I would say biology is harder than ChemE.

I'm currently doing a PhD in chemical engineering. Getting an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering isn't all that difficult - anybody that can make a 4 or a 5 on the Calc BC in exam in high school is intellectually capable of passing the classes with at least a C. On most engineering exams, a grade of 50% or so on the final exam will get you a C in the class and there are typically 1 or 2 "freebie" questions on a 5 or 6 question final. Getting As in chemical engineering courses is very difficult. To earn an A, you'll have to nail the questions that test challenging concepts. You'll be competing against the some of the best international students at the university, whom tend to gravitate towards technical degrees with decent job security.

The most important advice I can give is to pursue what you're interested in. This means the nuts and bolts of the subject... not its potential applications. That is, pick chemical engineering because you like applied math... not because you want to work on alternative energy.

Make a realistic assessment of your intelligence. Is your IQ closer to 110 or 130? If it's closer to 110, consider an easier major. You're better off as a happy 3.3 GPA finance major than a struggling 2.6 GPA chemical engineering major...

I teach chem to chemEng students.

They tend to have more/better math background than chemists, but many aren't particularly bright.

The dumber you are the more work you will need to put in...

I'm currently in the midst of my 4th year of Chem Eng. Coming out of high school, calculus was actually my worst grade in all of high school...and yet I still figured that without an A in calc I'd still be able to manage fine. I didn't take any advanced placement classes in high school, and sort of choose chem eng. on a whim since I liked chemistry and had the prerequisites.

First year hit me like a truck (nearly flunked out), but the playing field started to level out by the midpoint of second year for me because nobody could rely solely on what they learned in high school, and the disparities based on which region/school system everyone had come from started to disappear. I had one semester of physics and was done with it, thankfully. However, math is still my weak spot and it definitely brings me down on in the class both in how quickly I learn things and how well I can execute on exams.

I guess my point is that you don't have to be a math whiz if it's something you're passionate about, but it helps a lot. I've had to work really hard learning even small concepts sometimes to bridge the gap, but it's 4th year and I'm still around with the people I started with, and dozens of my original classmates (no exaggeration) are not.

Good luck!

If have you have at least average intelligence, a good math background and apply yourself, you should be ok. I am assuming you did pretty good in your H.S. algebra, calc and chem classes and not just passed tests, but really understand the basics. The aforementioned will get you by in most CE programs, but the programs that emphasize a lot of theoretical physics will get you. TP just does not click with a lot of people no matter how hard you study.

TrackCoach wrote:

If have you have at least average intelligence, a good math background and apply yourself, you should be ok. I am assuming you did pretty good in your H.S. algebra, calc and chem classes and not just passed tests, but really understand the basics. The aforementioned will get you by in most CE programs, but the programs that emphasize a lot of theoretical physics will get you. TP just does not click with a lot of people no matter how hard you study.

This simply isn't the case. Average intelligence won't get you through ChemE... you need to be about 1 SD above the mean to make it, 1.5 SD to do well

You need more math and chem than physics. You'll use differential equations for thermo and fluid mechanics. We had 2 semesters of Gen Chem plus labs, 2 semesters of P Chem and 2 semesters of Organic. The P Chem is needed for thermo, kinetics and heat and mass transfer. Only needed 2 semesters of physics, dynamics being more important than statics.