Will Chemical Engineering be a valid career 4 yrs from now with automation and machine learning

Maybe, but don't worry about it.

Let's put it this way, if the robots take over all Chem E jobs in the next 4 years, they are also going to take over all jobs that require a uni degree.

Do you really think that the robots are going to be able to design a plant or a process but not write a legal brief, analyze international affairs, direct a movie, or even build a better robot?

Your choice is not between Chem E and another degree. Your choice is between a uni education and sitting on your ___ playing videogames, waiting for your robot overlords to come.

ArnoldWilder wrote:

Don't get me wrong, I love my cat but that menace can be so annoying on weekend mornings. It would come lick my face with his scratchy tongue that he pleases his bells with and would insist until I woke up and fed him. With the feeder I can finally rest.

How dare he do that! What a monster!

Obviously OP's question is old, but I think it's worth responding to for anyone who may be attracted to the thread.

A big part of Chemical Engineering is process management/development/improvement. You're really an industrial engineer whose education leaned slightly more on the physics behind distillation columns than Lean Six Sigma. The considerations you would have to make in a ChemE career are very similar to the ones you would make when speccing new equipment. I have a BS in ChemE and fell in to machinery integration/validation. More or less I'm the guy who decides which jobs to replace, how I plan to do so, and what I need to do to make sure the transfer is smooth.

That being said, if I was being honest I think a MechE degree gives you a better base skillset for this career. ChemE is a little too focused on multiphysics which you very rarely have to interface with (and when you truly need to, it's better to bring in a contractor with 20 years experience than a 22 year old grad).

Certainly, I'm a mechanical engineer by the way. The unusual thing about Chemical Engineering is that it is a fairly small job market and job opportunities tend to go up and down with things like Oil Prices or other variables which I don't pretend to understand. Certain types of companies need chemical engineers while other engineering disciplines like ME and EE see demand from a broader cross-section of industry. If you want to worry about something involving engineering and job security you should look into the monthly wages of an engineer living in Pune India and the number of engineering graduates pumped out each year by universities in India

CrispyChicken wrote:

Many people with a chemical engineering degree do not work as a chemical engineer. However, by earning a chemical engineering degree you demonstrate the ability to master difficult subject matter, manage time well, and in general be a potentially solid, dependable employee able to take on many tasks and projects. Chemical engineering is likely the most difficult undergraduate major. I'd hire a chemical engineering major over a gender studies or journalism major for just about any job.

Alternatively, you could be an Internet Influencer.

I agree. My degree is EE but I always KNEW ChemE was the difficult major. You will be valuable with this degree and there will be many open doors for you that won't close because of 'automation'.

I think that in 4 years everything will be about the same level as it is now. Yes, many people know that now the technology is at a high level, but only the most modern technologies can replace people, which are very expensive both to buy and to maintain. Few people think about this, but it is often unprofitable for businesses to buy these automation technologies in 2021. Now it is much more profitable to use people for this purpose. My friend works in this field and he says that he has seen several similar machines, but still even here there are not so many options for automation https://www.automation-usa.com/

It will be, at least 10 years further because even thought we're getting more and more into robotic process automation, we're still going too slow, for the century we're in.

I remember seeing this thread 3 years ago, I remember the memory of having seen it when it got bumped months ago

We're always "5 years away" from losing jobs to automation

CrispyChicken wrote:

Many people with a chemical engineering degree do not work as a chemical engineer. However, by earning a chemical engineering degree you demonstrate the ability to master difficult subject matter, manage time well, and in general be a potentially solid, dependable employee able to take on many tasks and projects. Chemical engineering is likely the most difficult undergraduate major. I'd hire a chemical engineering major over a gender studies or journalism major for just about any job.

Alternatively, you could be an Internet Influencer.

How about a job requiring the worker to talk face to face with 'ordinary' people all day long, be able to carry a conversation with people from all walks of life, and demonstrate some sort of empathy?

We are seeing more interest in machine learning and AI, but those applications are not mature yet, so if anything there are more exciting opportunities in these fields for the foreseeable future.

If you're in the STEM field you're more likely to lose your job to outsourcing than automation.

Yes, right now high skill/high knowledge American workers are superior to their counterparts in say India or the Phillipines, but I don't see any reason why that difference needs to persist. This knowledge isn't proprietary. No reason a bunch of very smart third-world workers couldn't be as good at your job as you are - oh and at a large discount. The only real advantage you'd have is understanding American culture but even that can be taught.

As an engineer you have been trained to solve problems. Just because your degree was in chemical engineering doesn't mean that your career will always be related to chemistry.

I find it hard to imagine a world so dependent on new materials/processes will not need humans to take the ivory tower thinking of academics down to applications solving real problems.

Unless you get married to a very narrow field within Chemical Engineering, I think you will be well suited to play important roles in a broad range of businesses.

I think it is to simple to look at a single degree. In the future being in the niche between two things are more important. Take chem and something else. You dont have to get both grades from an expensive school or get good grades i both. I have three bachelor degrees and still going. I easily get jobs in healthcare as a nurse, nurse manager or in health informatics but also UX design, ux research, different agencies etc. Have a ba in nursing, one in informatics, one in pol science and soon getting a master in digital economy and leadership. I just study for fun while working.

Bottom point is: study, work and study again.