Is chemical engineering a hard major?

Answer 1

There are a couple of ways to answer your question. Engineering in general is difficult and that can be seen in the number of people that drop out or change major before their second year of college. As far as the difficulty of chemical engineering over other disciplines, (other engineers may disagree with me), it is not any more difficult than any other field.
What makes any engineering discipline hard is the amount of study versus how much you enjoy it.
I am a Masters Degreed Chemical Engineer, who knew that the chemical manufacturing industry is where I wanted to work as I entered college. As a result, I enjoyed the upper level class work even though it was difficult (my grades would prove that). But where most people find engineering in general difficult is the first couple of years when you have a high class load before you even get to your major. If you are willing to get through that, then in your junior year the classes actually apply to your major and become 'fun'. See the attached link for salary info