Can I be a chemical engineer?

Question

Sorry in advance for the extensiveness of this question...I just have a lot of concerns and I'm trying to voice them accurately... So, I love the idea of a liberal arts education-like at colleges such as Williams, Amherst, Middlebury, Bowdoin, but there's one itsy bitsy problem: none of them offer chemical engineering. I plan to study abroad and also study romance languages so liberal arts colleges appeal to me. The liberal arts colleges offer chemistry though. Is it possible to get a B.S. or B.A. in chemistry from a prestigious liberal arts and then attain a major in chemical engineering from a different reputable school? Will a prestigious graduate school such as yale accept me from a liberal arts? Can I still hope to pursue chemical engineering if I go to a liberal arts school?!

Answer 1

If you want to be a chemical engineer, go to a school with a good chemical engineering program. All language departments are pretty much the same. Not the sciences.

Just because a school is "prestigious", it doesn't mean you will get the best education in your field. Harvard might be a "brand name" college, but their geology department is awful.

Answer 2

At the University of Illinois, where I studied chemical engineering, the first year was essentially identical for both chemical engineering and chemistry programs. During the second year, we took the same chemistry courses as the chemistry majors (organic chemistry, quantitative analysis, etc) but ChE (chemical engineering) required additional math courses. The third and fourth years, in addition to the chemistry courses required for a chemistry major (such as physical chemistry, instrumental methods of analysis, etc) we had our core ChE classes. like. introduction to chemical engineering, fluid dynamics, thermodynamics (not the chemistry version either. These were thermodynamics applied to mechanical and chemical processes. much more in depth - and I've taken both the chemistry and ChE versions fyi), mass transfer, heat transfer, process controls, process design, reactor design, kinetics, unit operations, + 300 level math, chemistry, and engineering electives such as quantum mechanics, inorganic chemistry, linear algebra, advanced fluid mechanics, microelectronic process and our senior project. I may have missed a couple. it's been a few years.

Anyway, my point behind rattling all this off and my message to you is this. Where I went to school, which was considered one of the top chemical engineering colleges in the country, a Bachelors Degree (our ChE department was in liberal arts and sciences so it was a B.A degree) in ChE contained a B.A. in chemistry. In other words I essentially have a B.A. in chemistry. It isn't the other way around though. a B.A. in chemistry does not grant you a B.A. in ChE. you're short about 2 years of ChE classes.

Now that said, there really isn't any reason you can't find a school that offers ChE in a LAS department. I did. look around. They're out there. and U of I is highly respectable university fyi. So could I have gone to yale for a PhD in chemistry. sure. Like all graduate schools, they consider grades as well as school. Could I have gone to MIT for a PhD in ChE? yes.

One other thing, in my humble opinion, I think you're probably getting hung up on the B.A. vs B.S. labels and on the term "prestigous". When you're out in the real world looking for a real job, MIT vs U of I, is less important than bachelors vs masters vs PhD. Which is about equal to your "field of expertise". Ie. What your thesis in college was. What you have spent your time working on. How does your background fit into my companies business? etc. And, again in my humble opinion, foreign languages are a great thing to know. But less relevant than your choice of schools.

good luck.

by the way, "think richly".....

the University of Illinois does have an engineering department. and a LAS department. Chemical engineering is in the LAS department because of our closeness to chemistry and to ensure our the students well roundedness. And UIUC is currently ranked as number 6 in the united states for chemical engineering. Overall the engineering and technical departments are ranked as number 3 in the world. Seems to be a well respected prestigious school with chemical engineering in LAS.....

Answer 3

The simple answer is .. "No.".. If you go to a Liberal Arts School, you are not going to get a decent program in Chemical Engineering.

So, if your goal is to get Chemical Enginering degree (B.S.), you should go to a decent Engineering and Science focused school. Some of these schools even offer decent liberal arts programs. So, I'd say you should go and find a science focused school instead of an arts focused school.