Is it possible to work as a Chem Eng. while holding chemistry degree? Hey, i have a chemistry degree but i am curious about working as a chemical engineer in a factory. Is it possible? I saw some che engineers who works as a chemist in the lab. So what about chemists ability? hope this is the right place for opening up this thread.
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I am a chemE and at graduation the dean said, "congratulations you don't know enough chemistry to be chemist and you don't know enough engineering to be engineers, you are now chemical engineers". ha-ha Chemical Engineers are frequently involved in process engineering and as such have a big value in manufacturing. ChemE have some chemistry but the bulk of our education is in processing. Lots of thermo, process control, mass transfer and fluid flow. I have seen in my experience where even a person with a physics degree take on a position as a process engineer - I do not think that worked out so well, but he is still in the position, so what do I know. So to the bottom line, finally, depending on the job type (the petroleum industry would only hire a ChemE) you may be able to get a job but you will be at a disadvantage and will have to do a lot of on the job training. As a chemist you could probably get a ChemE degree in a 1 1/2 to 2 years if you are really interested. Good luck
When I was an undergraduate at CalTech (back in the 12th century), the campus joke (which was really not very funny) was that the Chemical Engineering majors had the worst life of all of us. They had to take all the really hard chemistry classes, and also all the really hard engineering classes.
