Archive for March, 2010

It seems like since I have come to college, I have become less sure of what I want to do when I graduate.  I never imagined that I would be one of the many who dropped engineering, or ever be part of the statistic of the average college student changing majors 3 times, but here I am  at the crossroads of a mathematics and a chemical engineering degree.  I’ve put an incredible amount of thought into this, more than I ever have, as it may be one of the biggest decisions I’m having to make so far, talked to my parents a lot, and spoke to professors in math about the program for awhile.  A lot of it comes down to what I want from life, be it happiness or money or flexibility or low-stress, and certainly none of things are seperate. In my mind, it looks like this:

Which path to choose...

If you can’t see, click on the picture haha, one side is a chemical factory and the other is a crazy old professor teaching math.

Why I have to decide now

Why I need to choose a mathematics major or a chemical engineering major, and not keep both, is because in the next two years of doing both…my course load is going to get very intense, and I will probably hate my life during my junior year. I don’t see a math major being hugely attractive to chemical engineering, nor do I see any need to have a chemical engineering degree to teach math.  If I keep chemical engineering and decide to go to grad school for math, that is going to make it more difficult because if I focused on math now, I could surely keep my GPA higher to have a better chance to get into grad school.  If I’m doing chemical engineering, advanced calculus and modern algebra are going to kill me. Also, course request for the fall is going on now though the 30th…

But it’s not that big of a decision anyway, right?

Wrong. Pretty much what I decide to do now is going to determine what I end up doing for the rest of life, and that’s important stuff! When deciding, the easiest thing to do is not decide and continue with both, but again that is not going to help either.  When I’m working my ass of in grad school, or my beeper goes off at home and I have to go back into the factory…I’m going to have to think back to this point.  The pressure just makes it even harder to pick.

What scares me about both

In Chemical Engineering, most of the graduates go into petrochemicals. Some go into pharmaceuticals, some go into green stuff, and a few go to grad school. Those are the facts. I definitely do not want to work in a factory, it doesn’t really seem appealing when I do have so many options and my dad, who did the factory thing, said it’s the one thing to avoid. I don’t see any intellectual freedom in that, and no doubt the hours are long.  Even with the other options available to the chemical engineering graduate, there is no avoiding the 8-5 workday, 5 days a week… (actually, I heard Eastmont did 4 10hr days, and 3 off but that’s besides the point).  Working on the green aspects of ChE involves working either with or for the FDA, attempting to measure, determine effects of, and regulate the chemicals in our environments, at the workplace, and under our kitchen sinks.  And sure, I can be doing something to help the environment, but I don’t really want to be dealing with regulations all the time either….doesn’t sound like much fun.  The most exciting side would be working on renewable energies…

As a mathematics major, both my parents and I have learned that there are job opportunities with an undergraduate degree, but the scariest part about this career path is that it relies on me getting into grad school.  I’m getting by in Calculus of Several Variables, and I got made it through Proofs, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to teach those classes.  I can rock basic calculus, but this upper level stuff is really theoretical and it’s difficult to see line integrals in 3 space in my head…but I do think that the problem may be that I’m not really devoting enough time to the HW to understand it…and switching into math would help me concentrate on those courses.

Will I regret two years of wasted engineering courses?

Definitely not! Right now, it’s going to be hard to keep working in my classes that aren’t going to be useful to me anymore…but living in Galileo and meeting so many friends through engineering was something I never would have had coming in as a math major.  The “engineering mindset” of building and tinkering with stuff all the time doesn’t have to change, and I won’t lose any of that if I’m not an engineering major.  I just looked, and after this semester I can pick up a chemistry minor with one more course for a total of 22 credits in Chemistry, which may be something I would pursue.  If I can find a fun sounding chemistry course, I’ll take it haha.

My decision

Right now, I have chosen to drop chemical engineering and plan my courses for the fall in mathematics!  This is still not entirely set in stone…but I have done my homework, talking to quite a few people in the mathematics department, and am excited to be a math major!  My courseload is going to lighten significantly, and there may be some points where I’m looking for courses…I’m definitely going to try to get into “Brewing Science” haha, I’ve heard it’s pretty awesome, and maybe I’ll try to take “Mysterious Mushrooms and Molds” which I’ve heard is pretty awesome.  I am definitely going to try to get into some research in the fall, which I think is going to be the most helpful thing in making sure that I want to pursue mathematics, because at the university level, in any tenure track positions, research is big must.  And, it’ll be pretty necessary to get into grad school. My fall is going to look like this: Modern Algebra, Linear Algebra, Undergraduate Research, and Brewing Science.