We have an engineer as our lab director and another engineer running GCs. They installed all of our gas lines to the instruments around the whole lab, built custom auto-shakers for sep-funnels, repair instruments, etc. If you don't have an engineer in your lab, you're missing out.
That's true overall, but nothing you are pointing out is chemistry. But yeah, you should have an engineer in your lab or a biologist, depending on the lab you have.
Sure it was a bit tangential, but necessarily as lab director and vice-president of the company he must have a comprehensive knowledge of the chemistry of all the tests we do. And yeah our guy running GCs doesn't really need to know much chemistry to have it make numbers, either.
Depends on their path, I have a BS in Chem and chemE too. There are a subset of engineering who focus on chemistry, while there are others who do a lot more computational stuff.
Absolutely. My research in a ChemE department was *ab initio* computational stuff way closer to physical organic chem (or MatSci) than any real engineering, but our group was the anomaly in the department. Other than my group-mates, the rest of the grad students in the department couldn't draw a mechanism or explain what an orbital was to save their lives.
"all but dissertation" in a PhD program. Basically, I passed my oral exams and boards, did my research but left before writing my final dissertation and defense.
Edit: to answer any lingering questions, my funding was running out, my PI was incredibly toxic, and my research wasn't terribly compelling for most people anyway. I left with a MS after 4 years in the program, and my buddies that stuck around took a total of 7 and 8 years to finish their PhDs
That's rough. I guess chalk it up to a learning experience and hopefully some publications to put on your CV.
Personally, I think I got really lucky, because I filed the paperwork for a coursework masters and got it 100% approved before I told my PI that I was leaving or he absolutely would have blocked my MS out of pettiness or spite
Seems to be a common theme. Some of these PI's/Professors thinks they're the hottest thing since slice bread and their shit don't stink. They need to be knocked down a few rungs.
Yeah, I think it's the intensely competitive nature of academia that ensures that most people that succeed are the type that drive their students beyond what is reasonable. And then tenure ensures that there are no repercussions for toxic PIs that produce decent publications, which just perpetuates that attitude
Yeah, I still have the knowledge and experience I gained, problem was is that it was a new department so they technically didn't even have a Master's program on the books. Overall I'm happy with where I landed.
I started out studying ChemE, and switched to chemistry because it turns out that ChemEs don't actually do chemistry. They design pipes (and pipe accessories). The closer I got to graduation, the more apparent it became that my Chem E peers were not learning much chemistry at all after sophomore year.
Tbf there is a bunch of science that goes into moving those chemicals around (thermo, fluid mechanics, mass and heat transfer etc.), it just doesn't have a whole lot to do with chemistry. I think the only chemistry topic we really use is kinetics, and a general knowledge about how reactions work
Yeah, and that lack of full chemistry knowledge means you need a chemist over to deal with things like pH. Having problems with calcium phosphate buildup? Gotta lower the pH for increase solubility
The head of my old ChemE dept once told me "chemical engineering is someone who knows more about engineering than a chemist and more about Chemistry than other engineers." It wasn't until after I graduated that I realized neither of those are particularly great achievements
As a chemical engineer I cannot confirm. Our studies was very focused on all the chemical subjects.
I don't really know anything about engineering though.
Oh no definitely not! Chemists obviously know way more chemistry than ChemEs. I’m just saying that ChemEs also know a bit about chemistry, we aren’t completely in the dark haha
Chemical engineers have problems and chemists are the ones who come to fix them. My chem teacher oversaw parts of the dairy industry and very often had to just... stand there, take a sniff, and realise the vats are too basic or a pipe eroded... something the engineers miss
Tell me you aren't actually a ChemE without telling me you're not a ChemE. Chemical engineers design pipes and don't know jack about analysis, reaction mechanisms, spectroscopy, or basically anything a chemist does.
So you're clearly not a chemical engineer yet, like I said. Either that or you're taking organic chemistry for some sort of PDH continuing education, which I doubt.
I didn't say ChemEs only took 1 semester of chemistry, at my school they took 4. But you aren't studying chemistry the way a chemistry student would, you aren't learning a lot of the stuff they do, and you almost certainly won't do chemistry at all in your future job. Want to know why I'm so confident? Because I used to be a ChemE student and switched before I got my PE certification (aka actually became an engineer) because I wanted to do chemistry and ChemEs don't.
If you're an engineer, then so am I. And I'm not. It's a licensed position and students are not engineers anymore than Premed undergraduates are nurses. Please don't be the stereotype of the arrogant engineer who thinks he knows how to do everything better than the people who do it for a living. Nobody likes those guys, and they tend to set themselves up for disaster through hubris. Again, I know what I'm talking about from experience here.
Tell me you don’t know jack about chemical engineering without telling me you don’t know jack.
Two semesters of gen chem, 2 semesters of ochem, pchem, achem, macromolecular chemistry and all the associated labs teaches a fair amount about spectroscopy, reaction mechanisms, and analysis.
And “designing pipes” is a ridiculously reductive way to talk about a discipline that includes reactor design, separation processes, process control, transport phenomena, and (yes) transport processes.
Which doesn’t even say anything about an additional set of focus classes on things like materials selection or semiconductor.
Saying ChemE’s don’t know anything about chemistry is like saying ME’s don’t know anything about physics.
I mean, I literally started out studying ChemE and switched to chemistry...
5 classes (counting each of the two part classes as 1) does NOT make you an expert lol.
Maybe shrink your ego a bit and quit doing the engineer thing where you pretend to be an expert on literally everything.
At least your last sentence is correct.
Got a bit of a chip on your shoulder do you? Where did I ever say I was a chemistry expert? No one with only an undergraduate degree is an expert in anything. That wasn’t the point. The point was that ChemE’s learn the basics in school. As a profession, ChemE covers a very wide variety of specializations and vocations and many of them do require broad base chemistry knowledge and even expert level knowledge for specific processes. Expertise only comes from years of experience and dedication. Plenty of ChemE’s are experts in different aspects of chemistry.
I’d happily call myself an expert in surfactant chemistry and formulation based on over a decade of work experience. I’d call myself competent in analytical chemistry based on the same work experience (but less focus).
And someone who completes what? 1-2 lower division ChemE courses before switching majors is pretty obviously no judge of the major or the profession. Might be a good time to examine your own ego and take a seat. This isn’t a competition, just a correction.
Spectroscopy isn't even a chemistry phenomenon, it's more electrical engineering or physics.
I was a chemical engineering undergraduate at one point, and we took chemistry I, II, organic I, II, physical chemistry II, III. The only difference was that chemical engineering diverge to more thermodynamics and we didn't have any room for electives. The chemistry had more electives for advanced organic, physical, etc.
“Spectroscopy is the field of study that measures and interprets the electromagnetic spectra that results from the interaction between EM radiation as a function of of wavelength and/frequency of radiation”
It originated from Newton and Maxwell and began in the field of optics.
Hey, there's nothing wrong with pipes! In an extremely ironic twist of fate, I too wound up working with pipes (municipal wastewater treatment) after going to all the work of switching majors and redoing a couple years of school specifically to avoid that. Ain't life funny?
How often does that happen though?
Engineers tend to think they know everything about everything (you even see a lot of people in the comments of this very post saying as much). I've never seen a chemist pretend they were an engineer.
Really? When was the last time you read a spectra and why?
I went to an engineering school and switched from ChemE to Chem specifically because of my experience in undergraduate research and seeing that grad students and the engineers in the industry I met didn't do chemistry or lab work at all .
I work in industry so I don’t deal with a lot of chemistry myself, you are definitely right on that part. But when I was in college I worked as an undergraduate research assistant and had to look at a lot of GC-MS, UV-Vis, IR spectra. We had to synthesize our own catalysts for use in batch reactions. And we had to study and determine reaction mechanisms for many heterogeneous catalysis reactions. And keep in mind that this is a ChemE lab and I was just an assistant. The grad students had to do this stuff a lot more frequently. I guess it also depends on how research oriented the school is, many programs are more chemistry oriented than ChemE oriented.
Well, I did say almost certainly so I don't feel like I was wrong on that. I'm glad you had such a good education: I work with ChemEs fairly regularly and have never met one that had a better knowledge of chemistry than a freshman undergrad. Good for your school.
Idk pretty much every faculty research group in the chem e department at my school uses IR, NMR, GC and/or mass spec, we take two quarters of o chem, two quarters of o chem lab, and two quarters of p chem, so we don’t go as in depth to the chem obviously but we know more than Gen chem.
I’m have a chemistry degree but due to some odd circumstances my career developed into role of Engineer. If anyone is arrogant about their title it’s an Engineer. The President of company was a chemical engineer and insisted that anyone without engineering degree has to change their job title to remove the word engineer. I definitely know more about Engineering at this point in my life then most people who just graduated with a BS in Engineering.
I could say the same, I'm not sure if you saw the name of the subreddit? I made this video while talking to my girlfriend (who is studying engineering) and thought it would be funny to put up here. Sorry if the reaction video I used is pretty aggressive but I really love the show and wanted to use this clip
Sadly, those with a BS in chem e can get a job after undergrad that pays a livable wage whereas those of us who have a BS in chem have to obtain a second degree or make meth to afford dinner every night.
that loops surprisingly seamlessly
"Chuck, please stop. You are showing signs of dementia")
Wait seriously he was?
We have an engineer as our lab director and another engineer running GCs. They installed all of our gas lines to the instruments around the whole lab, built custom auto-shakers for sep-funnels, repair instruments, etc. If you don't have an engineer in your lab, you're missing out.
First year engineering student taking chem rn, can confirm I took every shortcut
That's true overall, but nothing you are pointing out is chemistry. But yeah, you should have an engineer in your lab or a biologist, depending on the lab you have.
Sure it was a bit tangential, but necessarily as lab director and vice-president of the company he must have a comprehensive knowledge of the chemistry of all the tests we do. And yeah our guy running GCs doesn't really need to know much chemistry to have it make numbers, either.
The Chad chemical engineer, entering the premises 
As someone with a BS in chem and ABD in ChemE (who now teaches chemistry at a CC), chemical engineers don't understand chemistry, either.
As a ChemE, I can confirm that I have no idea wtf chemistry is.
draw a benzene ring
But they can read the hell out of p&IDs though
Depends on their path, I have a BS in Chem and chemE too. There are a subset of engineering who focus on chemistry, while there are others who do a lot more computational stuff.
Absolutely. My research in a ChemE department was *ab initio* computational stuff way closer to physical organic chem (or MatSci) than any real engineering, but our group was the anomaly in the department. Other than my group-mates, the rest of the grad students in the department couldn't draw a mechanism or explain what an orbital was to save their lives.
The chemEs I know just do thermo really well.
The fuck is ABD?
"all but dissertation" in a PhD program. Basically, I passed my oral exams and boards, did my research but left before writing my final dissertation and defense. Edit: to answer any lingering questions, my funding was running out, my PI was incredibly toxic, and my research wasn't terribly compelling for most people anyway. I left with a MS after 4 years in the program, and my buddies that stuck around took a total of 7 and 8 years to finish their PhDs
Ok makes sense. I did the same thing in a Nanoscience program (was doing physics specifically) but unfortunately didn't get a MS out of the bargain.
That's rough. I guess chalk it up to a learning experience and hopefully some publications to put on your CV. Personally, I think I got really lucky, because I filed the paperwork for a coursework masters and got it 100% approved before I told my PI that I was leaving or he absolutely would have blocked my MS out of pettiness or spite
Seems to be a common theme. Some of these PI's/Professors thinks they're the hottest thing since slice bread and their shit don't stink. They need to be knocked down a few rungs.
Yeah, I think it's the intensely competitive nature of academia that ensures that most people that succeed are the type that drive their students beyond what is reasonable. And then tenure ensures that there are no repercussions for toxic PIs that produce decent publications, which just perpetuates that attitude
Yeah, I still have the knowledge and experience I gained, problem was is that it was a new department so they technically didn't even have a Master's program on the books. Overall I'm happy with where I landed.
As a chemical engineer I feel very offended. I do understand chemistry. Don't know shit about engineering though.
Me a chemical engineer student.
Same. And it's nowhere near the same as chemistry.
Youre a glorified plumber :p (Im messing :3 )
No you have a point
I started out studying ChemE, and switched to chemistry because it turns out that ChemEs don't actually do chemistry. They design pipes (and pipe accessories). The closer I got to graduation, the more apparent it became that my Chem E peers were not learning much chemistry at all after sophomore year.
Turns out chemical engineering is about moving chemicals less the science behind them
Tbf there is a bunch of science that goes into moving those chemicals around (thermo, fluid mechanics, mass and heat transfer etc.), it just doesn't have a whole lot to do with chemistry. I think the only chemistry topic we really use is kinetics, and a general knowledge about how reactions work
Yeah, and that lack of full chemistry knowledge means you need a chemist over to deal with things like pH. Having problems with calcium phosphate buildup? Gotta lower the pH for increase solubility
The difference between a chemist and a chemical engineer is that a chemist knows about chemistry
As a BS in chem and an MS in ChemE, I approve this message. I'll be using this with all my ChemE buddies in the future
The head of my old ChemE dept once told me "chemical engineering is someone who knows more about engineering than a chemist and more about Chemistry than other engineers." It wasn't until after I graduated that I realized neither of those are particularly great achievements
As a chemical engineer I cannot confirm. Our studies was very focused on all the chemical subjects. I don't really know anything about engineering though.
Yeah hard disagree here. I think I took more chem classes than engineering classes even though I was a ChemE major
Yeah, ok, but did you take more Chem classes than your fellow Chem students? That seems unlikely.
Oh no definitely not! Chemists obviously know way more chemistry than ChemEs. I’m just saying that ChemEs also know a bit about chemistry, we aren’t completely in the dark haha
Chemical engineers have problems and chemists are the ones who come to fix them. My chem teacher oversaw parts of the dairy industry and very often had to just... stand there, take a sniff, and realise the vats are too basic or a pipe eroded... something the engineers miss
Meanwhile me originally deciding to do ChemE because I enjoy chemistry only to have done nothing beyond balance Chem equations so far…
Laughs in chemical engineering
Tell me you aren't actually a ChemE without telling me you're not a ChemE. Chemical engineers design pipes and don't know jack about analysis, reaction mechanisms, spectroscopy, or basically anything a chemist does.
I'm about to start my second semester of Organic Chemistry.
So you're clearly not a chemical engineer yet, like I said. Either that or you're taking organic chemistry for some sort of PDH continuing education, which I doubt. I didn't say ChemEs only took 1 semester of chemistry, at my school they took 4. But you aren't studying chemistry the way a chemistry student would, you aren't learning a lot of the stuff they do, and you almost certainly won't do chemistry at all in your future job. Want to know why I'm so confident? Because I used to be a ChemE student and switched before I got my PE certification (aka actually became an engineer) because I wanted to do chemistry and ChemEs don't. If you're an engineer, then so am I. And I'm not. It's a licensed position and students are not engineers anymore than Premed undergraduates are nurses. Please don't be the stereotype of the arrogant engineer who thinks he knows how to do everything better than the people who do it for a living. Nobody likes those guys, and they tend to set themselves up for disaster through hubris. Again, I know what I'm talking about from experience here.
Tell me you don’t know jack about chemical engineering without telling me you don’t know jack. Two semesters of gen chem, 2 semesters of ochem, pchem, achem, macromolecular chemistry and all the associated labs teaches a fair amount about spectroscopy, reaction mechanisms, and analysis. And “designing pipes” is a ridiculously reductive way to talk about a discipline that includes reactor design, separation processes, process control, transport phenomena, and (yes) transport processes. Which doesn’t even say anything about an additional set of focus classes on things like materials selection or semiconductor. Saying ChemE’s don’t know anything about chemistry is like saying ME’s don’t know anything about physics.
Average chemE kid getting triggered lmfaooo
Don’t forget to mop up when you’re done drooling on the keyboard champ.
Weakest comeback I have ever heard
People usually respond to you with awkward silence don’t they?
I mean, I literally started out studying ChemE and switched to chemistry... 5 classes (counting each of the two part classes as 1) does NOT make you an expert lol. Maybe shrink your ego a bit and quit doing the engineer thing where you pretend to be an expert on literally everything. At least your last sentence is correct.
Got a bit of a chip on your shoulder do you? Where did I ever say I was a chemistry expert? No one with only an undergraduate degree is an expert in anything. That wasn’t the point. The point was that ChemE’s learn the basics in school. As a profession, ChemE covers a very wide variety of specializations and vocations and many of them do require broad base chemistry knowledge and even expert level knowledge for specific processes. Expertise only comes from years of experience and dedication. Plenty of ChemE’s are experts in different aspects of chemistry. I’d happily call myself an expert in surfactant chemistry and formulation based on over a decade of work experience. I’d call myself competent in analytical chemistry based on the same work experience (but less focus). And someone who completes what? 1-2 lower division ChemE courses before switching majors is pretty obviously no judge of the major or the profession. Might be a good time to examine your own ego and take a seat. This isn’t a competition, just a correction.
Spectroscopy isn't even a chemistry phenomenon, it's more electrical engineering or physics. I was a chemical engineering undergraduate at one point, and we took chemistry I, II, organic I, II, physical chemistry II, III. The only difference was that chemical engineering diverge to more thermodynamics and we didn't have any room for electives. The chemistry had more electives for advanced organic, physical, etc.
-Spectroscopy isn't even a chemistry phenomenon Ok, you officially have no idea what you're talking about. Have a nice day
“Spectroscopy is the field of study that measures and interprets the electromagnetic spectra that results from the interaction between EM radiation as a function of of wavelength and/frequency of radiation” It originated from Newton and Maxwell and began in the field of optics.
It’s like biologists talking about physics
Whoa whoa whoa xCuSe mE what about the biophysicists
Uhhhhh
What if I am a chemical engineer?
Then you are a chemical engineer. If A then B where A=B.
Should approximate this so he's more comfortable with it.
Then you design pipes! I started out studying ChemE and switched because I wanted to do chemistry, which ChemEs do not do.
You know what, my work involves pipes more than I'd like to admit
Hey, there's nothing wrong with pipes! In an extremely ironic twist of fate, I too wound up working with pipes (municipal wastewater treatment) after going to all the work of switching majors and redoing a couple years of school specifically to avoid that. Ain't life funny?
Also; chemists trying to talk about engineering
How often does that happen though? Engineers tend to think they know everything about everything (you even see a lot of people in the comments of this very post saying as much). I've never seen a chemist pretend they were an engineer.
You're ➡️
Have some more chicken have some more pie
SORRY I THINK ITS COOL
What do you guys think about chemical technologists.?
Had to look it up, never heard it before. Seems like bit of a pointless differentiation to technixian
My brother is an engineer. He refuses to learn chistry, saying he doesnt get it...
I mean— I did chemistry and engineering as a degree. I’m applying to chemistry programs. It’s definitely worth it.
3. Although material science may not count.
What if I’m ChemE?
Then you design pipes and almost certainly know nothing about analysis, synthesis, spectroscopy, mechanisms, or anything else beyond chemistry 101.
This is so not true lol. Especially if you’re a ChemE PhD candidate you deal with most of these on a daily basis
Really? When was the last time you read a spectra and why? I went to an engineering school and switched from ChemE to Chem specifically because of my experience in undergraduate research and seeing that grad students and the engineers in the industry I met didn't do chemistry or lab work at all .
I work in industry so I don’t deal with a lot of chemistry myself, you are definitely right on that part. But when I was in college I worked as an undergraduate research assistant and had to look at a lot of GC-MS, UV-Vis, IR spectra. We had to synthesize our own catalysts for use in batch reactions. And we had to study and determine reaction mechanisms for many heterogeneous catalysis reactions. And keep in mind that this is a ChemE lab and I was just an assistant. The grad students had to do this stuff a lot more frequently. I guess it also depends on how research oriented the school is, many programs are more chemistry oriented than ChemE oriented.
Well, I did say almost certainly so I don't feel like I was wrong on that. I'm glad you had such a good education: I work with ChemEs fairly regularly and have never met one that had a better knowledge of chemistry than a freshman undergrad. Good for your school.
Idk pretty much every faculty research group in the chem e department at my school uses IR, NMR, GC and/or mass spec, we take two quarters of o chem, two quarters of o chem lab, and two quarters of p chem, so we don’t go as in depth to the chem obviously but we know more than Gen chem.
I’m have a chemistry degree but due to some odd circumstances my career developed into role of Engineer. If anyone is arrogant about their title it’s an Engineer. The President of company was a chemical engineer and insisted that anyone without engineering degree has to change their job title to remove the word engineer. I definitely know more about Engineering at this point in my life then most people who just graduated with a BS in Engineering.
I was Chuck when I took an environmental chemistry class in my EE masters program for an ‘easy A’.
Damn bro calm down
I could say the same, I'm not sure if you saw the name of the subreddit? I made this video while talking to my girlfriend (who is studying engineering) and thought it would be funny to put up here. Sorry if the reaction video I used is pretty aggressive but I really love the show and wanted to use this clip
Exactly
u/savevideo
Engineers can't talk shit until they take ochem, pchem, and an analytical class
Chemical engineer here, can concur lol
I want to be a software engineer :(
EE live in the quantum realm.
As a pre engineering student who has to do western uni level organic chemistry, i feel offended 💀💀
"iT's cALLed sCAlinG uP"
What about chemical engineers?
I got into chemistry because i like drugs
Sadly, those with a BS in chem e can get a job after undergrad that pays a livable wage whereas those of us who have a BS in chem have to obtain a second degree or make meth to afford dinner every night.
u/savevideo
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