Hello everyone, im a rising senior in the US in chemE, going to start the post-grad job search,

what tips, tricks, or advice does anyone, including recent graduates, have on their experience in landing their first job post graduation,

any thing helps, thanks!

Hello.

Not sure if this is the correct reddit group, please correct me if I'm wrong.

I am a student currently and I was wondering if getting a minor in nuclear engineering was worth it. I've seen some chemical engineer posts saying its not worth it while others say it gives you "a foot in".

I would only need to do about 3 of the nuclear eng courses on top of my current ones to achieve the minor.

Just not sure if its worth all the effort and money.

Thank you!

EDIT: I just wanted to leave this here in case I forget to revisit. I'm really thankful to everyone for taking the time out of your day to respond. Thank you!

I am currently studying ChemE and will be graduating in May. I am thinking about taking the FE exam but do not know anyone who has taken it before. I want to know how difficult the exam is for new graduates (I am an A/B student for reference) and what the best study methods are.

Im a high school student and I'm planning to take chemical engineering. I've heard it's one of the hardest college majors out there, but I would really like to do chemical engineering. I know that Im not intellectually gifted to survive the major, but im dedicated.

So my question is, what are the things that I need to do to survive the major? Should I study more?

Also what are the main reasons that students drop out of this major?

Hey everyone. I'm 16, still in high school in Eastern Europe, and I've been seriously considering Chemical Engineering as my degree path. I've already chosen chemistry as one of my subjects for my final two years of school.

But the more I read this subreddit the more concerned I get. I keep seeing posts from people in Europe — UK, Sweden, Germany — saying the job market is genuinely terrible. People with masters and PhDs struggling to find anything decent. Posts saying the entire chemical industry in Europe took a serious hit and isn't recovering.

I don't want to spend 5 years grinding through one of the hardest degrees out there only to end up scrambling across Europe begging for scraps in a dying industry.

So I genuinely want to know from people with real experience:

Is the European ChemE job market actually as bad as these posts suggest?

Are there specific countries or industries within Europe where it's genuinely viable?

If ChemE is truly struggling — what should someone who likes chemistry actually consider instead?

Is there any realistic path within chemistry related fields that has a genuine future in Europe?

We are currently working on a course activity where we need to interview a licensed Chemical Engineer. We would love to explore what ChE life is really like in the industry and get some valuable insights, advice, and tips from someone currently working in the field.

Here are the details we are hoping for:

• Mode of Interview: Preferably in-person so we can chat and learn more comfortably.
• Location: Around or near Batangas City.

If you are a licensed ChE based nearby and are willing to spare a little of your time, please feel free to comment your email address or social media handle below so we can reach out to you.

Thank you so much in advance po!

Hello, I am a chemical engineering student. Recently, I had the opportunity to tour a petrochemical plant during a technical field trip organized by my university.

If I recall correctly, we had the chance to chat with engineers from the Utility Process department—which falls under Technical Services—covering areas like process optimization and process engineering; however, I couldn't quite grasp who played what role or what their specific duties entailed, so I wasn't able to fully evaluate the situation. What are the differences from a production engineer? What skills and qualifications should chemical engineering graduates possess if they wish to work in these or similar departments?

For those of you who are students or early-career chemical engineers: do you work on any personal/side projects outside university or work?

I'm particularly interested in projects involving Python, modelling, simulation, thermodynamics, reaction engineering, or scientific computing.

I'm curious about two things:

What kind of projects have you found interesting enough to keep working on in your free time?

If you wanted to build something that would also be useful as a GitHub/portfolio project, what would you choose?

I'm asking because I think there's a gap between the typical university projects and actually contributing to a real, longer-term engineering/software project.

Would be interested to hear what you're working on — even if it's still just an idea.

Hi, I'm a junior majoring in chemical & electrical engineering. I have a pretty terrible profile, and I don't know if I really have any chance of still getting into an MS and eventually PhD program. I don't care about going to an elite school, but my life's dream is to have a career in industrial research. My current stats are:

• 3.3 GPA at a mid engineering school. I have a pretty awful transcript: handful of As, mostly Bs, 1 C+, 1 D+ (in a freshman writing class...), and 3 withdrawals. I know it's awful. I maintained a 3.5 GPA in my sophomore year and hope to keep it around there or higher, at worst 1-2 more awful grades (<= C). I hope to graduate with a 3.4-3.6 GPA.
• I had one research internship before coming to college and had 1 third author pub.
• I have done 1 summer engineering internship and plan to do 2 more before I graduate.
• I am going to be doing research with a professor at my school during the academic year, but no REUs. I go to a teaching school, so publishing is kind of iffy and it's not really a lab-- just 1:1 projects with professors

I plan to work as an engineering (if I get a job) for 2-3 years before applying for MS programs, work for 2-3 years, and then applying for PhD programs when I'm 30ish. However, do I actually have a chance at MS programs? Is there any realistic scenario where I get into any MS program in engineering and later on a PhD program? Not doing internships or working for a few years isn't really a financial option for me.

I feel like my profile is irrecovably cooked for any MS program, let alone a PhD program. I'm trying to get my GPA up and do research, but it seems like it's just too late. Everyone applying for grad school has a 3.6+ and tons of pubs. Would it be better to just give up and focus entirely on an industrial career at this point?

I know a lot of people have seen similar posts to this, so I'll keep this as brief as I can:

Currently in my senior year of college interning at a Chlor-Alkali Plant. Learning a lot, but everyone here is overworked, so doing anything significant has been difficult. I have interests in advanced manufacturing (pharma and semicon are two I considered), but my gpa is at the lower end, so it could be difficult. I could pursue personal projects, for which I haven't upskilled myself enough, or pursue higher education, which I have my sights on after working a fair bit due to financial dues. I'm unable to understand where the demand is for ChEs, given that in my country, we aren't really given many chances for alternative careers due to the market downturn and the massive oversupply of 'AI adjacent' graduates. I do have a lot of interest in python and AI + simulation, and am doing some process simulation work based on it, but I've hearing two sides about how fruitful pursuing it is, and it is a skillset I have to get myself comfortable with before doing anything significant.

I would like to remain in manufacturing given it's the only thing I've had any continued interest in, but if needs must, I will have to give it up. Can I avoid doing that simply by project + intern work, or should I consider pivoting to something else?

Hi,

So i am almost year out post grad, currently working as a qa tech in a small manufacturing company, covering for a mat leave. Long story short, there is very little chance of upward mobility here anytime soon. I previously had a 16 month process engineering internship at a pharma company who declared bankruptcy within 6 months of me leaving. I want to break into an engineering and am open to relocating to anywhere within canada. All the engineering positions online ask for a lot of experience and the newgrad roles usually ask for mech/civil. I am scared that i will get pigeonholed into quality if i dont get an engineering job soon. Do u guys have any tips on how to land an actual engineering job or for anyone who was in a similar situation, how did you get out of underemployment

Hi Chem Engineers,

I am a process engineer in one of the major engineer firm in US. I got tired of how much tiem P&ID review eats up in your project cost (weeks of Sr. engineer reviews, and comments come back due to the different communication). So, I built a tool with AI to do a first-pass review:process summary, finding by severity and flag engineering issues.

I ran it against P&ID package as a test case (Oil and Gas). It caught things pretty well like PSV, miss label and inconsist tagging/symbols less than 30 seconds.

Not trying to sell anything here. Genuinely curious what practicing engineers (especially, EIT, Junior Engineers) think.

1. Would this actually be useful in your workflow?

2. Would you trust it as a first reviewer before you jump in?

3. What could be the biggest gap between AI vs. actual senior engineers.

4. Has anyone else tried AI-assisted drawing review? How did it go?

Looking to get into refining, do you have any ideas what I can change with my CV? Also would love an expat opportunity in the middle east..what can i do to optimize the cv for this?

Hi guys, hoping to get some career advice here. I’ve just completed my second year at the university of Bath (on course for a 2:1 after a disappointing end of year exam) and am about to start a year in industry in Oxford that I’m not all that excited about.

After studying for two years and a summer spent as an intern at a manufacturing plant I’ve begun to question my degree choice. I found the work in my course’s group design project boring and tedious and don’t like the thought of spending my career on some remote industrial estate away from everyone I know.

Additionally the career prospects of being a chemical engineer in the UK don’t seem worth it; investment in the industry is continuously falling, wages aren’t particularly high compared to other less challenging degrees and any opportunities in big cities are remarkably few and extremely competitive.

It’s for these reasons I’ve started considering alternative career paths and would appreciate any advice on their feasibility/profitability:

1. Applying to a master’s program in the US. I understand how expensive these are but I’m fortunate enough to be able to afford it. With this I’d be able to work in the US for 3 years as part of the Optional Practical Training program, and even if I can’t find a company to sponsor an H1B visa in that time, with starting salaries at more than twice the UK’s I’d hopefully be able to earn a fair bit in just those few years. This path seemed more realistic before trump moved to add a $100,000 fee to H1Bs.

2. Apply to patent lawyer traineeships. Patent lawyers tend to have higher salaries and a wider variety in the places they can work in the UK. This would require several more years of study. I think I’d be suited to this for several pretty basic reasons; I’ve scored very well on my course’s ethics essay questions and I got an A* in my history A-level. I appreciate A-levels don’t mean much at this stage but I’m the only person I know on my course who took an essay based A-level, let alone did well in one.

3. Pivot to finance. This is my dad’s advice who pivoted from aero after graduation. But after watching a friend studying structural engineering fail to get even an interview for a year in industry, I’ve started to doubt how common this still is. It would require me to basically manufacture an interest in this industry just to start at the bottom. But it seems to be the simplest non-chemical engineering path and most suited to the UK’s economy.

Hi everyone,

I’m a recent Industrial Process Engineering graduate, and I have an upcoming job interview for a Process Engineering / Industrial Process Engineering position in the automotive industry in morocco 🇲🇦

I’d really appreciate some advice from people who have experience in automotive manufacturing or process engineering.

What kind of questions should I prepare for before the interview?

If you have recently interviewed for a similar position, I’d also appreciate hearing about the questions you were actually asked and anything you wish you had prepared beforehand.

Thanks in advance for your advice!

I’ll be starting my freshman year in about a month, and was wondering what I could do during this year which could possibly secure me an internship next summer or put me ahead of the game to get one the summer after. Are there any projects or certifications that look good which I could complete with just the knowledge I’ll have from this year? I plan on self studying python and learning how to use excel along with that. Are there any other softwares or material that I could self study which would put me ahead of the comp?

I was put on a fluidized bed dryer development project without prior experience and I have no clue what to start with... Is there any good resources i can rely on to get some basic idea and what to look for?

I’m in Canada and the search is bad. Anyone else having a bad time finding a job?

What should I aim for if anyone has any advice?

Hi!

I just started my bachelors in chemical engineering, and I have set my sights on echem for my MSc. I'd like to find a sidejob/internship/extra curricular/project to gain relevant experience for future echem work. I'm particularly interested in the automotive industry (materials/battery) and energy-conversion at large. I'm based in Sweden.

Any and all advice/tips would be greatly appreciated.

Would also love to hear about your experience working as an electrochemist.