Planning on enrolling in college in this coming Fall. I got accepted to University of Virginia, Ohio State...

Planning on enrolling in college in this coming Fall. I got accepted to University of Virginia, Ohio State, and William and Mary. I'm pretty sure I want to go to UVA but I'm still deciding on what Engineering branch I want to major in. I've narrowed it down to either ChemE or CompE. I'll have until my Spring semester before I commit. I'm just curious to hear from anyone on Veeky Forums majoring in one of these and what their experiences are so I have some idea about what it's like.

hey I go to UVa. obviously don't go to W&M for engineering since they don't have an engineering school.

all the engineering students have essentially the same curriculum the first year with an expected shit ton of workload. it's a stupid piece of advice but: do whichever you like the most. don't fall for the starting salary meme. if you're committed and motivated enough you'll be more competitive and that only happens if you can enjoy what you're studying. personally i think MSE is underrated.

you will probably change your mind or be unsure at some point.
also you have to apply for each engineering department so you might not get your first choice.
study hard, the social scene at UVA easily becomes a diversion.

...

Yeah I applied to W&M in case I felt like doing a pre-med program, that dream quickly died when I found out how competitive and cut throat getting into med school is, not my style. Though W&M does actually have a partnership with Columbia where you do either 3 or 4 years at W&M and then 2 years at Columbia and you receive a degree in Engineering at Columbia. I don't want to do that though. I'm somewhat interested in pharmaceutical manufacturing so I was thinking that ChemE could help me in that aspect, I'm not sure how easy it is to get relevant experience in that field though. I'm also interested in computers/networking so I was thinking CompE would also suit me well. Do you know anyone majoring in either? What do they say about the programs? What do you think about the Engineering programs there? I hear that certain branches are over-funded and others are under-funded.

Heh. If you're a Chemical Engineer, could you describe your day to day responsibilities/role? Are you a researcher or do you work commercially?

Materials Engineering/Materials Science and Engineering is the one you want to go into, dumb pleb. >yfw you're stuck in a paper mill

good choice. i know a premed transfer from W&M who was on suicide watch last semester.

i think double majors in the e-school are more uncommon than the arts and sciences because of the workload. ask your future advisors/professors, just dont be too clingy, professors are busy people. idk really i'm not in the e-school so you should probably ask any upperclassmen if you know any.

other big piece of advice is get into undergrad research ASAP.

What kind of typical jobs do MSE's do? I would assume researching for a company would be a common job, but I haven't heard much about it honestly. Is the pay really good?

Oh ok I thought you were in the E school. How hard is it to get into research there? That is one of my worries about going to UVA, the classes are so big it seems like it's hard to stand out and get involved with your professor's research.

My childhood best friend went to UVA for Chem E and Physics, got 100k starting at Exxon.

He got straight A's and could've gone to a better school if he wanted but was too ingrained in Indian culture to go further away from family than a state school.

Oh, I should also mention he's a code monkey now. Doesn't like his job, but he likes the money.