r/ChemicalEngineering • u/MistakeSea6886 • Sep 21 '23

Salary What’s the most profitable career path?

I’m a freshmen Engineering major that is taking gen Ed’s. I am thinking of switching to chemical engineering next year. I really like ChE but but want to pick a profitable career path, which is why I’m on the fence between it and Computer science. I did research and found that petroleum engineering is very profitable, and ChE can pick it pretty quickly. However with the way the world is going(more green energy), are renewable energy jobs such as nuclear power plants going to experience a boom in demand and become more profitable?

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u/[deleted] Sep 21 '23 edited Oct 17 '23

  1. Pick a career you’re interested in first. No point in spending 8+ hours a day doing something you hate.

  2. ChemEs are far from poor. That said, even after all that schooling and debt, doctors come out ahead. The average ChemE and CS major are around the same, but top SWEs make far more than ChemEs.

  3. Within ChemE, O&G is the most lucrative but it usually comes with sacrifices (usually poor location, hours, and work environment). But I know people in Pharma and Semiconductors who start out at or near $100k. I’m 23 in Pharma, make $42/hr, and get time-and-a-half above 40h. If I did the 60-hour workweeks that many in O&G do, I’d make $150k.

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u/Nimbus20000620 Oct 16 '23

ChemE beats pharm on average me thinks. pharmacy job market is shot, suffers from wage stagnation, and is almost as long as medical school these days if you want to work in hospital (which everyone does. Retail sucks)…. 100-120k after 4 years undergrad plus 4 years Pharm D plus 2 year residency (if you’re lucky). The chemical engineer gets 4-6 extra years of income, avoids the exorbitant grad fees, and probably hits that pharm D salary after having 4-6 YOE

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u/[deleted] Oct 16 '23

Probably should’ve specified. The folks who refer to “Pharma” here are referring to Pharmaceutical manufacturing. Making the drugs.

All that said, I would not want to work as a retail Pharmacist.

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u/Nimbus20000620 Oct 17 '23

In your example in point 2 you said doctors and pharmacists.

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u/[deleted] Oct 17 '23

Oh lol. Shouldn’t be blasting out comments on 4 hours of sleep (and I totally slept more than that tonight).