- #1
Nick M
- 193
- 0
I'm still trying to pick the proper field within engineering. I'm an older student (26) with close to 10 years experience supervising/operating a shift at a wastewater treatment plant. I've also held the lab technician position for a number of years as well.
My interests are in designing new, and much more efficient treatment systems using staged bio-reactors that have optimized environments through the use of control systems/vessel design, and applications of new discoveries from biochemistry.
Water/Wastewater treatment has traditionally fell within the realm of Civil, but lately it seems to have grown roots within the fairly-new field of Environmental Engineering. While the Civil program has a few environmental classes, most of what they cover I already know from my field experience. The Environmental program is actually a masters degree program at my school, with most people entering with either a BS in Civil or Chemical Engineering.
I really want to learn EE, specifically control systems, so that I can apply that knowledge as a tool for reactor control system design. Since a good part of the early ChE program is made up from classes within the chemistry department (and these classes/labs are offered in the summer), I can complete a degree in EE along with 50%+ of the ChE classes required for graduation (as well as two BioChem classes). The EE program here is very flexible, whereas the ChE program seems to discourage cross-discipline exposure outside of Biology/Biochemistry. I would then enter the Environmental Engineering masters program which is really focused on the biochemistry of what I want to do, but seems to be very much applied and not as open ended for further research as say, a masters in ChE.
The alternative is a degree in ChE and a minor in Biochemistry which will roll right into a masters in ChE that focuses specifically on Reactor design and the advanced Biochemistry environment I seek - but leave me clueless with systems control (very important part).
I'm registered now for a path in EE with the above plusses and minuses, but I'm still not convinced to a level of reasonable certainty that my mind requires to not constantly think about it.
My interests are in designing new, and much more efficient treatment systems using staged bio-reactors that have optimized environments through the use of control systems/vessel design, and applications of new discoveries from biochemistry.
Water/Wastewater treatment has traditionally fell within the realm of Civil, but lately it seems to have grown roots within the fairly-new field of Environmental Engineering. While the Civil program has a few environmental classes, most of what they cover I already know from my field experience. The Environmental program is actually a masters degree program at my school, with most people entering with either a BS in Civil or Chemical Engineering.
I really want to learn EE, specifically control systems, so that I can apply that knowledge as a tool for reactor control system design. Since a good part of the early ChE program is made up from classes within the chemistry department (and these classes/labs are offered in the summer), I can complete a degree in EE along with 50%+ of the ChE classes required for graduation (as well as two BioChem classes). The EE program here is very flexible, whereas the ChE program seems to discourage cross-discipline exposure outside of Biology/Biochemistry. I would then enter the Environmental Engineering masters program which is really focused on the biochemistry of what I want to do, but seems to be very much applied and not as open ended for further research as say, a masters in ChE.
The alternative is a degree in ChE and a minor in Biochemistry which will roll right into a masters in ChE that focuses specifically on Reactor design and the advanced Biochemistry environment I seek - but leave me clueless with systems control (very important part).
I'm registered now for a path in EE with the above plusses and minuses, but I'm still not convinced to a level of reasonable certainty that my mind requires to not constantly think about it.