Tengaged I need your opinions or help expecially if you are older and went through college and what not. Right now I have some offers for internships and reserach and I'm not really sure what to do. For some context I am a junior in college (grad fall 2025) majoring in chemical engineering. I am unsure whether or not to get a PhD, and I am kinda leaning towards no because research seems intimidating and for very smart and eager chemical engineers. I've had two previous internships and have not done any research. Here are my options:
1. Do a 3-month summer internship locally in my city with a materials and steel company (kinda similar to cheme but not completely). I have the option to work part-time remote for the next two semesters after the three month summer internship
2. Do a 7-month co-op (summer + fall) in a city 4 hours away with a huge food/ingredients company. One of the biggest companies in the USA. The location I would be working at is ~4 hours away from me but is very ChemE heavy and has lots of chemical engineers. I find the stuff they do there very interesting. However I am a student athlete so doing this co-op would mean i would have to not only skip the fall semester of athletics, but also graduate a semester late (fall 2025)
3. Do summer research in chemical engineering with a professor and grad students at my college. If I do this I also have the option to work part-time during this semester. If I did this research I would probably do either a PhD or a BS/MS in Chemical Engineering or something similar
All 3 of these are 40 hour week paid jobs. My deadlines are within the next week so I have to decide really quick what to do :S
You have to decide whether you want to go to grad school for a PhD or work right out of college. If you want a PhD, go 3. If you want to work, go 2. Most of my friends are engineers and they did long co-ops like that during college and they have good careers now.
IDK anything about going to grad school for engineering but I know a few people who went on to grad school in other disciplines and it just sounds like a miserable fucking experience. Working also sucks but at least you get paid well doing it. But yeah if you wanna talk some more or have questions I could re-direct to my chemical engineer friends hit me up
Def go to grad school!!! Talk to the students and get an idea for who the chill PIs are. Even within a university, your experiences can be wildly different than your peers based on your advisor. Research sucks but you gotta get through it. I’m way more passionate about teaching but I’m 4 years in so I might aswell finish. I think any of your options for additional experience are good- just go with what work excites you the most.
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