Question about engineering and scholarship

[WeiJie]

Hi can i ask anyone here studying engineering ??? oh yeah is chemical engineering in other conutries ???
few weeks ago if im not mistaken someone taught me how to get more informationa bout the course i want but im still confusing ....

i'll be delighted if someone could help me with this
course : chemical engineering or soemthing about chemical
requirement : ??? izzit furthermath is important ??? well i dint take FM so will i be consider disqualified for good university for chemical engineering course ???
Univer. :which uni is good for it ?? UK and Australia
Scholarship : im studying in taylors C A's Level now and aiming to AUS , UK for further study , however there are some rumours tat CAL student hardly to apply scholarship , izzit true ?? anyone been through this , how can i apply ??
experience: is chemical engineering hard ? need fluent english ?( my eng is bad ) and anyone here study double degree ???
:oops:

well i think i ask too much , sorry to say but i really need some help here ..... :(

[debbie]

Just like Wei Jie, I'm also rather blur on the whole engineering jazz. I'd be thankful to anyone who can supply info on education related to mech and aeronautical engineering... basically , the same info needed like Wei Jie's except it's not chem engineering.

[wawa]

chemical engineering has more to do with physics than chemistry..
knowing furthur math is a plus but not necessity.

[weich]

hopefully this will be useful, a simple article written by me and my team member about our courses in InternshipASIA.com:

Chemical Engineering (http://www.internshipasia.hostfuss.com/content/view/19//) by Julia

Aeronautical Engineering (http://www.internshipasia.hostfuss.com/content/view/18//) by me

[dinna_g]

requirement : ??? izzit furthermath is important ??? well i dint take FM so will i be consider disqualified for good university for chemical engineering course ???


If you're taking A Levels, a common combination would be Math, Chem & Physics. FM is not a requirement but is a plus. So, if you wanna do FM, you might wanna take 4 classes, which is hard. However, the 3 classes should be a good combination. You don't have to worry for not taking FM.

Univer. :which uni is good for it ?? UK and Australia
I don't really know. But if you're planning to go to the UK, UMIST is one of the best univ is chem eng. It is located in Manchester. As far as engineering is concern, I think US is the best place to go. I can be biased as I'm studying in the states right now.

experience: is chemical engineering hard ? need fluent english ?( my eng is bad ) and anyone here study double degree ???
This is not a discouragement, I'm just being honest. As far as I know, Chem Eng is the hardest engineering course. IMO, the level of toughness of a course is not a good measure. As long as you're interested, I'm sure you gonna do well...

As far as english is concern, I'm sure your english is fine. Plus, you'll improve over time especially when you're doing your A Levels at taylor's. Taylor's is a very good college to go to. You'll be fine...

You need to have some confidence over there... Sorry I don't have the answer to all of your qs. Good luck!

[WeiJie]

chemical engineering has more to do with physics than chemistry
how come ???
ya i heard tat us engineering course not bad , however its too late for me to change my course now CAL usually wont attempt to study in US anymore

thx for the information
ermmm alrite now the situation is FM is not a requiement for chemical engineering however does it affect the uni u apply for ?
jus like u got 3a for the science subs and another for think skill ( i dunno u guys heard b4 ) and i person got the same result but get b or c for FM , does the b or c put in the consideration for accepting ur application ? or it depend on who come 1st , first serve

[Steppe]

For the chemical engineering course in UK, you may refer to this URL as a rough guide for the rankings of UK Universities which offer chemical engineering.

http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/unitable/0,,-4421100,00.html

You can check for any other University rankings for other course by just highlighting/choosing the course in the drop down list of "Choose a subject" in this URL.

[vaio]

hint hint

don't ever think that if you are good in high school chemistry (ie SPM chemistry) , chem e is the best choice for u

chem e is the most versatile engineering principle...of course chemistry is its foundation, but it also revolves around all the physics principle and enginnering applicatin

i have met many ex-chem e undergraduates who finally had to choose other major because once they started taking chem e classes, they felt that they didn't belong to this field...if u think that if u r good in chemistry, biochem is the best major... so good knowledge in chemistry doesn't guarantee your success in this major...

btw i think that spm chemistry is crap...once u start taking the advanced chemistry courses, u will discover that many of those basic chem principle covered in the spm syllabus was changed to make it easier...so what u have learn is basically nothing..hehe

btw....p chem involves manipulation of mathematics and physics principles in chemistry....another fun stuff beside the evil o chem stuff wakakaka

and one more thing usa still offers the best place to pursue chem e.....no offend to uk...

[pandaboy]

Thread moved to "Education".


If u really like chemistry, maybe u should try pharmacy? Lots of chemistry in it.... :wink:

[aarontys]

Isn't that more to biology? 8O

[Astral86]

I am having the same problem but mine is a tad bit more complicated..hope i can get some advice here...I am currently doin A levels too but i have no idea where to go after my A levels.
We are suppose to apply for universities in the UK right now but the problem is i am having financial constraints...i can't really study overseas. The only thing i am hoping for is scholarships if i want to go overseas, so is there any scholarships provided for students after A levels?
I heard that we have to be offered a place in a university of ur choice to be eligible for all those post A levels scholarships..is tht true? So..what do i do now? Do i apply for universities in overseas although i know i won't be going there if there is no scholarships available?
Btw...i am interested in engineering course too...just not too sure which one....currently taking 4 subjs...maths physics chem further maths

[dinna_g]

chemical engineering has more to do with physics than chemistry
how come ???
ya i heard tat us engineering course not bad , however its too late for me to change my course now CAL usually wont attempt to study in US anymore

i did a level and currently doing engineering in the us. no worries.. you can definitely do that if you want to. most us universities recognize a levels and they may even give you credit & hence, you can shorten your length of study here. regarding uk universities, i dont really know.

some people asked why chem e is more related to physics. in general, any engineering field is more closely related to physics. if you don't know, chem e is just like chemist, but they produce chemicals in larger scale.

for instance, if you want to produce hydrochloric acid in small amounts, it is synthesized by chemist. but chem engineer is the one who thinks of how to produce them in bulk, as in the industry scale. basically, chem eng have to think about building plants related to producing chemicals. this is a very basic idea of chem e, for more details, better ask someone who does chem e.. i don't think i know very much to talk into more detail about chem e.

for those who loves chem so much, i do agree... do pharmacy, biochem or even chemistry. someone asked about pharmacy is more closely related to bio... nope! not really.. pharmacy is closer to chemistry because they have to know about the chemicals that goes into your body. but of course, knowledge about biology is also essential. fyi, i think you don't need to take bio in order for you to do pharmacy (and even medicine). but that was during my time (around 4-5 years ago), things may change now...

[phantom]

ain't some branches in engineering need it students to take computer courses like computer sciences.

not only physics and add math are important,some basic skills like C++ is needed to be an engineer.

[weich]

ain't some branches in engineering need it students to take computer courses like computer sciences.

not only physics and add math are important,some basic skills like C++ is needed to be an engineer.

i think now almost all engineering courses require students to have some programming skills....I am currently required to know: FORTRAN and MatLab (which has similar concepts to C++)

but it's not required for you to know before hand (as in b4 you enrol into the uni), although it'll be useful

[windy_city]

ain't some branches in engineering need it students to take computer courses like computer sciences.

not only physics and add math are important,some basic skills like C++ is needed to be an engineer.

i think now almost all engineering courses require students to have some programming skills....I am currently required to know: FORTRAN and MatLab (which has similar concepts to C++)

but it's not required for you to know before hand (as in b4 you enrol into the uni), although it'll be useful

you guys are still using FORTRAN??

[pandaboy]

Isn't that more to biology? 8O

Like dinna_g said, yeah, it's true that pharmacy is more to chemistry. If u take a look at their course syllabus, u'll realised this.

But biochemistry.....more to biology, if I'm not mistaken. Very little about chemistry... Anyone can confirm this?

[vaio]

hey for your info, actually all the advanced chemistry courses required for chem eng are just to help u to understand all the chemical process and synthesis

most of the chem eng courses actually don't actually involve chemistry...they are more to physics application and engineering principle...u only have to design all the process, flow diagram,energy balance,material balance,kinetics,thermo and the reactor/process plant. the chemistry is left for the chemist...and as most of requirement for chemical eng major covers all the advanced chemistry courses, most of chem eng can play the chemist part, but not the vice versa.

and basically, in my uni for chem eng, u only have to take like 3 other courses in advanced chemistry lab in order to get chemistry degree...so 6 more credits will get you double degree in chem e and chemistry..cool ehh

and i just wanna share a joke told by my process synthesis profesor, who once was a chem eng and he admitted that he just hate doing the chemistry stuff.

Q: What is the difference between a chemist and a chemical
engineer ?

A: Oh, about 10 K USD a month.

hehehe

[pandaboy]

Q: What is the difference between a chemist and a chemical
engineer ?

A: Oh, about 10 K USD a month.

hehehe

So who's earning more?

[vaio]

Q: What is the difference between a chemist and a chemical
engineer ?

A: Oh, about 10 K USD a month.

hehehe

So who's earning more?

obviously chem engineer does earn more....the most highly paid engineer

[lyzzy]

Chem engineers are the most highly paid engineers around.

If you got to UK, apply to Imperial.

And Cambridge too.

Basically, if you get a place in Cambridge, applying for a goverment (JPA) loan will be SO much easier. Your apps go straight to the officer himself (or so I heard my friend say). Apparently, your loand is a convertible scholarship if you do well.
________
buy volcano vaporizer (http://vaporizers.net/volcano-vaporizer)

[pandaboy]

wow...i didnt know that chemical engineers are the most highly paid engineers.... Hmph..... :roll:

[littlebigone]

are chem engineers really the most high paid engineers around?

I thought it was ORIE majors. Hmmm...maybe that's highest starting pay.

[WeiJie]

If you got to UK, apply to Imperial.

And Cambridge too.


ya i ve seen the rankings in uk for chem eng , cambridge no 1 but something confuse me , wats the differences between chem eng course and chemistry ???
wats chem engineering ??? something to do with environment , food ?? is tat chem eng ? and u guys said tat physic is more than chemistry in chem eng ... izzit true ??
now i have 3 choices in my mind for uk uni , imperial , bristol , UMIST how u guys think about it ?? Cambridge is too hard for me i think... must have good eng coverage , and extremely good result to get in ( min 4A's )

oh yeah another factor , financial , can CAL student get scholarship ???? im not from a rich family , so i have to consider this matter b4 i choose my uni , if there really scholarship , is the requirement high or 1st come 1st serve ( of course minimum 3A's )

how about AUS uni for chem eng ?

wow chem eng 10k earn more than chemist , wow wow wat chem eng is about , i thought both roughly the same ? chemist doing experiment how bout chem eng ? i thought both ALMOST the same

[vaio]

let's me clarify something over here...

chemist is the scientist, the one who performs the scientific chemical reaction and doing all the research about the chemical reactions that are involved in the specific process. in other word, chemist is the one who in charge of the chemical reaction, doing research, perform experiment. then he has to report the finding/result to the engineer.

for example if some industries want to produce chloroform or benzene in large quantity as the company product, chemist is the fella who has to perform all the experiments, research in the early/starting process. if you have taken advanced organic chemistry, there are dozens of ways to produce benzene. every way has their own mechanism ...so in the early process chemists have to maybe experiment all the mechanisms and report the result to the chemical engineer

now the 10 K gap makes sense over here...so after chem engineers get the report from the chemists, he will have to design the process in order to perform the synthesis of the benzene very detail..he has to design very detailed flowsheet that cover all the mass balances, material balance, energy balance, thermo, kinetic and transport phenomena. so based on the report from the chemist., the chem eng has to find the best way, ie the process that produce the highest yield of benzene, not harmful, economic, reliable and so on. so chem eng design all the process, design the reactor plant and so on...then, after the design is complete, the task is given to the contractors to build it...

that's way i had said that mainly chemical engineers can act as a chemist, but not vice versa....because chemical engineering is like chemistry degree plus the engineering principle.

[Steppe]

phantom wrote:
ain't some branches in engineering need it students to take computer courses like computer sciences.

not only physics and add math are important,some basic skills like C++ is needed to be an engineer.

weich wrote:
think now almost all engineering courses require students to have some programming skills....I am currently required to know: FORTRAN and MatLab (which has similar concepts to C++)

but it's not required for you to know before hand (as in b4 you enrol into the uni), although it'll be useful

windy_city
you guys are still using FORTRAN??
..............

In the current project of servers migration that my father is doing now, he encounters this:

1. a script written by a younger colleague will take about 2 weeks to process 70 millions of records based on the analysis of the time
taken to process a certain number of records

2. hence, my father wrote a Fortran program and it takes less than 5 minutes to process 70 millions of records

So, Fortran is still very useful, depends on what you use it for. New version of Fortran is very powerful, highly structured.

Back then in the late 70's, when my mother was studying computer science in UK, she said that engineering students had to attend the same basic computer programming course modules as her in the same lecture hall. Hence, it is not a surprise that engineering students are required to pick up certain programming skills.

[weich]

FORTRAN's really strong in mathematical calculations and sorting i think....which is why it's still used in engineering...but we are now moving on towards MatLAB... =)

[windy_city]

In the current project of servers migration that my father is doing now, he encounters this:

1. a script written by a younger colleague will take about 2 weeks to process 70 millions of records based on the analysis of the time
taken to process a certain number of records

2. hence, my father wrote a Fortran program and it takes less than 5 minutes to process 70 millions of records

So, Fortran is still very useful, depends on what you use it for. New version of Fortran is very powerful, highly structured.

Back then in the late 70's, when my mother was studying computer science in UK, she said that engineering students had to attend the same basic computer programming course modules as her in the same lecture hall. Hence, it is not a surprise that engineering students are required to pick up certain programming skills.



That is because your father is good at programming not because the Fortran is a better program. It is a very old program and it is being phased out in most university. Matlab simply can do whatever Fortran can do (in a faster and more efficient way). That what my Prof said when I take my first class in Matlab (he used Fortran since he started his undergraduate degree, but he admits that Matlab is simply incredible compare to Fortran)

MATLAB surpass FORTRAN in so many ways!!
Anything Fortran can do, Matlab can do it better.
It is because matlab run on linear algebra, better than the algorithm of Fortran.

[chenchow]

On the pay that was mentioned, one thing I would like to remind everyone is that it is the average pay, that was being compared. However, it still depends on your ability.

For instance, on a typical batch of Computer Science graduates from my university. Average starting pay is about $57,000. However, at low end, some Com. Sci. grad working in this field could earn $30,000. Yet, there are Com Sci grad from same university same department, that fetches a starting pay of $185,000 (not $85,000). So, you need to see where you stand.

It depends on your technical skills, how good you are at communicating and selling yourself, negotiation skills, and other skills....

And often a 10% higher starting salary would mean a lot in the future... Say you are comparing $50,000 and $55,000. As you are gaining salary increase by looking at the %, the difference in magnitude between these two persons would get further and further...

[Steppe]

windy_city wrote:

That is because your father is good at programming not because the Fortran is a better program. It is a very old program and it is being phased out in most university. Matlab simply can do whatever Fortran can do (in a faster and more efficient way). That what my Prof said when I take my first class in Matlab (he used Fortran since he started his undergraduate degree, but he admits that Matlab is simply incredible compare to Fortran)

MATLAB surpass FORTRAN in so many ways!!
Anything Fortran can do, Matlab can do it better.
It is because matlab run on linear algebra, better than the algorithm of Fortran.

................

Your professor is right if it is about new programs/applications to be developed by software house for certain purposes. I agree that Matlab may be better than Fortran. However, we are not trying to compare programming languages here. What we are saying is each language has its own strength and purpose.

One will not definitely or even try to attempt to use Fortran for developing windows based applications.

In the real world, there are still a lot of programs with millions of lines of codes which are still using Fortran. Where investments have been made either by clients and the progam owners/developers, it is not easy to convert all these programs. Hence, as long as these programs is fit for purpose and do the the job, it is OK.

Hence, when there is Fortran compiler around, why not use it to develop the program to do the job which is required for this purpose, somesort of a once-off type of job for the migration purposes? One will not try to get a Matlab licence just for this. Besides, programming is not the core business of the company. Programming is often done based on what is available around and yet it can do the job quickly.

In the real world, there are a lot of other factors to consider. Licences cost money, make use of what is available around, what is core business and non-core business, bottom line figure etc. etc

By the way, my father is EE but he is very good in programming also as well from assembly language, Fortran........Visual basic, .NET , etc.

In the real world, one will have exposure and develop all sort of these skills required to do the work be it new programming languages, management skill, contracts, etc. etc. That is what the real world is.

[digimushu]

Hence, when there is Fortran compiler around, why not use it to develop the program to do the job which is required for this purpose, somesort of a once-off type of job for the migration purposes? One will not try to get a Matlab licence just for this. Besides, programming is not the core business of the company. Programming is often done based on what is available around and yet it can do the job quickly.

In the real world, there are a lot of other factors to consider. Licences cost money, make use of what is available around, what is core business and non-core business, bottom line figure etc. etc

By the way, my father is EE but he is very good in programming also as well from assembly language, Fortran........Visual basic, .NET , etc.

In the real world, one will have exposure and develop all sort of these skills required to do the work be it new programming languages, management skill, contracts, etc. etc. That is what the real world is.


Steppe, no offense meant to your dad but if programming people start using C-language for everything, we wont ever really need a license. We are too used to the Graphic User Interface provided in Windows to actually appreciate the free GNU G++ compilers that come with most linux distributions.

After having microsoft word failing on me many times, i'm resorting to using LaTEX(another word processing freeware) for writing all my documents. yes, linux has its drawbacks, in the sense that it relies too much on the user knowing some programming knowledge but it is also very robust and less susceptible to viruses.FYI, the version of linux i use is called Linspire. we may not have a lot of software written for linux, but continue using Windows, and we will all be a slave of our own technology.

Matlab has a syntax that is similar to C, however, it provides a lot of abstraction between writing programs which manages arrays(maybe a lil bit too much). In Matlab, you do not have to initialize yur array memory and the pointer but in C, you do.

Fortran's time has passed. C can provide better connection between the hardware and the abstraction that a high-level programming language provides.

Anyways, aren't we a lil bit off topic here?

[warrior]

Wats fortran anyway ????
oh yeah regarding to my question again , any CAL student here get scholaship to uni ???

[WeiJie]

yeah how about the scholarship
anyone apply b4 ?? might need some advices here

[Reshmonurendaviousokinawa]

i think scolarship is better than nothing, but very dilfcult to get that money cause u need to past than fail :(