Texas A&M vs. UCLA ChemE

[happyfeet]

Process systems engineering at Texas A&M

 

or

 

Metabolic engineering at UCLA

 

 

Interested in biofuel and energy applications in both areas. Looking for employment after graduate school. Not interested in post-doc or academia. Could people comment on the job market for chemical engineers who conduct more biology related research. I've heard that's it difficult for these researchers to find industrial work.

Edited February 28, 2015 by happyfeet

[Shamrock_Frog]

UCLA probably has more connections to industry through your advisors and other professors. Isn't UCLA more highly ranked anyway?

Are you looking for more bio tech direction or oil and gas?

[happyfeet]

For ChemE, they're both similarly ranked with UCLA a bit higher according to news report

 

I've heard from current grad students and postdocs that biotech jobs are hard to come by. So I've been steadily growing more discouraged and considering other options.

 

A&M is building a huge process systems engineering group right now and jobs for researchers in this area seem more easy to come by. Job market looks to be huge in both Cali and Texas though.

Edited March 2, 2015 by happyfeet

[Shamrock_Frog]

For ChemE, they're both similarly ranked with UCLA a bit higher according to news report

 

I've heard from current grad students and postdocs that biotech jobs are hard to come by. So I've been steadily growing more discouraged and considering other options.

 

A&M is building a huge process systems engineering group right now and jobs for researchers in this area seem more easy to come by. Job market looks to be huge in both Cali and Texas though.

I think there's a bit of a trend for more industry to head to Texas. I'm in Houston right now and when I interviewed at UT-Houston one of the admissions people said that the new CEO (or whatever his title is) of the Texas Medical Center is trying to attract more biotech firms to Houston. He wants Houston to become a hub for that like Boston/various CA cities are currently. I don't know if it will happen but it would be great if it did!

[happyfeet]

I think I'm generally just worried about the biotech job market.

 

Process systems engineering seems translatable and applicable to various industries.

[Dawnbreaker]

For process systems engineering, TAMU wins hands down. The only better places for PSE are CMU and UW-Madison. TAMU will make a comfortable 3rd, especially with some real giants joining this year, who were formerly full professors at Princeton and Imperial College London. I am not a fan of bio, so I can't comment on that, but comparing just PSE, TAMU wins hands down and I am pretty sure you can get the best of jobs in energy sector.

 

As you said, PSE is more translatable to other fields as well. I know PSE people who went into supply chain management, transportation system management (including aviation industry - due to knowledge in planning and scheduling), data scientists - including places like Facebook, Amazon etc. I am obviously biased here because I am not a fan of bio at all, and IMO bio and PSE don't really go well together (systems biology is the only common point, but its more systems than biology so there is that). The fields you are interested in are pretty much orthogonal, so make an informed choice by deciding which area you like the most. Once that is figured out, the university choice becomes obvious.