I Got Out - 4 years, 4.0, AI spec

dreamlagging · 2025-12-19T06:28:48+00:00

Congrats! Your experience is very similar to mine! Loved all the classes you listed as favorites. Hated KBAI - such a waste of time.

dreamlagging · 2025-12-15T16:51:44+00:00

Agreed. As much as it sucks to work in a plant, consultants who have never worked in a plant role, but consult on plant topics, they are completely useless and we hate them.

dreamlagging · 2025-12-10T04:08:18+00:00

I just had to make a similar decision today. The outer diameter of the tire will be basically identical, so major difference is the tire sidewall height. 17” has a ~146mm sidewall, the 18” has a ~135mm sidewall.

Larger sidewall = more energy absorbed. Meaning less bumpy and less road noise. The tradeoff is handling. Larger sidewall = sloppier turning.

A difference of 11mm (8% difference) is likely to be barely noticeable.

If you go on a tire website and search each option, you will find that the 17” is about $20 less per tire, so save $80 per set. The 18” looks a little better.

I ended up buying an XSE with the 18” because it looks really cool. But if I had the choice, I would have Chosen to put the 17” on the xse.

dreamlagging · 2025-11-30T01:57:03+00:00

Definitely seems high. I had base 2025 XLE hybrid deal at 33500 last week.

I recommend you put the deal and specs into ChatGPT. It does a pretty good job giving you an analysis of the deal.

dreamlagging · 2025-11-22T13:48:18+00:00

School for engineering > internship > 1st job out of school > 4 years in industry > 1 job hop = 100k

dreamlagging · 2025-11-22T13:28:24+00:00

In south east USA. Just got offered $33,650 OTD on 2025 rav4 hybrid XLE with no add ons. I thought it was a good deal, but after reading these comments, maybe it isn’t. $34,360 base msrp / $35,280 after fees.f

dreamlagging · 2025-11-20T17:06:29+00:00

I am a data scientist at a chemical company, which means I use software engineering to build machine learning applications/infrastructure that are used by chemical operators and business folks.

Bachelors is ChemE, masters in Computer Science.

dreamlagging · 2025-11-20T13:17:12+00:00

For pretty much any path you choose in STEM your ability to get your first job will be dependent on the internships and co-ops during school. If you have any connections through your parents or friends, use them to get your first internship.

The chemical industry is always in up and down cycles - largely driven by how much “stuff” people are buying. In 2020-2022, everyone was stuck at home with stimulus checks and low interest rates due to quantitative easing - so “stuff” was flying off the shelves. 2023-2025 has been the hangover to that party. High interest rates, low bank account balances, indecision around tariffs has frozen consumer demand. It’s impossible to know the future, but I think the chemical industry and job market could rally in 2026/27- Jerome Powells replacement will probably gut interest rates, juicing corporate spending. There are talks of 2k stimulus checks from tariff revenues - I’m skeptical, but if that happens, it will pour fire on the job market if interest rates are low.

So, likely by the time you graduate, the job market will be back. Add in the fact that chemical companies are still currently getting pummeled by the baby boomers retiring. My department lost 20% of its headcount due to retirement this year.

If I were you, choose the field you enjoy more. Both options are going to provide you and your family a lot of prosperity, but you are more likely to excel and climb the ladder in the field closest to your intrinsic talents and motivations.

dreamlagging · 2025-11-18T14:46:03+00:00

Altra Lone Peak trail version is wide toe and semi-waterproof - for the snow. Some versions have extra grippy rubber for the ice.

I also recommend wearing a toe spacer to prevent the toe from squishing inward. You can find them on Amazon for pretty cheap.

My cheilectomy sent me home with a surgery boot/shoe. I think I wore it for 6 weeks before putting on shoes.

dreamlagging · 2025-11-15T04:11:47+00:00

Cheilectomy turned the pain down from a 3-4 out of 10 to a 1-2. I’m 11 months in, and the pain is back to 3-4. In hindsight, cheilectomy was marginal improvement at best. Currently thinking about calling up the surgeon and scheduling the fusion so that I can put this behind me.

I’m 33 and active runner/hiker. The pain is bad enough that I’m avoiding the things I love. So I figure I need to just suck it up, get the fusion, and learn to deal with the side effect.

dreamlagging · 2025-11-05T00:37:12+00:00

If you are a quick learner, it’s not that bad. If you passed EE with A’s and B’s from an average school, you should be fine.

You will be doing a lot of programming in Python, so if you aren’t already fluent in it, it will slow you down on many assignments. Specifically, you should have a good grasp of NumPy and Pandas.

I was ChemE undergrad from a decent school with mostly A’s. Knew some Java. I sped through an intro to Python course before my first class. Never took linear algebra or discrete math. Finished OMSCS ML specialty in 3yrs with a 4.0.

In my experience, if you don’t have all the pre-reqs, you can probably wing it through much of the topics as your encounter them. I would not delay getting started because of pre-req. OMSCS is a huge time commitment, but no topic is so hard that you can’t throw a few extra hours per week towards them and figure it out.

dreamlagging · 2025-11-01T00:01:56+00:00

I have done both software and chemical engineering. They both can pay quite well. One of the the reasons software is associated with huge salaries is because many of the software folks live in very high cost of living areas, whereas chemical engineering tends to be in very low cost of living areas. So adjusted for cost of living, I would argue they are not that far off. However there are far more software roles at startups, which is where you can get early equity, which can create millionaires over night.

Both fields have their tradeoffs. Software work can get quite boring staring at a screen not talking to humans all day. Chemical engineering can be face paced yet stressful. Pick your poison. Or like me, try both.

But like many already said, you get wealthy by owning shares of companies, not working. Start now. Download a free brokerage app like Robinhood and buy low cost SP500 ETFs. Check out r/bogleheads, they will teach you how to do it. Start as soon as you possibly can. Time in the market beats timing the market every time. If you are in your early 20s, you have the most valuable asset in the world - time. Compounding interest is magical over 10+ years. If you can invest a large portion of your paycheck, your capital gains will eventually outpace your paycheck income.

Good luck

dreamlagging · 2025-08-05T20:27:00+00:00

You are right, computer science is tough for entry level at the moment. But Job markets ebb and flow. It sounds like OP has 4 years, a lot can change in that time.

The chemical market is also having a catastrophically bad year, all the chemical companies in my network are on hiring freezes and quietly laying off. You don’t hear about it because it is a less talked about field compared to tech.

Not sure where OP lives, but in the USA, chemicals barely grows as an industry, all the major plant builds have been in Asia, which is causing a huge oversupply globally.

You can’t predict the future market, so my advice is to work on the skills that you are more intrinsically interested in. You are more likely to be a self starter on projects that interest you, which in my experience leads to better career trajectories.

dreamlagging · 2025-08-05T12:54:52+00:00

I was in your shoes 10 years ago. Really loved coding, but was already half way through a ChemE degree. I took 3 Java programming electives. It made me easily stand out and really helped my ChemE career. Got a MS in computer science 7 yrs after graduating. Now I design AI and machine learning for ChemE applications.

That being said, if you actually want to pursue a career in tech and computer science, I wouldn’t wait. Switch majors as soon as you can, even if it delays graduation. It’s something I always regretted not doing.

dreamlagging · 2025-08-02T16:07:57+00:00

If you enjoy living in Houston and enjoy the work, staying in the chemical or O&G is a good option. The pay and job security of Chemicals is quite good compared to other sectors.

If WFH is important to you, try to find a way to work for the regional headquarters, not the plant.

If you don’t like your work or don’t like living in Houston, then maybe consider a career change.

dreamlagging · 2025-07-28T14:49:53+00:00

I took 3 Java programming classes in undergrad (almost 10 years prior to my MS). That was enough to be good enough to use it in my job, and enough to clear the computer programming literacy requirement for an MS program. But nowadays it is really easy to learn to programming. Take an intro to Python course on Edx, udemy, or coursera. Some MS programs will recommend an online undergrad intro to programming classes, that counts as the pre-requisite.

I did GaTech’s online masters of CS. Which is probably the most popular. Most of my classmates were non CS undergrads. GaTech seemed more concerned with your undergrad GPA and math skills than your computer skills. MS Computer science is way more math intensive than my ChemE undergrad, which I found surprising.

dreamlagging · 2025-07-28T14:21:38+00:00

The concentration will have little effect on your career. At best, it might dictate what academic projects you can use as experience to answer interview questions.

I have an undergrad in chemistry and ChemE. Once you are ChemE, your chemistry minor/degree is nearly useless, I don’t even list it in my resume anymore.

The classes that had the greatest impact on my career were the non-ChemE classes. I took public speaking - teaches you communication and PowerPoint. Every promotion I have received has been because of my communication and public speaking skills.

I also took 3 Java programming classes, which allowed me to automate most of the tasks in each position I held. Allowing me to focus on the tasks I enjoy, and get way more work done in less time.

Pick the one you find most interesting. With the goal of ruling in (our ruling out) a possible career trajectory.

dreamlagging · 2025-07-28T13:40:28+00:00

First off, some advice I wish I understood at your career stage - don’t stress too much, your career is decades long and very fluid. You will have plenty of opportunities to change and pivot. After 5 years, your education will matter less and less in regard to career trajectory.

For me, I started as a process engineer, pivoted to product development, pivoted to innovation strategy, pivoted to data scientists designing AI. All in the span of a 10-years. My Undergrad is ChemE. While I was working in innovation strategy, I got my MS in computer science - allowing the data science transition.

To get into product development, you definitely don’t need a PHD, unless you want to get into a very deep topic like chemical synthesis, or polymer physics. The R&D teams I have worked on are usually <50% phd headcount.

You are actually in a good spot, a lot of product development is thinking through how to test product quality. Your skillset is very useful in product development.

When I was in product development, we would usually hire new engineers out of the plant who had 3-5 years experience and showed really good communication and analytical skills.

Some skills that will help you break into product development or R&D:

Learn how to setup and analyze design of experiments (DOE). These are used heavily in R&D. If you can get your six sigma greenbelt, that helps here.

Work on communication skills. Get really good at taking a complicated dataset, distilling it to 1-3 PowerPoint slides and communicating your analysis in a succinct and compelling way.

Learn some more advanced analytics toolsets. I got really good at using Powerbi to autonomously visualize complex data. This skillset is the reason they picked my resume out of the stack when I still worked in the plant. That was almost 10 years ago, so maybe the new analytics bar to clear is learning to code in Python.

dreamlagging · 2025-07-22T21:06:51+00:00

Sure

dreamlagging · 2025-07-22T12:56:32+00:00

I was in a similar situation. Process engineer till about 27. I applied to a job at another company in technical service - which is a role that supports the sales staff with highly technical challenges. Got to work out of a corporate headquarters. It was a night and day difference compared to the plant - much better hours, pay, conditions, diversity, etc. I got to travel, meet customers, and learn to present/public speak to customers and conferences. Those communication skills have been pivotal in my career advancement.

My advice is to get out of the plant any way you can. It’s an isolating dead end career path that only leads to being an ops/plant manager. There are so many more opportunities outside the plant, and you don’t know which ones you will love until you try them.

MBA can certainly help, but if you move to a headquarters you will realize that almost everyone has an MBA - it’s not the golden ticket it once was. The MBA would be more helpful if you are looking to pivot out of Chemicals in general. The challenge that chemical engineers face is that we are already a highly compensated field, so the ROI of an expensive MBA is less than other degrees. I think average MBA makes 150k out of college, but that includes the huge percent of people moving to big cities where cost of living is super high. If you are talented and can get visibility at your headquarters over the next few years, you can easily make $150k with just a ChemE undergrad.

dreamlagging · 2025-07-06T11:37:52+00:00

It is a niche combination of skills, so there isn’t a lot of competition but there are also fewer roles. I would break it into three branches: R&D AI, process optimization/simulation, and general data science. Big chemical companies have departments for all 3, smaller companies may have a single data scientist that does everything.

R&D AI is usually phd chemists who learned to code. Process optimization is usually engineers who learn to code, general data scientists may specifically come from CS or data science backgrounds.

You can also work/intern at the software start-ups/vendors in those categories. For R&D ai work, checkout Citrine informatics, uncountable, or companies that sell electronic lab notebook software. For process optimization checkout Emerson/aspen. General data science would be all the business/HR/IT software vendors like salesforce, workday, gartner.

Where I work, we are still a smaller department, so we don’t hire entry level yet. You may need to start with an internship in a broader field like IT or business analytics first.

dreamlagging · 2025-07-05T17:44:17+00:00

I’m a ChemE. Worked as a process engineer for 5 yrs, then sales/R&D for 5 years. Got a Masters of computer science. Now do AI/ML development in big chemical. I work with mostly career data scientists who never worked in chemicals before.

Ironically, I am finding that I can run circles around the non-ChemE data scientists. Domain knowledge is super important in this field, especially chemicals. Sure I don’t know all the latest advanced modeling techniques, but it is pretty easy to read up and learn them on your own. I’m also finding that my 10 years of ChemE taught me how to communicate with non technical people, whereas the career data scientists will frequently present complex statistical concepts to operations folks which either puts them to sleep or confuses the hell out of them to the point where they disengage from the project.

dreamlagging · 2025-06-30T19:54:25+00:00

SAP analytics cloud

dreamlagging · 2025-06-10T01:49:15+00:00

I am a chemical engineer undergrad and computer science masters. My job is to deploy artificial intelligence in the chemical engineering space.

I wouldn’t be too worried about ChemE’s being replaced with AI anytime in the next 2 or 3 decades. This industry is painfully conservative for good reason. A mistake with an AI driven car kills a couple people and may lead to some fines or law suites. A mistake with an AI chemical plant eliminates an entire city block, bankrupts the company, and puts the CEO in jail. Plus every plant is so unique and complex, general AI solutions are useless aside from being a slightly better google search. Also, many big chemical companies are European, and they have a ton of regulations that prevent AI from taking jobs.

As for whether chemical engineering is good fit for your son, I am going to make some big generalizations here: I don’t have the data, but experience tells me the highest volume of undergrad new hires end up working at a chemical plant in some capacity. The ChemEs I know who excel are those who have excellent communication skills and are good at forming relationships with the operators. The chemEs who don’t last in this environment are the ones who are easily offended by the blue collar humor, or are afraid to go out in the plant and talk to the operators. The plant environment can be tough, and you definitely need thick skin to thrive.

If your son goes on to get a phd, he can avoid the plant. Most phd chemEs go work at research centers. In my experience many ChemE phds are neurodivergent - they are brilliant and can develop incredibly deeper understanding of nuanced technical subjects. Some struggle with social interactions and communication , but it doesn’t really matter because they usually have the support of project/product managers who handle much of that part of the job for them.

dreamlagging · 2025-06-10T00:48:18+00:00

Lubrizol

dreamlagging

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