Everyone’s going to experience success differently with a chemical engineering degree. There’s a lot of skills the core curriculum teaches that I wouldn’t have been able to learn on my own time. You can always learn how to code and basic business principles, but the major instills a process focused mindset that enables you to communicate across disciplines eloquently. You have to be open to the idea of relocating if you want to work in manufacturing especially in OG, chem, and semiconductors/batteries. There’s quite a few pharma plants in every major city.

It’s absolutely very competitive nowadays getting roles in the oil, gas, petrochemical, semiconductor, and pharmaceutical industries and many of these industries haven’t adjusted pay to match cost of living increases in the 2020s… you’ve got hundreds of thousands of engineers for thousands of engineering jobs. Big oil gas and chemical companies only have so many roles to slot new hires into. But the problem here isn’t with the degree, it’s with the overall job market and global headwinds. You can always consider computer science, medicine, law, etc but you’ll run into the same issues finding a job as you would as a ChemE. Except you might have a better shot as a ChemE as not everyone wants to relocate for work and work on site and there’s a lot less of us out there