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/sci/ - Science & Math

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7130169 No.7130169 [Reply] [Original]

What's the better science major, /sci/- Chemistry or Physics?

>> No.7130174

Physics obviously. Why is this even a question?

>> No.7130182

>>7130169
Chemistry is just a stripped down ChemE major.
Physics is an add-on to Engineering or Math majors. It doesn't work as a stand alone.

>> No.7130188

>>7130182
a major related to chemistry will get you more job opportunities in the coming years but dont rely on that. applied sciences mixed with other communications majors will be the most appealing to employers. If youve got the money do a double major. While you may be overqualified in some jobs, others may look at this as a sign of dedication

>> No.7130191
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7130191

Biology is probably the most rigorous of the three and requires the most intelligence; however, physics and chemistry can be pretty challenging in some circumstances but if you really want to challenge yourself academically major in bio. The rigor will make you sweat

>> No.7130199

>>7130169
>Biochemistry
>Biological chemistry
Literally the same thing.
>Biophysics
>Biological physics
"

>Chemical Biology
>Chemical Physics
>Physical Biology
>Physicochemistry
These fields do not exist.

There's so many legitimate overlaps they could've used like chemical solutions thermodynamics or computational biology, but instead the idiot who made the chart had to demonstrate his utter lack of knowledge about STEM fields.

>> No.7130235

>>7130188
You can never be overqualified with a double major and they don't cost more money at most schools.

>> No.7130277

>>7130199

Chemical Biology is a thing, check the department name, faggot
http://chemistry.harvard.edu/

>> No.7130325

>>7130277
It's the exact same fucking thing as biochem, changing the semantics doesn't make it a different field.

>> No.7130527

>>7130169
They're all good.

>> No.7130543

>>7130191
Is this b8? Please be honest. :)

>> No.7130549

>>7130191

Your b8 is too obvious, friend

>> No.7130559

>get degree in Chem
>spend the rest of your life giving safety lectures to industrial workers

>> No.7130560

I don't know what "better" means when it comes to science. Depends on what you're looking to get out of it. Physics is the most rigorous, probably the most difficult. You may not make as much right off the bat though, but physics majors have no problems getting decent paying jobs since it's a respected degree. Chemistry is kind of a lame degree, like someone else said, you might as well do Chemical Engineering so you can make sick moneys out of college, but if chem is your thing and you want to do research than go for it. Biology is also cool if you wanna do research, and it opens doors to more specialized fields that can be particularly lucrative, but it's the least rigorous and mostly involves a lot of memorization and boring lab work.

>> No.7131125

>>7130182
I see this meme a lot; are there really people here who believe engineering is harder than science? It's basically an area for those incapable of abstract thought, who like the idea of repeating 1st/2nd year science undergrad stuff endlessly.

>> No.7131127

>>7131125
It's not a meme

ChemEs go through pretty much most of a chem major and can easily finish it if they wanted.

>> No.7131130

>>7131125
>implying Engineering isn't abstract

and this is why science majors should be forced to get an engineering perspective.

>>7130560
>Physics is the most rigorous

Clearly you know nothing about physics. P

>> No.7131136

>>7130199
>>Chemical Physics

>These fields do not exist.

You're kidding right?
What year are you in high school?

>> No.7131139

>>7131130
I know it's the most rigorous science field, by a fucking long shot. Next b8 please.

>> No.7131152

>>7131125
You have no idea what you're talking about.

As a ChemE we finished the Chemistry programme verbatim in our first two years including some of their senior specialized electives. The professors (from the Chemistry department who offered us the course) confirmed we were using verbatim the exact same textbook and the exact same study guides.

It's not a meme at all, why do you think engineering is a year longer programme while also having higher entrance requirements? Why do you twice as many people graduate with a chemistry degree per year than a chemical engineering degree.

Not trying to offend anyone, but science was always a background either to engineering or professional science (grad-school route), it should be obvious that undergrad in pure science is not comparable to a professional undergrad degree.

This kind arrogance from undergrads is disgusting and it's obvious you've never been humbled by being in a challenging environment, get out of your ivory tower and realize how little you're actually worth, so you maybe get your head out of your ass and start working hard to actually make something out of yourself that's useful to society.

>> No.7131198

Depends. Chem is basically physics but is more important on the application, so the theory is not as rigorous.

>>7131152
Your cheme takes stuff like synthesis, spectro and inorg? In my uni, they only take the intro courses of orgo, physical and analytical but then again, it's is a third world country.

>> No.7131207

>>7131139

Reflects the sad state of current science.

>> No.7131210

>>7131152
>>7131127
>>7131130
Firstly: not an undergrad. Undergrad science is pretty meaningless.

The issue is, in the sciences an undergrad degree is basically an extension of highschool. It gives you the tools to approach a problem, but (depending on your course) you won't actually have to think for yourself until the last year, or the next degree. Finishing an engineering degree qualifies you how to do basic engineering; finishing a science degree qualifies you to apply for grad school and see if you're capable of thinking for yourself (or transfer to engineering and continue happily memorising different special cases of basic problems).

My point: undergrad is basically rote-learning. The difference is, engineering afterwards is refinement, while science afterwards is an art that requires lots of knowledge as an entry fee. Most decent physicists are happy solving engineering problems (if slow), but engineers seem to struggle with the concept of having to find their own area, problem, method, and solution.

>> No.7131269

>>7131198
First of all, chemistry programmes are not standardized, so this only for some chemistry programmes at some universities (probably some of the shittier programmes; I don't know how our programme compares, but I doubt it's much good), but engineering degrees have to be legally standardized so the comparisons hold if your programme was similar. I'll start with the things we do take verbatim and the expand on similarities and differences from the other senior courses.

>synthesis
At our uni, Chemistry majors takes o-chem in their second and third year (2 courses total), the first o-chem course is the same as a second semester ChemE course, the third semester ChemE course I've been explicitly told is verbatim the 3 year course study guide textbook and all, a typical exam question is a 16-25 step synthesis depending on your skill or explaining mechanisms and properties using MO theory etc.

>Spectro
Chem, is one intro 2nd year and a 3rd year (elective) course in analytical chemistry, ChemEs take an accelerated course in a single module in their 4th semester (75% of the total credits of both anal chem courses), this entails the exact same exam (literally the lazy chem. prof., who's a popular public figure and doesn't care about undergrads, gave us the exact same questions that was selected from the 2nd and 3rd year exams, which included stupid memorization shit like spikes in IR results where we had to identify bonds and some less stupid calculation based questions and/or QM/instrument/NMR etc. related questions), but chemE only does 1/3 of the practicals of the combined 2nd and 3rd year courses. Textbook used in all these courses is Holler, Skoog and Crouch (everything in it) and some hand written notes and texts because the prof. thinks he's hot shit.

[cont.]

>> No.7131270

>>7131269
Both ChemEs and Chemists exchange old exam and test papers to prepare for the modules mentioned above, because we know it's the same courses, my friends from HS in chemistry regularly came to me for advice and tips during exam time in their 3rd year.

>Physical chemistry
We do this at an introductory level from chem. department and a then a second year level, but from our own department, the reason being that ChemEs do a lot less of the other aspects of Physical chem like QM. while we have a much heavier focus on thermodynamics and fluid/chemical solutions thermodynamics which goes much deeper into statistical thermodynamics and more modern practical models and applications of thermodynamics like phase modelling and separation etc. in our third year (you won't find any course like a ChemE solutions thermodynamics course, it's a pretty unique field).

Some of the aspects covered in Phys. chem. is also covered in our third year and fourth year courses, sometimes more and sometimes less advanced. Third year material science for example. Also things like viscosity and diffusion properties are covered in our continuum mechanics including finding parameters from fundamental principles when data is not available.

Our kinetics is obviously in an entirely different level as well, we really start getting into kinetics in our own department's 6th semester course, and do reactor engineering in our 7th semester (which is the most advanced course you can find on reaction kinetics at a university level; chemists who apply to our grad-school have to take this course first even for getting into our chemistry focused research groups).

>inorganic
We don't really do this at a senior level at all, aside from the baby intro courses we don't touch inorganic. The course description looks a lot like what we did in material science, but I don't really know what happens in this course so it's probably a lot more advanced since it's at a senior level.


[cont.]

>> No.7131274

>>7131270

Most of the wasted time in chemistry is on elective credits. About 30% of their credits is electives from other science departments (which inevitably must best intro courses from Physics, Geology, CS, Math etc. departments), couple that with the fact that they have far less credits in total per semester than us is why we can afford to fit these courses earlier in our programme. ChemEs don't have any electives at all and you're forced into this structured programme. Except for the intro stuff, real engineering courses don't really start until third year.

>> No.7131286

>>7131210
Again you don't understand engineering curricula at all, engineering is not rote-learning in any capacity, first of all 8/20 of our 3rd year and 4th year courses were 100% open book, in most cases this included internet access (there's nothing and no one on the internet that can help you, except your colleagues which is why if you're caught entering chat rooms etc. that's the only thing considered cheating). You never memorize shit in engineering, that's complete bullshit, the focus is always on creative problem solving. Your final year in engineering there are barely any exam based course work.

Your final year focus is on your design project and on your research project. The latter of which has to be publishable in a highly referred journal, though (only 10% of students in my year group actually got published). You fail if your research adviser thinks your research is not publishable. The design project is usually very open ended and this is the most important grade that employers look for when they hire an engineering. Aside from select students who much do an oral exam (borderline fail/pass or distinction candidates), the only mark is your technical reports which consists of a high level design of an entire plant, and several reports on a detailed low level design on key engineering operational units, reactors, control systems etc.

On average we calculated that in our final year an engineering student reads through 7000 research article abstracts and about 30 in detail (high st. dev. here because it depends on the research topic and design direction you take), 3 design textbooks, and wrote an estimated average of 1200 pages of publishable and examinable work including reports, papers and in rarer cases patents (students with extremely good research results).

>decent physicists are happy solving engineering problems
Physicists will never see a real engineering problem in their life time, it's because they think textbook problems are eng. problems.

>> No.7131318

>>7130169
Physics, if you seek knowledge. Chemistry is a touch, I mean a mere touch of knowledge. I mean you have a year of physical chemistry, but it's nothing. I MEAN NOTHING.

Chemistry is for those who want to suffer their undergrad hours angry and frustrated on why their experiment didn't work. In good lab courses, sometimes you're unknowingly set up as the "control".

I have a bachelor's in chemistry.

>> No.7131472

>>7131318
Heh, that kind of sucks, why is there such an over emphasis on lab skills?

>In good lab courses, sometimes you're unknowingly set up as the "control".
Dick more from the instructor, can't they do the control?

>> No.7131819

>>7130169
Chemistry.

We use QM as the basis for our AO and MO theories in pchem, which requires two out of the three intro physics courses. Third semester is basically thermodynamics and an intro to QM and relativity anyway.

I only took one semester of biochem (not my interest but interesting nonetheless, plus my university did not require it for my track) but you could go on to take two and basically know just as much as any molecular biologist, and then some.

We owe a lot to physics, but unless you wanna be a theorist and teach it won't quite cut it to be just a physics major.

>> No.7131827

>>7130560
Biologyfag detected

>> No.7131839

>>7131270
2nd semester pchem is theoretical handwaving that's probably not useful (yet) to a ChemE anyway.

>> No.7131853

>>7131472
>why is there such an over emphasis of lab skills?

Are you kidding? It's not even like the lab experiments in undergrad are hard, they practically spell it out for you, but I guess if you give fuck all about being a good chemist or are only taking chemistry courses out of necessity then it would make sense for someone to ask such a stupid question.

What's the point in knowing all the traffic laws if you can't even drive a car?

>> No.7131870

>>7130169
Physics, easily. If you're intelligent enough to do Physics but want to do Chemistry instead, do ChemE. As others have said you have to cover a large amount of Chem content in order to become IChemE certified, to the extent I have a lot more knowledge in Physical chem and Thermodynamics than most Chemists I know. You'll also leave with a much more versatile degree.

>>7131210
>but engineers seem to struggle with the concept of having to find their own area, problem, method, and solution.

Actually this is specifically what every Engineering syllabus focuses on. If it doesn't, it's a bad program.

>> No.7131875

>>7131870
The college I want to go to doesn't offer ChemE.
It only offers Mechanical and Electrical engineering courses.
But I want to do Chemistry, so I think I will go with PharmChem.

>> No.7131893

>>7131127
This is simply not true. Chemical engineers only take up to Organic chemistry 2. Chemistry majors take A LOT of other chemistry classes after that including physical chemistry, inorganic chemistry, instrument analysis, analytical chemistry ect. There are more but I cannot remember.

Chemical engineering coursework is nothing compared to chemistry workload. Chemistry is far harder and more extensive.

>> No.7131894

>>7131875
You should pick your career and major first then try to get into the optimal university for it, not the other way around.

>> No.7131897

>>7130169
I hope you enjoy working in a McDonalds.

>> No.7131898

>>7131893
See >>7131210 >>7131269 >>7131270 >>7131274

If your local ChemE programme does not take does courses, it's probably not Washington Accord accredited or bound to lose its accreditation in the accreditation committee audit.

>> No.7131899

just do nuclear engineering and acquire all knowledge necessary to conquer the world

>> No.7131901

>>7131898
those*

>> No.7131903

>>7131897
For what? Are you insinuating that a science degree is similar to a Women's Studies degree?

>> No.7131908

>>7130169
Computer Science.

/thread

>> No.7132045

>>7131152

At my uni chem E majors only take general chem, and spend the rest of their major playing with tubes. They hardly take any of the chem curriculum

>> No.7132302

>>7130191
My jimmies were close to being rustled then,

>> No.7132328

>>7132302
He almost got you, mate.

>> No.7132386

>>7131893
you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. if you study a respectable engineering degree at a respectable college/university, the only course with anywhere near as heavy a workload is medicine. I have been able to spare maybe 5 evenings in the past 3 months to go out and see my friends on other courses.and that's without including revision for first semester exams. this is not something i'm boasting about, it's not an accomplishment that i'm proud of, i fucking hate it and i'm currently entirely powered by caffeine.

i know this because i know a lot of high-achieving chemists, physicists, biomeds etc. and none of them have at any point during the past 3 years had a greater workload than me.

and just because i know some faggot will say i've got terrible time management, my time management is excellent, thanks.

>>7131898
what's that, is it to do with chartership? i think it's similar here in the UK, courses that are accredited by the IChemE are very different from those that aren't.

>> No.7133339

>>7131870
Then why are engineers invariably boring people who struggle to express themselves outside of their narrow specialisation, while scientists are happy to discuss areas outside their expertise, and generally make sense while doing so? With few exceptions, show me an engineer and I'll show you a partially formed human.

>> No.7133359

>>7133339
did an engineer bully you in college?

>> No.7133395

>>7133359
Nah; I just wasted far too much time sitting through really basic content with them, then hearing "wow engineering so hard STEMlord master race if only those scientists knew how real our struggles were" for hours as they struggled to do basic circuit analysis.

>> No.7133677

>>7132386
>the only course with anywhere near as heavy a workload is medicine.
Truth, I've heard countless deans and professors say the exact same thing.

Both my siblings are actually in medicine, they have a larger volume of work than ChemE, but it's much, much easier to understand so it's faster to work through, in total they work the hardest by far to get their degree though.

I have actually worked through one their old physiology textbooks one of them gave me, took me two weeks of 4-8 hour day study sessions, it's fairly intuitive and interesting, but goddamn there's just so much detailed shit going on.

>i know this because i know a lot of high-achieving chemists, physicists, biomeds etc. and none of them have at any point during the past 3 years had a greater workload than me.
Same thing, the people in this thread obviously don't have any friends in engineering, because they have no idea how light their workload is in comparison. The difference between a ChemE degree and a Chem degree is about the same factor as Physics vs. Arts.

>is it to do with chartership?
Yes, IChemE is Washington Accord accredited, this means that you can be legally registered as a professional/chartered anywhere in the UK+commonwealth, China, the US, Russia, Japan and South Korea etc.

It is important to note that many universities in the US are NOT Washington Accord accredited, but the top universities and many state universities are.

>> No.7133678

>>7133395
You tutored first years, congrats those aren't engineers fucktard, do you have any idea what the dropout rate for engineering is?

Jesus christ get out of academia and learn how the real world works instead of babysitting idiot kids fresh out of high-school.

>> No.7133708

>this thread
>you clearly know nothing
>you're a fucking idiot
>my anecdotal evidence says this
>my anecdotal evidence disagrees
>faggot
>fucktard

Why do I even come to this place anymore?

>> No.7133836

>>7133708
you beat me to it

faggot fucktard fucking idiot

/sci/ is shit, there are smarter ppl on /b/ ffs

>> No.7134154

Shit guys I need your help.

Which of these statements are true?

-The Nephelauxetic effect is due to configuration interaction.

-d1 Oh has the inverse Orgel diagram to d9 Td

-[Ti(H2O)6]3+ exhibits three d-d bands in its electronic spectrum

-The ground state of [Cr(H2O)6]3+ is 4A2g