TORN BETWEEN CHEMICAL AND ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING

Sir,

You have being a great blessing to us the youths of this country. You have really  impacted my life positively, I had being following all your posts on Nairaland  and your blog, you made me realize I still have hope after several years of admission  search by one of  your posts which reveals that OAU is the easiest when it comes to admission in Nigeria.

Your posts motivated me to obtain OAU pre-degree form, sat for the exam and  was admitted. I keep myself familiar with your posts concerning OAU during the  program because I do get inspired by them. I sat for OAU post jamb during the  program and I was successful both in post JAMB and the pre-degree programme. I opted for Chemical Engineering, now OAU has released cut-off marks; my  aggregate score was 284.5/400 and the merit cut-off was 255.

I was far above the cut-off  mark, I told my uncle about this good news but he wasn’t that happy about my  course (Chemical Engineering), and he said I should have applied for a course like  Electrical/Electronics Engineering which have a better and wider chance of  employment than Chemical Engineering. He said Chem Engineering is a bit narrow because most of  theem want to work in oil companies, but an EE grad has a better chance of gaining  employment easily compared to the Chemical Engineering guy. I am thinking of changing the course when we  resume but it’s hard  for me to make decision because I am very confused.

So I want you and your team to help me out on which has a better prospect.

May almighty God continue  to strenghten you.

Thanks.

Bright Ayedun

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Dear Bright,

Although I receive this kind of complimentary feedback from readers of my innocent posts on Nairaland in the last 7 years, I’m particularly elated with your case. I made all those comments about OAU not knowing one innocent boy somewhere was reading them, making decisions based on them and getting inspired by them. Congratulations for passing your pre-degree programme, the post-UME exams and subsequently gaining admission.

I passed your dilemma to two members of my team who should know more on this subject.

MICHAEL OLUWAFEMI TAIWO, PhD

Bsc Chemical Engineering (OAU) 2006; Phd Chemical Engineering, Arkansas, US, 2012

Hello,

It is wrong to say one major engineering course has a better potential than another. I say this as someone trained both in Nigeria and in the US and works for a global company. Chemical Engineering is, at the very least, on the same level as Electrical Engineering when it comes to applicability and job employment. Moreover, if you check any salary survey, you would see that Chemical Engineers consistently earn more than Electrical Engineers.

What is more important though is that Chemical Engineering is your choice, it is what you love to do. To change that to another course is courting disaster. Please tell your uncle you appreciate his advise but that you will go with Chemical Engineering.

I wish you the best.

MT

Hmmm…quite interesting. First of all, congratulations on your outstanding results. I see you will excel in OAU.

I was in a similar dilemma when I got an admission into OAU, thinking because I already had a National Diploma in EE, I will certainly do better than in Chemical Engineering in OAU.  I was lucky I didn’t make that mistake.

One thing comes to mind here:

What is your passion? Forget about job search (and your uncle) , even the best of the best students with a BA in Yoruba and Linguistics get expat jobs. Do you find yourself interested in troubleshooting electrical circuits when faulty? Or repairing electrical and electronics equipment while at home? If this is the case, then might be a good idea to switch to Elect Elect.

However if your passion is rather tuned towards chemistry with heavy mathematics, and you love to know how complex processes work (note that a process is not necessarily related to the oil and gas industry…it may be a simple manufacturing process for detergents, soaps, chemicals, oils, food) then go for Chem Eng. Moreso, if you intend to work in the oil industry in the future either as a process  engineer (optimising oil/gas/water separation) , well engineer(optimising flow of oil/gas within the well, a reservoir engineer( optimising the oil/gas flow within the reservoir (tank) in a larger context, or even an environmental engineer ( ensuring all processes and operations adhere to a strict safety standard), then Chemical Engineering might be the best option for you.

I also believe in committing  your future into God’s hands as this is a crucial stage in your life so please don’t hesitate to pray about this for God’s direction.

I hope this helps.  All the very best.

Cheers