Chemical Engineering or Chemistry?

As summer exams are approaching quickly, my sand-timer for deciding what I want to do with my life is running out. After my engineering course at Loughborough I was enlightened into the world of Chem Eng. It looks like great fun and the good thing is that you get to apply your knowledge to the real-world, which perhaps is a pro over chemistry which is mainly theory and working in the laboratory. However, I rather enjoy theory in chemistry and the thought of working in a laboratory seems quite exciting to me. A chemist or an engineer? That is the question.

Recently, I have been doing some research and I am surprised to see that many people are in the same boat as me. There are endless forums of aspiring undergraduates who are desperately trying to figure out which field to dive into, as they are actually very different from eachother. From my research I have divised that:

• Chemical engineers apply principle knowledge in order to solve problems which involve the manufacturing of chemicals on a large-scale production level.
• Chemical engineers apply principles such of physics and mathematics as well as chemistry and it is mostly engineering.
• Chemical engineering DOES involve a lot of maths.
• The chemical aspects to chemical engineering lie mainly within thermodynamics/physical chemistry, materials science and kinetics.
• A chemist cannot do a chemical engineer's job and vice versa.
• Both chemistry and chemical engineering are good degrees to have on your CV as they both teach valuable skills such as; teamwork, independance and problem-solving.
• Chemistry is the study of matter and 'why?'
• A chemistry degree involves 3 main branches: organic, inorganic and physical.
• A chemistry degree usually will lead to a job in researching or the pharmaceutical industry.

Quite a few people say that a Chemistry degree will give you broader options after university and that you should only do chemical engineering if you are really passionate as this is more specialised and perhaps harder to obtain a wider range of careers in after graduating. I always thought that a chemist was more tied to specific industry (research in pharmaceuticals/drugs etc) than a chemical engineer who could basically do anything related to industry and manufacturing?

I think that at the moment, after researching and attending my Loughborough University engineering course, I am 70-30% for studying chemical engineering. Even though I really enjoy learning about all things chemistry-related, I think being able to learn why the knowledge is important and how it can be applied to process new products would be a really interesting degree and possible career. Perhaps chemical engineering would be more exciting as there are many different aspects to the course such as safety, environmental issues, maths, physics, chemistry, processing etc. and chemistry is just chemistry. However, I am not completely sure as I often have moments where I think I would definately prefer to do chemistry. Decisions, decisions - but very important ones!  I need to decide soon though as some universities which we want to look at only do chemistry and not chemical engineering (and vice versa) - such as Durham, Warwick, York and Southhampton all doing only chemistry. I will get to see a lot more of chemical engineering when I attend my Headstart engineering course at Bath University for 4 days in June though.