I'm 23 years old, about 40 credit hours away from finishing a chemical engineering degree, and I don't think I want to do it. The more I hear about job opportunities, and locations, and pay, and what the actual work is like, the more it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I like the concept, I like organic chemistry. I've got a focus on biomolecular engineering. I've taken courses in genetics and bioinformatics, and I find the concept of cellular machines and protein synthesis incredibly interesting. I want to synthesize drugs, and make people better and stronger. Bioreactors, recombinant DNA-- taking these machines which have developed for billions of years and using them for other purposes.

However, I don't think this is likely. I think it's more likely I'll work in texas or louisiana in the petrochem industry. I'll likely work on plastics, or some crude oil-based feedstock. Chemical plants aren't in seattle, or new york, or san francisco, there in a shithole town where the land is cheap.

Employers want experienced engineers, not ones out of school, and sure internships could secure me a job at exxon or shell, I'd be there for a decade before I could work my way into something I'm interested in, and maybe by then the baby boomers would die off and I'd get the chance to do a cool job, but maybe not, and maybe it'll suck, and maybe i'll not want to put up with it for the chance of enjoyment.

I switched my major to computer science. I've lost a year of progress, and my first classes are tomorrow. I figure I've got a better chance at doing something I enjoy, because I like computers and I like neural networks and I like machine learning. It's like the brain it's interesting, and there's job growth and it's in nice cities, and automation plays such a huge role in basically every field, so why not be involved with the cutting edge of that.

I just don't know if I'm making a mistake. I don't know what I want to do. I'm afraid.