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Old 31-03-2019, 08:11 AM
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Having these two choices as top two was very common during my year. I matriculated in 2015 too, most prolly same batch with TS if he went into chem engineering in the end.
Common because this choices were common for someone who wanted to go the science route with chemistry in mind

I’m not too sure about pharmacy, but from what I gathered this course has little/low recognition within Singapore. Either you travel out for further studies or base yourself overseas. Pharmacists are as respected as Doctors overseas and paid much higher overseas too. Here in sg you are more likely to end up in dispensary in Hospitals/clinics and underpaid. Course is super memory intensive. Most of the time memorise stuff, study finals, vomit in exam and forget everything thereafter.

2015 batch was the last batch that required straight As (or close to that) to enter the chem engineering course. Couple of reasons: software boom and bad oil prices.
If you are entering this course because this is one of your choice which has “chemistry” I suggest you head down to open house or research about this course and the modules you have to take. There is little to low chemistry in this course. You have been warned.
Generally if you want to pursue career options in this path then 2 main routes - refineries and pharmaceuticals. I’ve asked and researched around and it seems oil and gas majors pay much more compared to pharma companies in SG. Your big break would be to get hired at these oil majors or switch industry.
I mostly have regret for taking up this course tbh, but in terms of career options engineering is definitely better than Pharmacy as technical skills are mappable to many other industries. Business math will seem elementary to you. You are equipped with basic programming skills which many SG companies need (I expect this criteria to be more stringent in the next few years - basic programming will be a necessity on your resume for technical jobs).
If you are considering engineering courses because you still do not know what to do in life (which is that I did as well), then perhaps consider other alternatives too because chem engineering is a slightly niche field.

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