why did you choose chemical engineer?

Good question Jonathan but I don't have an exciting answer.  Like most engineers, I liked math and science in high school.  I really!!! liked math, but didn't want to be a math teacher.  All my teachers, parents, counselors, etc....said I should be an engineer.  That sounded ok (as I didn't have anything else specific in mind), but I didn't know what kind of engineer I wanted to be.

I really like biology and considered bio-medical engineer.  But I really had a lack of understanding of what an engineering did in general.  I had shadowed an engineer for a day, but that helped just a little bit.  With this in mind, I decided it was important to co-op when I went to college.  I'm from Ohio and the University of Cincinnati had a mandatory co-op program.  This appealed to me as I would get to work side-by-side with engineers in my 2nd year of college.  With it being a mandatory program, it also meant that the university would be vested in helping me get a job (which they did).

However...the University of Cincinnati did not offer a bio-medical engineering degree.  I really had my heart set on co-oping and the benefits I would get from it.  So, I decided to go with something that was close and available at the University of Cincinnati, and that was chemical engineering.  I enjoyed chemistry (although not as bunch as biology) and the co-oping really really helped.

Bottom line, there is a lot of overlap in the engineering disciplines.  If you chose a school that has several options, you can change as you learn more.  And once you get into industry, it's not as critical either.