Chemical Engineering Major?

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Has anyone here been a chemical engineering student? I'm at a point where I'll be doing engineering prereqs this summer and there are two options that look good; Computer Science, an Chemical Engineering.

I think chemical engineering sounds way cooler and makes more of an impact, but I haven't taken any chemistry or physics classes yet.

Computer science is a solid choice too, I'm practicing math a lot in my free time and can navigate my way through arduino projects.

I just want to know if there's a certain point where chemical engineering students tend to find out it's not for them.

Well I did 4 years of studying and worked for eight years before I decided it wasn't for me. Partily I think because my interest changed so I didn't find the work as much fun as when I started and also because my role changed and I started to become more of a lead engineer than a technical person.

I think you just need to read up about it as I did find that chemical engineering design did suit me, but there are wider aspects of the job that could be a bit challenging. A good science understanding helps, but its more getting to grips with the process and understanding the fundamental principles. Being good at maths will help and good inductive and deductive reasoning skills. If you are going to brush up on anything I would say physics would be better than chemistry as a lot of the basics revolve around fluid mechanics and thermodynamics.

Hope that gives you a little more insight into the basics of chemical engineering.

Thanks for the input, everything helps at this point. What do you do in chemical engineering g design?

Well there are quite a lot of areas you can work in in chemical engineering, so there's other things than what I'm going to say. I've always worked for multi-disciplinary design consultancy firms, quite often in these companies the many work is based on designing/modifying or upgrading process plants for various clients. These projects tend to come in phases, the early more conceptual phases are probably the more fun technically and involve analysing and assessing several options to find the most cost effective/optimal solution; the later phases tend to involve the designing of the design, fitting the design together and then commissioning the new equipment/plant.

Quite often this involves modelling the solutions usually using some specialist software tools, heat and material balances of the process, sizing of the equipment, drawing up diagrams of the process and adding the elements of controls. Quite often you spend a lot of time trying to solve unique problems which is one of the things that can make it interesting and there's a lot about trying to make judgements and optimising the design to work within loads of constraints that pop up. And always when you are working with clients your always trying to work at keeping the costs down.

As you get more senior you can also be doing little studies looking at sensitives to make sure you have a robust design that covers many scenarios and any other method to work out the limits of the design.

There are other sides to it as there are times when you have to have meetings and make presentations to persuade clients and working with other disciplines etc

There's probably more stuff, but that gives you an idea of the design elements of the job.

Have you thought about a double major? The good news is you could always get a degree in ChemE, and learn the Computer Science on your own. Software developers often don't need a degree; They need projects and experience. Beware of Computer Science, though. Not all programs are geared towards engineering. They are often set up to go into graduate school, as it's a science. Research is what those people are into. If you want to develop software, hardware, or do something else similar, then just be extra careful they are practical and not theoretical with their teaching.

I'll keep that in mind, I plan on working in manufacturing / industry. I'm wrapping up an AAT degree right now, after that I'll have enough funding for engineering pre-reqs, then I'll start looking for work as a technician. There's plenty to de before I make any decisions; I'm glad you warned me about computer science though.

Thanks again for the feedback NotaHero and bleh12345.

I am a chemical engineer, I actually just started my first job in the field a few months ago. It's a great degree to get, it has pretty much the best employment prospects of any engineering major, and is often the highest paid as well. The degree opens a lot of doors...you can work in oil/gas, specialty chemicals, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology...the list goes on!

Feel free to ask me any questions you may have on the field, the jobs, the degree, the coursework, or anything else!

My brother is a reasonably well known Chemical Engineer and he not only makes a fortune, but tells me that he works around people diagnosed with Aspergers all day long. Sounds like it might be a great choice!

Yeah I can confirmed that in my last office there were some chemical engineers with Aspergers and one or two I suspected had Aspergers. OIt paid more than I needed and I was able to have some really nice holidays.

So I take it that an industrial process is a big part of what Chemical Engineers do, what types of diagrams are the most useful? What kind of software?

Also, I'm hearing that physics as a discipline is used more than chemistry, but what kind of math do you find yourself doing? Is there a lot of statistical process control?

Also, does your career tie into any hobbies or visa versa?

What was the hardest part about your schooling? Would you have prepared differently if you knew what you were up against?

I think it's great that there are so many people with Chemical Engineering experience over here.

What do you mean by diagrams? Learning how to read PFDs/P&IDs (process flow diagrams, and piping & instrumentation diagrams) is an essential skill.

With regards to software, the most important software is ASPEN Plus. It's used to simulate most chemical processes in industry, and does a pretty good job of it if the model is specified correctly. There are other process simulators out there such as ChemCAD, but ASPEN is the one most often used in industry. A strong knowledge of Microsoft Excel is a must, and if you can write your own macros in it, it will help a lot. Math software such as MathCAD or PolyMath come in handy for certain applications. Other than that, there are tons of more specialized software packages that are used for more specific purposes.

The #1 thing you will need to do is perform mass and energy balances. That is something you'll be doing no matter what. The other big types of math you may perform frequently involve calculating reaction kinetics, analyzing vapor-liquid equilibrium data, calculating mass transfer rates, calculating heat transfer rates, and calculating hydraulics of single-phase and multi-phase flows. Often you'll combine all of the above, such as for reactive distillation columns. I don't really distinguish between physics/chemistry, because it's all the same stuff in the end!

Here is a link that describes how to perform certain mass transfer calculations, to give you an idea of the kind of math that is involved: http://www.separationprocesses.com/Abso ... Chp04c.htm (it's a weird site, but the information on it is actually pretty good)

Most chemical engineers I know don't dabble much in process controls. Of course we all have to know the basics of process controls and be able to design successful control schemes, but the actual control specs are often done by process control specialists.

The hardest part of schooling is just the time commitment. Most of the material isn't terribly hard, but it does require a significant investment of time and energy to learn it. Most teachers where I went to school expected you to pretty much devote every waking hour to studying/working on projects. The last year is the most brutal (or it was at my school), because you have to do your senior design project (it counts for 2 hours but really it requires about 10+), on top of your other classes. The best way to succeed academically is just to do all of your homework, and to study all of the problems until you can solve them in your sleep. If you do that, you'll do just fine!

PFDs and P&IDs narrow it down, I've scratched the surface on them.

The math in the link didn't look too foreign, not sure what you'd plug in, but that's probably why they send you to school first.

Thanks for all the info, I'm checking out the software packages right now. I have plenty of info to work with now.

In engineering, most of the math you will use isn't difficult from a math perspective, unless you get involved in more advanced modelling or CFD. About the hardest thing (math-wise) I do regularly is using Runge-Kutta for stepwise integration, or writing Excel macros to perform iterative calculations. It's knowing how to use it, when to use it, and what values to use with it that is challenging (and can be far more difficult than it sounds!).

Also, keep in mind that a lot of the software runs in the thousands of dollars range, so don't go looking to buy any of it for yourself lol! Wait until school or a job gives you a license!

The only software package I can afford right now is python lol. Luckily for me, there is a lot of free education I can get in on while I'm waiting to start classes, I've become a sponge for all the free ed sites out there.