Three words.

I will address chemical engineering in three words. Chemical engineering is a very difficult course to succeed in as it requires advanced math, a huge load of credit hours, and is often best complemented with summer internships. Many students will switch out early, some will try longer and eventually fail out, and the rest of the original hopefuls after four years will stop hoping and will begin productive careers. The thing that most appeals to me, that is untold in the summary above, is the countless possibilities and directions this major allows, even with just a bachelor’s degree, and the potential impact my work could have on the world one day. As I learned basic fluid mechanics, heat transfer, reaction kinetics, and mass balances I realized those are just principles of calculation. Those are just tools to help chemical engineers to do their work. But these things and others that I will learn over time are not developing limited options towards a career, but rather laying out the guidelines to allow me to imagine possibilities. I particularly am interested in material sciences, the study of various plastics, metals, or composites, as well as nanotechnology, which I believe to hold many answers to world problems, and through chemistry develop new materials.

And this is where the really neat part of chemical engineering comes in. I am choosing to pursue material science but others will choose many other applications. Among the faculty, some are studying biological applications such as protein interactions on different chemical surfaces or developing better methods for dialysis or blood treatment in heart transfusion. Some are doing computer programming work to model with math molecules and so forth. Some are studying combustion or nuclear plants. With a degree in chemical engineering, one can literally do anything. So simply put: chemical engineering rocks. Three words.