An Inside Look on Engineering - Chemical Engineering

    Ever since I was young, I loved food. I loved making it, changing recipes, and obviously, eating it. In addition to that, I also really liked chemistry. This is why I chose to pursue chemical engineering as a major.

            Chemical engineering is incredibly broad; there are a lot of different applications with this major.  Chemical Engineers can work with materials, pharmaceuticals, energy and oil, food, and much more.  For example, the new drug or medicine that you just saw advertised probably had a chemical engineer working with an enzyme that helped create it. A chemical engineer probably worked on your favorite granola bar too- they made sure it had a certain taste, but also wouldn’t fall apart as you eat it. When oil is retrieved from a reservoir, chemical engineers have to use knowledge like thermodynamics and fluid mechanics, or else they wouldn’t be able to work with it.

            First, before chemical engineers apply all of this knowledge, they have to learn it. At Purdue, all engineering students start in First Year Engineering their freshman year. So I started taking actual chemical engineering courses my sophomore year (this current year.) I have taken all of the major basics, such as mass balancing, organic chemistry, and calculus. Now, I am currently taking thermodynamics, Organic Chemistry 2, statistics, and you guessed it, more math. One major thing about chemical engineering is it is very math intensive.

            One of the things that I like about chemical engineering is the size of the major. The Davidson School of Chemical Engineering at Purdue has around 600 students, which means my class has fewer than 200 students. With that said, I know a lot of the kids in my classes, which is something that I love. Another thing I like about chemical engineering is the vast amount of opportunities it has because of how broad the content is. I mentioned earlier I chose chemical engineering because I liked food and chemistry, but who knows - maybe I could be working with oil when I am older.

            Purdue has 16 different Engineering majors to choose from - that is a whole lot! And going even deeper, each of these majors can be used in such a variety of ways, and can overlap and intertwine. One thing I did to sort the different majors in my head was looking at the study plans for each of them online, and seeing the different classes that I could be taking, and what interested me the most. I am not sure where I will be in 4 years, or 10 years, but I can’t wait to see what my Purdue Engineering degree brings me. Some parts are definitely hard, but ultimately, I am definitely enjoying this journey every step of the way!

Boiler Up!

-Teresa Anderson