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School of Engineering By

Chemical and Petroleum Engineering

Chairperson: J. Karl Johnson
Phone number: 412-624-9630
Average number of BS degrees awarded per year: 50
Student to faculty ratio: 15:1
Percentage of students that co-op: 40%
Average percent placement: 91%
Percent of students that go on to graduate school: 32%
Research laboratories within the program: Polymers, Catalysis, Environment/Energy, Biotechnology/Tissue Engineering, Computational Modeling

What do you think is the biggest misconception about your program and why is it a misconception?

  • Chemical engineering is all about chemistry. No! Although the ChE student does take six chemistry classes and must enjoy and understand this subject to succeed, a ChE student’s goal is to use chemisty as a tool to solve problems; moreover, the focus of ChE is, in fact,  much broader than just chemistry. A Che will take many engineering courses and some science classes that a chemistry major does not. This gives a ChE the versatility to solve problems in a wide variety of industries.

  • Chemical engineering graduates only work in the chemical industry. No! ChEs have careers in various industries, including chemicals, biotechnology, petroleum, powders, pharmaceuticals, coatings, materials, steel, polymers, semiconductors, environmental consulting, plant and equipment design, paper, food, patent law, and health care products.

What sorts of interests would a freshman possess in order to find course work in your program exciting?

If you are interested in “making stuff”, chemical engineering may be for you. In other words, if you like using chemistry, biology, physics, and mathematics to solve problems related to transforming raw materials into usable products, ChE is right up your alley. The stuff you make can also take a wide variety of forms, so being a ChE doesn’t limit you to one section of industry. ChEs work in petroleum, polymers, catalysis, sustainability, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and many more industries.

What types of employment would a student find upon graduation with a degree in your program? What are some major companies that hire students from your program?

Names of companies: Proctor and Gamble, Exxon, Valspar, DuPont, Shell, Calgon Carbon, US Steel, Westinghouse, PPG, Equitable Gas, Intel, Nova Chemical, International Paper, Bayer, etc. Starting salaries: $45,000–$84,000.

Which courses are stressed in your program, which are expanded upon, and how much is theory, practical lab application, design, computers (in what way do you use them), etc.?

Most ChE courses use mass and energy balances to keep track of all of the material and energy requirements for a given transformation – be it chemical, physical, or biological. An understanding of how mass, heat, or momentum is transferred is also critical, as is an understanding  of the rates at which material transformations take place. Each student will perform at least twelve chemical engineering experiments, beginning in their first semester in the department, in order to illustrate these principles with hands-on experience. We have a state-of-the-art computing facility that provides students with an opportunity to use the same chemical engineering software that is used in industry, and this software is used in many of the core ChE classes. The capstone course requires groups of students to complete the technical and economic design of a complete chemical plant.

Benedum Hall

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