How Students See Chemical Engineering

In the following video, I discuss with Grant Bauer, a fellow Chemical Engineering student, our thoughts on the field of Chemical Engineering. In my experience, many people do not know what a Chemical Engineer does. So, we started our conversation defining Chemical Engineering. This included a brief discussion on how the field was started and where Chemical Engineers work.

We then moved on to why we chose chemical engineering. We talked about our career goals and subfields of interest. We described our experiences at school and how it has prepared us for the workplace.

Most of our discussion was over three of the main engineering problems faced in the world today. These engineering challenges were taken from the list compiled by the National Academy of Engineering. We strived to show the many ways Chemical Engineers combat these issues.

The first challenge addressed was the need for economical solar power. Grant shared about some of the exciting research he has done with Dr. Shende, a professor at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. I discussed how Chemical Engineers have been at the forefront of developing new battery technologies.

The second challenge we talked about was the need for clean water. Not only is there a shortage of clean drinking water in many third world countries, but many first world counties have contaminated their drinking water. Many of these contaminates are from common household products. Grant and I talked about ways to better filter drinking water and some new processing techniques that keep the waterways clean.

The last challenge we discussed was the need for carbon-sequestering methods. This allowed me to talk about my love for the biofuel industry. Plants are the greatest form of carbon dioxide recyclers, and I believe they are the solution to this issue. Grant talked about how many companies are capturing the carbon dioxide released during processing. This carbon-capturing demonstrates how Chemical Engineers are finding economical solutions to environmental issues.

I hope you enjoy our conversation and please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Find the Video Here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPedaf_GMxo

References

Grand Challenges - 14 Grand Challenges for Engineering. (n.d.). Retrieved November 4, 2021,

from http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/challenges.aspx.