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Chemical engineering

Hello! Thinking about taking chemical engineering, what kind of jobs will I be seeing after getting my master's degree? I've always been interested in alternative sources of energy such as solar power, etc. am I in the right place?
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Avatar for Claree
Claree
17
Original post by pat2cornelia
Hello! Thinking about taking chemical engineering, what kind of jobs will I be seeing after getting my master's degree? I've always been interested in alternative sources of energy such as solar power, etc. am I in the right place?


Hi! I have posted this elsewhere on TSR in answer to this question:

Chemical engineering is a broad field. If you would like to work in the chemical industry or related industry, you could work in food, pharmaceuticals, oil, water, consumer goods etc. You could work as an engineer in these companies, or in management, as a business analyst, in supply chain planning/logistics, in R&D etc.

A ChemEng degree also doesn't mean you have to work in the chemical industry. It's a useful degree giving you problem solving, analytical, teamwork, communication etc. skills and you can go into other graduate jobs e.g. in finance, banking, management consultancy, tech consultancy.

As for alternative energy, yes that is a part of ChemEng, and is something you could go into with a ChemEng degree. You could also go into energy from some other branches of engineering, as energy is multifaceted e.g. a materials engineer could be looking at solar panels.

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Original post by Claree
Hi! I have posted this elsewhere on TSR in answer to this question:

Chemical engineering is a broad field. If you would like to work in the chemical industry or related industry, you could work in food, pharmaceuticals, oil, water, consumer goods etc. You could work as an engineer in these companies, or in management, as a business analyst, in supply chain planning/logistics, in R&D etc.

A ChemEng degree also doesn't mean you have to work in the chemical industry. It's a useful degree giving you problem solving, analytical, teamwork, communication etc. skills and you can go into other graduate jobs e.g. in finance, banking, management consultancy, tech consultancy.

As for alternative energy, yes that is a part of ChemEng, and is something you could go into with a ChemEng degree. You could also go into energy from some other branches of engineering, as energy is multifaceted e.g. a materials engineer could be looking at solar panels.

Posted from TSR Mobile


Thank you so much for your help! Also, in pharmaceuticals, are we making actual medicine or are we designing tools such as operation tools or dentist tools?
Reply 3
Avatar for Claree
Claree
17
Original post by pat2cornelia
Thank you so much for your help! Also, in pharmaceuticals, are we making actual medicine or are we designing tools such as operation tools or dentist tools?


A Chemical Engineer working in the Pharmaceutical Industry would typically be involved with

1) designing/running the reactors, separators etc. involved in making the drug (e.g. making paracetamol from its chemical precursors, as e.g. a white powder). (Note that it would probably be a chemist who would discover/develop the drug and suggested synthesis route, a chemical engineer would scale-up production from the lab bench to factory.) This is the same as the role chemical engineers play in producing chemicals in other industries, though there are differences in how drugs are typically manufactured to how e.g. bulk chemicals are manufactured.

and

2) designing/running "secondary processing" i.e. turning the drug into a dosage form (e.g. compressing the paracetamol powder into a tablet).

The pharmaceutical industry does much more than just tablets, though. Biologics, for example, form an increasing part of the pharma industry, and chemical engineers are involved in scale-up and production of these.

I'm not sure who designs medical "tools". I assume it would be mechanical or biomedical engineers or materials scientists etc. working with medical professionals (who can give input regarding the clinical application of the tools), then the tools would be made by engineering firms.

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