Anyone study Chemical Engineering at Uni of Birmingham

Hi guys, I just started my Chem Eng degree here at UoB and I'm already struggling on the first week of lectures, as we have previously recorded lectures on canvas it's difficult to get help. One of the lecturers has a PowerPoint which doesn't make sense to me at all and others are in the same boat. Do things start to clear up after a while?

sorry I can't answer your question but I'm applying for chem eng at UoB for 2021 entry, would you say you're enjoying the course so far? How is the teaching at UoB? Thank you

Nice, well we're only 4 weeks in and so far the course is very interesting and I'm enjoying it so far. If you really like maths mainly speaking mechanics at A level you'll love chem eng here. Even if you liked Physics, you'd really enjoy it. However, the work load on us is crazy already and some of the concepts are really hard to grasp, many people are struggling with the some modules. Lecturers are really good, however I will say some of them do act like we have PhDs and don't explain certain things we're doing and are reslly vague. But overall are really nice and are decent at teaching but I guess unis more independent.

Hi guys, I just started my Chem Eng degree here at UoB and I'm already struggling on the first week of lectures, as we have previously recorded lectures on canvas it's difficult to get help. One of the lecturers has a PowerPoint which doesn't make sense to me at all and others are in the same boat. Do things start to clear up after a while?

Hey, I'm in my fourth year at UoB doing the integrated masters in Chem Eng and can confirm that I had no idea what was going on during first term of first year! As you go through the content and start doing tutorials, past papers etc and have revision/recap lectures, things do start making sense and falling into place. I understand that with online lectures it's harder to get your questions answered, but try signing up to PASS sessions (if you haven't already) as they can a good way to get concepts explained by an older student who has been in a similar position to you. Hope things are going well!

- Prithvi

Thanks so much!! Currently, I'm finding the course quite good just so much work and I'm behind right now but everyone literally is in the same boat. Yeah I've only attended one of those sessions, I've haven't been to the rest because of tests we've had recently.

A question I wanted to ask is did you feel like the exams and tests you'd done in the last few years were very similar to the tutorial questions in ITP and MCT mainly speaking?

Yeah I'm struggling with workload at the moment too because it's so easy to drag work out when it's online! I'm not sure I understand your question exactly but I'll try to answer here.

I would say that you use a lot of the concepts you learn in ITP (heat and mass transfer come up a lot) throughout the course as they are quite important. MCT a bit less so but you do use matrices during Computing for Design (which I think is still a module in 2nd year but not sure) which helps when you need to do work on MATLAB.

The exams for both of them are quite similar to the tutorial questions as far as I can remember, but make sure you do past exam papers as practice and learn from them, as that's the best way to do well! Some modules' exam papers can be quite different to tutorial questions in the way that the question is asked, for example the exam question may be more contextualised so you have to understand what it wants from you, compared to tutorial questions which may be given as calculations broken down into steps. Different modules also assess different learning objectives so the types of questions you get may be quite different between them.

Hope that helps!

- Prithvi

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Yes, thank you so much! that helped, yeah sorry if my question was a bit ambiguous. Did you feel content in 2nd year and 3rd year was a bit more heavy or does it get lighter than 1st year? I'm aware that there are less modules per semester in 2nd and 3rd year, but that doesn't necessary mean there will be less content, does it.

Hey! Things would have changed with the structure of the course slightly (due to student/staff feedback, COVID and also due to semesterisation which started this year) but from my experience, 2nd year is a lot of different content because of the variety of modules you do, while 3rd year is largely taken up by Design Project so although it's still a lot of work, most of it goes towards those 40 credits.

Each year has a different kind of challenge - for 2nd year it's learning how to juggle all the different modules (content heavy) while for 3rd year it's learning how to focus for in-depth research and use what you have learnt more practically (harder content although there may be less of it). Although workload gets more intense with each year, you also do learn to manage it better as you get the experience and figure out how you learn/work best. I also found that I enjoyed the modules more with each year - especially when you get to pick options in 3rd year - so I actually felt happier and more motivated to do the work!

Keep the questions coming! :-)
- Prithvi

Hi guys, I just started my Chem Eng degree here at UoB and I'm already struggling on the first week of lectures, as we have previously recorded lectures on canvas it's difficult to get help. One of the lecturers has a PowerPoint which doesn't make sense to me at all and others are in the same boat. Do things start to clear up after a while?

im freshers chem eng asw lmao

Nice haha, how you finding exams rn? I swear from your account i can fully guess who you are, you're name begins with A innit 🤣

Nice, well we're only 4 weeks in and so far the course is very interesting and I'm enjoying it so far. If you really like maths mainly speaking mechanics at A level you'll love chem eng here. Even if you liked Physics, you'd really enjoy it. However, the work load on us is crazy already and some of the concepts are really hard to grasp, many people are struggling with the some modules. Lecturers are really good, however I will say some of them do act like we have PhDs and don't explain certain things we're doing and are reslly vague. But overall are really nice and are decent at teaching but I guess unis more independent.

HI , i am starting this september , may i know some resource or book u use in the first semester i need to brush up , i dont wanna feel stupid there lol

i literally couldn’t recommend anything until you start, I don’t many textbooks for you at this position but maybe watch some videos on what is mass/ energy balance. If 1st year is the same as what it was 4 years ago, brush up on organic chem and materials. Maybe watch some videos on bernoullis principle too, look up laminar and turbulent flow, Reynolds number. This should all be a good stepping stone for going into 1st semester

i literally couldn’t recommend anything until you start, I don’t many textbooks for you at this position but maybe watch some videos on what is mass/ energy balance. If 1st year is the same as what it was 4 years ago, brush up on organic chem and materials. Maybe watch some videos on bernoullis principle too, look up laminar and turbulent flow, Reynolds number. This should all be a good stepping stone for going into 1st semester

Hey, I'm in my fourth year at UoB doing the integrated masters in Chem Eng and can confirm that I had no idea what was going on during first term of first year! As you go through the content and start doing tutorials, past papers etc and have revision/recap lectures, things do start making sense and falling into place. I understand that with online lectures it's harder to get your questions answered, but try signing up to PASS sessions (if you haven't already) as they can a good way to get concepts explained by an older student who has been in a similar position to you. Hope things are going well!
- Prithvi