Why Chemical Engineering
At least three times during the week, I have a small crisis over whether I’ve chosen the right major for me. People often cite chemical engineering as one of the most difficult majors anyone can pick. While I’m not one to back down from a challenge, the day to day struggle of juggling problem sets and lab reports and numerous readings often makes me wonder why I decided to become a chemical engineer. On any given day, I find myself staring at yet another mass balance problem, questioning if finding the amount of soap that can be recycled within an industrial Laundromat is something I want to do for 45 years.
I decided long before arriving at Tufts that I wanted to study chemical engineering. For most of high school, I knew that I wanted to go into a field that heavily relied on math and science, but I also knew that I didn’t want to study their pure forms. For months, my parents suggested that I look into engineering; they sent me articles and Wikipedia pages, but I refused to look. In my mind, engineering was making cars and lawn mowers and ceiling fans. I didn’t know that my mental image of engineering was only a small subset of a much broader discipline.
Then one fateful day, my AP Biology teacher mentioned something about chemical engineers and organic chemists designing and synthesizing proteins to perform specific tasks. That afternoon, I spent hours digging through the very same Wikipedia pages my parents showed me months earlier about protein, biomedical, and chemical engineering. In that moment, I was sold on chemical engineering, despite having no idea what chemical engineers even do.
As I write this, I still only have a nebulous collection of specific examples of what I could potentially do. I could make batteries, or carbon dioxide scrubbers, or distillation columns. What I find difficult is connecting the core concepts of these disparate processes into a concise summary of chemical engineering. My best attempt at such a summary (future updates to come) goes a little something like this.
Chemical engineers do everything. Whether it’s scaling up the production of a prescription drug or designing a process to melt and mold plastic into toys, there is hardly any industrial or commercial product that a chemical engineer has not touched in one way or another. We hope that the water we drink is free of pollutants like lead and mercury. Chemical engineers make that happen and keep us safe. We hope that patients get the safest and most affordable medication possible. Chemical engineers make that happen. We hope that the food we eat is produced reliably and sustainably. Chemical engineers make that happen. In general, chemical engineers design processes using chemistry, mathematics, thermodynamics, physics, biology, and economics to modern world running.
So when I feel like I made a mistake by choosing chemical engineering, I try to remind myself that some day someone might be drinking cleaner water, or breathing cleaner air, or using safer, more sustainably produced plastics, or taking cheaper medicines, or using more renewable energy because of my work. And that is why I’m a chemical engineer.