Chemical Engineering at UCLA: From a recent UCLA Graduate

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Los Angeles
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<p>So what does a chemical engineer do? Why do we have the highest starting salaries for bachelors? Are we nerdy and pasty? All these questions will be answered (I hope).</p>

<p>Q. What is chemical engineering?
A. Chemical engineering is unique, it isn't like chemistry nor like mechanical engineering. We take fundamentals of both and apply them. Your job as a chemical engineer is almost like a chef, you take in some raw material, process it , and out comes a finished product that you can charge massive amounts (like Ursawa in Beverly Hills - $350/per person I might add!).</p>

<p>Your goal is to make massive amounts of pure substances as much as possible at a cost fractional to you. </p>

<p>Imagine the dipping dots ice cream, you want to separate the green dots from the rest of the dots. However this comes at a cost (energy and time). Perhaps there's a unique trait about the green dots that makes them easy to separate from the rest (my analogy is incomplete, too tired to finish it up)</p>

<p>Q. Is chemical engineering a popular major at UCLA?
A. It's pretty popular. According to the ChemE Department Chair, Monboquette, around 300 freshman have selected chemical engineering as their major. </p>

<p>Q. Is chemical engineering for me?
A. Chemical engineering is not for everybody. If you like a good challenge and enjoy being rewarded financially, physically and mentally, then you will love it. </p>

<p>Q. Just how difficult is chemical engineering at UCLA?
A. A lot of chemical engineers at UCLA are top of their class in math, sciences and verbal. They will be your rivals and also be your colleagues. In some classes, you will be crying, some classes you will be having so much fun. Overall, chemical engineering at UCLA is fairly difficult but it comes with much fun.</p>

<p>Q. So what are the perks of being a chemical engineer?
A. Money. Chemical engineers are one of the highest paid engineers. As of UCLA 2008 Chemical Engineering graduating class, job offers of 70k + sign on bonuses of average 5k have been given out (so 75k for a bachelors out of college). One of the recent alumni has been almost 2 years with BP and is making close to 6 figures, however he got the right job, right promotions and right time.</p>

<p>Job security. We do not get outsourced (CS/EE), we do not get job contracts in public sector (Aerospace/Civil). Pretty much the job industry in chemical engineering is all private or for profit sector. There are some ChemEs in the public sector however.</p>

<p>Job satisfaction. Everyday as a chemical engineer in the private sector (non-government jobs) is different. Your skills are constantly tested and honed and you learn new things.</p>

<p>Job opportunities. You are not limited to chemical refining. You can work for environmental consulting, design firms, law school, medical school. A lot of ChemEs go onto law school for patent law or environmental law, they make a lot of money knowing how a process works. Some ChemEs go onto medical school, chemical engineering has its roots in biomolecular so some LS/Biochemistry classes will reinforce your knowledge in the ChemE curriculum.</p>

<p>Q. So what are the things that suck being a chemical engineer?
A. The job. There are days where you love it and it's a roller coaster, everything goes down hill. One day your reactor may be just burping out stuff you don't want and your job is to fix it and it might hit you in your sleep why it doesn't work.</p>

<p>Location. Sometimes you are stuck to big refinery, not nice office buildings like other engineering majors.</p>

<p>Q. What is the daily life of a chemical engineer?
A. Improvement. You are constantly checking equipment and seeing if it up to spec and if not, what can be done to improve it.</p>

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<p>Chemical Engineering Courses at UCLA:</p>

<p>Monboquette - CHE 100, CHE 108A/108B
Monboquette is the department chair of UCLA's chemical engineering department. </p>

<p>CHE 100
Difficulty of Material: 7/10
Homework Amount: 10/10
Test Difficulty: 7/10
His CHE 100 class is an infamous weeder, the homework are very long. If you manage to survive CHE 100 and do well, you'll most likely do well in all other chemical engineering classes. His homeworks consist of 7 problems usually and each problem will take you 2-3 hours (his infamous wizzo problem is given every year).</p>

<p>CHE 108A
Difficulty of Material: 3/10
Homework Amount: 5/10
Test Difficulty: 6/10
CHE 108A is a process economics and analysis class. It's a fairly easy class since it's all economics. In this class, you learn how to size reactors, pumps, heat exchangers, and much more based on money considerations. I really liked this class cause the material wasn't as difficult and it was fun. I had a lot of fun in this class too cause it's a senior class where everybody has fun.</p>

<p>CHE 108B:
Difficulty of Material: Depends/10
Homework Amount: Depends/10
Test Difficulty: Depends/10
CHE 108B is the senior design class, it's a contuation of CHE 108A. It's a fun class, you are in a group and your job is to make a running chemical plant. You must factor in operational cost, land cost, raw material cost in addition, you must design your process and have a running model. Start early and you'll do well and won't worry in the near future. Manthouaskis use to teach this and if your plant didn't make any money, you would automatically fail the class and have to repeat it in the summer. Every year they have some different project, this year was biodiesel, last year was hydrogen production.</p>

<p>Manthouskias - CHE 108A/B, CHE 119:</p>

<p>CHE 108A/B (See Review)</p>

<p>CHE 119
Difficulty of Material:
Homework Load:
Test Difficulty:
: I took this with a colleague of </p>

<p>Orkoulas - CHE 102A/102B</p>

<p>Senkan - CHE 103/106</p>

<p>Drake - CHE 104A/104B</p>

<p>Tang - CHE 104D</p>

<p>Chang - CHE 104C</p>

<p>Hicks - CHE 101A/B/C, CHE 116</p>

<p>Segura - CHE 104D, CHE 115</p>

<p>Christophides - CHE 107, CHE 109</p>

<p>Cohen - CHE 121</p>

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<p>This post is reserved for more detail (part 2).</p>

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<p>wow thanks!</p>

<p>is it hard to choose where you work? like if you didn't want to work at a refinery can you request a change in location or do you have to look for a different job? is it easy to get a job that's not in a refinery? does it depend on your specialty?</p>

<p>you can tell i don't want to work in a refinery :P</p>

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<p>TB54</p>

<p>I've been waiting for this thread for some time, as i am an incoming ChemE. I know you're probably very busy,but was curious if that was the end of your thread?</p>

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<p>TB54:</p>

<p>What's the hardest ChE class you've taken, and with who?</p>

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<p>I will post more later today (June 12). My last final is at 11:30 so by 8pm, I should have this done.</p>

<ul>
<li>TB54</li>
</ul>

8

<p>Wow, nice thread.</p>

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<p>Postponed till tomorrow due to drinking games.</p>

<ul>
<li>TB54</li>
</ul>

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<p>is this gonna be finished?</p>

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<p>Manthouskias - CHE 108A/B, CHE 119:</p>

<p>CHE 108A/B (See Review)</p>

<p>CHE 119
Difficulty of Material: 3/10
Homework Load: 3/10
Test Difficulty: 3/10
I took this with a colleague of Manthouskias (Phillis). The class was interesting, one of the easier chemical engineering classes. You learn fuzzy logic and risk assessment (almost equivalent to CEE 153).</p>

<p>Orkoulas - CHE 102A/102B</p>

<p>CHE 102A
Difficulty of Material: 6/10
Homework Load: 8/10
Test Difficulty: 7/10
Orkoulas is a bit easier in 102A. You learn the basic thermodynamic stuff like throttles, expanders, compressors and vapor fractions. He teaches really fast and loves to give you fairly difficult homework. He's nice though and he'll help you to make sure you learn.</p>

<p>CHE 102B
Difficulty of Material: 10/10
Homework Load: 9/10
Test Difficulty: 10/10
Overall Difficulty: 8.5/10
Orkoulas is hardcore difficult in 102B. This class goes very fast and the material isn't easy stuff. You learn how to dervive Gibbs, Margules, and other equations of state. You will use chemical potential, fugacity, and a lot of esoteric thermodynamic stuff. This class is not easy, Orkoulas shoves information down your throat, your discussion isn't discussion, it's an extra lecture. You need to go to officer hours for sure. 4 unit class becomes more like an 6 unit class. Orkoulas is nice, you work your butt off, he'll help you pretty much any way possible. If you do well in this class, CHEM 110A/B/C123A/156 are pretty much a guaranteed A if you do the work.</p>

<p>Senkan - CHE 103/106</p>

<p>CHE 103
Difficulty of Material: 8/10
Homework Load: 8/10
Test Difficulty: 8/10
Most people did not like CHE 103. You apply some CHE 102B stuff in applications to separations. The textbook teaches you stuff like Hunter-Nash Equilibrium, McCabe Thiele Modulus. The textbook flat out sucks (Separations Processes and Principles by Seader). Not a class I liked but had to grind through.</p>

<p>CHE 106
Difficulty of Material: 7/10
Homework Load: 8/10
Test Difficulty: 8/10
I loved this class. You learn about reactors such as a PFR/CSTR/PBR/Batch. Textbook was excellent and test weren't as bad as 103. Senkan's forte is in reactor and catalysts design, so he knows his stuff about reactors. Overall, one of my favorite classes.</p>

<p>Drake - CHE 104A/104B</p>

<p>CHE 104A/104B
Difficulty of Material: 0/10
Homework Load: 0/10
Test Difficulty: 0/10
Overall Difficulty: 10/10
Why is this class so awkwardly graded? Because Drake is a lecturer, he's not an associate/assistant professor. Nothing ever worked in the lab, either it was put together with duct tape or not even functioning at all. Drake's grading system is very haphazard. My 104B class wasn't well loved (class of 14, average grade C, he gave out mostly C+/C-). The 09 ChemE 104A class was even hated more, (supposedly he was suppose to give out 6 Fs according to his TAs, but he decided to be "nice" and give out 3 Fs 3Ds, 20% of the class). He can make your life a living hell at times. </p>

<p>Tang - CHE 104D</p>

<p>CHE 104D
(Did not take the class but hear good things about Tang)</p>

<p>Chang - CHE 104C
(Did not take the class but hear Chang is fair and knowledgeable)</p>

<p>Hicks - CHE 101A/B/C, CHE 116</p>

<p>CHE 101A/101B/101C
Difficulty of Material: 10/10
Homework Load: 8/10
Test Difficulty: 8/10
Overall Difficulty: 9/10
This is your fluid dynamics classes. This class will usually beat any MAE 103 class in difficulty to the sheer amount of crap they put in the textbook. The textbook is Bird, Stewart and Lightfoot (BSL for short). The textbook is really what we call BSL magic due to no derivations, super challenge problems and how the hell did they get that answer. My friend who took MAE 103 got an A in MAE, however when he took CHE 101A after MAE 103, he got a B. Hicks usually teaches this but he's on and off. Liao teaches 101A sometimes, and he teaches it very well due to his advisor being one of the authors supposedly.</p>

<p>Segura - CHE 104D, CHE 115
(Don't hear good things about Segura due to her being a new professor)</p>

<p>Christophides - CHE 107, CHE 109
(Hear Christophides isn't so bad, his class are all math based due to the nature of the EE classes - process control)</p>

<p>Cohen - CHE 121
CHE 121
Difficulty of Material: 6/10
Homework Load: 5/10
Test Difficulty: 8/10
I don't like Cohen much. He seriously has Napoleon syndrome or something. He was unorganized in homework distribution, on his field trip to make us learn he was doing business deals and seriously, how do you expect us to remember boundary layer stuff when it was over a year ago? He doesn't write his own test, he only writes 1 problem and has his TAs write the problems. He wrote one problem on one of the test and I knew which one it was, the one nobody could get, not even the graduate students in CHE 221.</p>

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<p>Chemical engineering job:</p>

<p>Do you need to work in the middle of nowhere? Not necessarily, however, most of the nice paying jobs are sometimes at the manufacturing sites. Manufacturing pays the most (~70k starting)
Anheuser Busch - LA
Chevron - El Segundo
BP - Carson (I think)
Frito-Lay - Bakersfield</p>

<p>If you don't want to be in the middle of nowhere, your salary is still above the average engineer but not as high as the manufacturing sector
~60-65k starting
Design firms (AECOM, Parson, Jacobs)
LA Bureau of Sanitation
Metropolitan Water District of SoCal</p>

<p>Most difficult CHE Class:
Difficult textbook - 101 series / 103
Difficult material - 102B
Difficult professor - Drake</p>

<p>What I liked about Chemical Engineering:
1) The professors who cared. Even though we were one of the smallest graduating class in the engineering school, we were sure Hicks was well known at commencement by shouting his name.
2) The classmates you bonded with. They are almost your second family.
3) The projects that make you feel like invincible after you accomplish them. Projects are difficult, but when you complete them, you feel so proud of yourself.</p>

<p>What I didn't like:
1) The cheating. - (there was one person who failed so many classes, Moldau knows who I am talking about, and as a result, he collected previous test/hoards people's note by "borrowing" them and what not. This person wasn't the brighest knife in the toolshed, so if you were his "friend", he would give you the answers to almost every class. I kind of feel sorry for him because all his "friends" don't speak highly of him). People were cheating on my 107 class by passing "scratch paper" which had answers written on them. Didn't like how others cheated cause it hurts the curve.</p>

<p>2) The long homeworks. Sometimes the material was so dense or so long, one problem could take you easily four-five hours.</p>

<p>3) The department sometime has its own agenda and/or doesn't get along. Currently I hear the department does not get along due to hiring issues and what not. Some professors (remain unnamed) don't like other professors, like personal agenda almost and it becomes a bias view.</p>

<p>4) The department isn't as forgiving as other departments. I took civil classes and the department was FAR more laid back than the chemical. From what I've been told, MAE is more laid back than chemical.</p>

<p>Neutral:
CHE Curriculum: You have to take the curriculum in order, if you fail or don't take a class, you're delayed a year (this year, we lost 3 or 4 chemical engineers due to missing a class or failing one). The department isn't as branched as electrical or even mechanical, so no staggering hard classes with easy classes.</p>

<ul>
<li>TB54</li>
</ul>

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<p>As for popular major. I would like to correct myself, we're not that popular. I looked under UCLA admissions and found the pie chart, we're not even up there.</p>

<p>I know this however.
Entering freshman chemical engineering class is 300ish.
Graduating classes are around 30-50.</p>

<p>Do the math. Not going to say it's easy. However this is a contribution of many things (math/physics/chemistry/computer science - basically lower division classes) can weed people out.</p>

<ul>
<li>TB54</li>
</ul>

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<p>Internships</p>

<p>A lot of biotech companies hire ChemEs since the department has a heavy biomolecular emphasis. Companies that come to mind, Applied Biosystems, Baxter, Bayer, Genetech, Amgen, Zymogen Research and what not.</p>

<p>I'm not sure about the salary for biotech companies cause it depends on the company itself. Some biotechs can pay well while others not so well. </p>

<p>Monboquette: "Does anybody know what CHO cells are?"
Student: "Chinese hamster ovary cells"
Monboquette: "Correct, and how do we get more CHO Cells?"
Another student: "Kill more Chinese hamsters?"</p>

<p>As for petroleum companies, well, they will always pay the highest. I think as an intern, they are around $20-$23 dollars an hour? However, petroleum companies are a bit picky, they usually want the cream of the crop students or students who are underrepresented.</p>

<p>It's not easy to get your first pick internship because you'll be competiting with every ChemE student across the nation. However, I believe since Baxter is in Glendale and we're the closest school to them, we have an exclusive internship with them, pretty much if you're UCLA ChemE, you're accepted. I heard around 19 UCLA ChemEs were accepted this year.</p>

<p>Internships are tricky your first and second year because you really don't know what chemical engineering is. Not until you take ChemE 100, you really get a feel for it. A lot of people who come in think, oh, it's heavy chemistry in an applied sense, not really. Chemical engineering is heavily physics with some chemistry. We don't really care about what chemical a does, or how chemical b can make you glow in the dark if you drink enough of it. All we care about is, the amount and/or purity.</p>

<ul>
<li>TB54</li>
</ul>

15

<p>When would you say is a good time to start applying for internships? After Junior year?</p>

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<p>sounds nice, but how's the social life for chemical engineering majors compared to other engineering majors? I don't want to spend my college life doing engineering worksheets or whatever.</p>

<p>also, it seems like you're only giving the pros and not showing all of the cons. I remember reading about how chemical engineers can't be picky about where to work; you might have to travel far away to work at a desired job.</p>

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<p>Internship:
Start internship applications during Fall Quater, late November. Talk to Mr. Beard for help. Usually every year, AICHE and him start a resume workship and what not. Mr. Beard will help you ever step of the way for your job, he's a great guy, very respected among the students.</p>

<p>Social life:
This is anecdotal, so take it with a grain of salt. I believe we're up there in the engineering party crew. We don't always study but if we have to (ie exam coming up), we will. We have parties, get together, and what not. </p>

<p>In order of having a great social life in engineering at UCLA (from best to worst
Civil/Chemical
Mechanical/Aerospace/Materials
EE / EE/CS
CS</p>

<p>I know the ChemE 09 year has get togethers to go down to the beach, go see jazz festivals, eat out, play twister and what not. The ChemE 08 was more about drinking wine/eating cheese, talking about stories, and trying to toss professors into a swimming pool. </p>

<p>A lot of the 08 ChemEs were active in their lives. Some ran marathons, did triathlons, played IM volleyball/lacrosse, were in frats (not triangle). Some also had jobs that helped pay for college. Thing is, most really didn't like to focus all their attention on ChemE, would drive them insane, so they found a balance in their life. I feel that a strong balance in needed in ChemE, after a day of BSL, you want to do something else for sure. </p>

<ul>
<li>TB54</li>
</ul>

18

<p>Work:</p>

<p>Most of the time, the companies will not force you to work in Middle East, Australia, or else where. They also will not force you to work insane hours. Thing is, the benefits of working (ie, nice overtime pay) is what brings incentive.</p>

<p>Example: Anheuser-Busch wants their employees to work 2 weekend every month. However, the pay is so good that you wouldn't want to miss out.</p>

<p>1.5k every month of overtime weekend = 18k
Annual Salary = 60k
18k/60k = 30% of your Salary is increased just by working weekends.</p>

<p>Most companies double your pay or increase the pay rate when you work aboard. </p>

<p>Another example: The person who was hired by Chevron. Chevron asked him if he would like to move to Virginia to have training in materials science/engineering for petroleum. He said he wants to stay in California with his girlfriend and family, Chevron said OK, we respect that decision. </p>

<p>The cons: Sometimes when you start up in a production (24/7) plant, you will have to take the worst shift (graveyard). However, most companies will not always make you take graveyard, they will put you on graveyard for a month or so and take you off.</p>

<ul>
<li>TB54</li>
</ul>

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<p>TB54, you did not write about any lab or design courses. Are there none?</p>

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<p>Old curriculum to new curriculum issue, they changed the naming.</p>

<p>104A/B/C/D = 104AL/BL/CL/DL</p>

<p>Design class = 108A/108B. 108A is the instructional where people from industry lecture (Chevron this year). 108B is where you design a working production plant.</p>

<p>Depending on the scenario, 108B can be easy or hell. Last year was virtually no carbon emissions. This year is to make biodiesel.</p>