What skills do you need to become a chemical engineer?
During the summer I did a UTeach camp and we were learning about engineering things that I was interested in.
1 answer
Colleen’s Answer
From my experience as a Chemical Engineering grad and a Chemical Engineer in industry, is that outside of being passionate about complex chemistry, physics and advanced mathematics it is CRUCIAL for you to be resourceful, creative and a methodical problem-solver.
To break that down, you have to be someone who is willing to go down several different routes and contacts to find necessary information, you should be someone who regularly takes a step back and tries to look at a problem from different angles to try to find innovative solutions and finally you should genuinely love the idea of being confronted with a problem just for the sake of having the opportunity to find its root and solve it. Many people assume you simply have to be good at math and chemistry but while that may definitely help in your coursework, that's not the core of what you require. It's not everything you think it's honestly HOW you think, how you approach issues and how you design solutions. You have to have that passion. If not, you'll end up with a killer degree, but unfortunately industry life may not be as fun for you.