Re: Chemical Engineering

From: David Cross (nospam_at_spammenot.com)
Date: 03/17/05 

Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 04:02:10 GMT

"Bob" <bbx107@excite.com> wrote in message
news:2jth311tkluamkn9v2vuojpspn97lm4bqj@4ax.com...
> On 16 Mar 2005 17:19:19 -0800, "Timos4112" <timos411@juno.com> wrote:
>
>>I am a high school junior wanting to go into chemical engineering.
>>Although going into my senior year i have exhausted my schools science
>>department. Would my best course of action be to pick up college
>>courses or find something else to fill my schedual. It is the same for
>>AP Calculus so i would have to pick up 2 college courses my senior
>>year??????
>>Thanx u for any input
>
> Either way. (Are there other courses at the HS that you _want_?
> Nothing wrong at all with taking a range of things, by choice.)
>
> Taking a college course would be a good experience. The first semester
> of college can be a shock, and getting a preview helps. Even if you
> don't do well, you are better able to get off to a running start the
> following year, cuz you know better what to expect.

My rejoinder to "Timos4112" <timos411@juno.com>:

Get all the calculus you can. It helps if you take a whack at it once in high
school where the price of failure isn't as bad as it is in college or
university.

Failure of an optional AP calculus course in high school just means you wasted
a year. Failure of a required calculus course in college means you wasted
somewhere around 300 bucks on the course as well as just your time. You'll
have had one kick at the can already and you'll know where you're weak and
wheer you're strong in calculus and you'll have seen the symbolic notation and
the funny rules already.

As well, for ChemE, particularly try to at least read up on the -theory- of
the industrial-scale processes you will be studying, such as distillation,
liquid-liquid extraction, gas absorption, heat transfer, water pumps, air
pumps and that sort of thing.

You'll get all the math you want for those processes in your ChemE courses.
Concentrate on the theory at this stage so you can see how the numbers fit.
That way you'll know a reboiler from a condenser and can concentrate on how
the vapor-liquid compositions change as you go from one theoretical plate to
the next. :) 

-- 
David Cross
dcross1 AT shaw DOT ca

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