Undergraduate Program

What is Chemical Engineering?

Welcome to the world of pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, corn chips, aspirin, artificial kidneys, oil refineries, solar panels, refrigerators, carpets, clean water, and ceramics. Chemical engineering is the branch of engineering that deals with the chemical and physical processes used to develop and make these and many other products. Chemical Engineering has deep roots in the structure of matter and molecular transformations; from the molecular scale (e.g., design and synthesis of biocompatible polymers for the controlled release of drugs) to the global scale (e.g., measuring and modeling the chemistry of climate changes). Chemical engineers have contributed to the technological infrastructure of modern industries such as petroleum processing, pharmaceutical and chemical manufacturing, food processing, and plastics manufacturing.

A chemical engineering education can serve as a springboard into fields such as biochemical engineering, medicine, metallurgy, environmental management, applied mathematics, and nuclear engineering. However, many chemical engineers also use their rigorous technical background in fields such as banking and finance, politics, business, and teaching. Graduates of this department have entered every major profession with the single exception of mortuary science! Within the traditional chemical industries the chemical engineer may work in areas such as research and development, engineering design, operations, production, technical sales and customer service, economic analysis, corporate law, and often ultimately in management.

Why Study Chemical Engineering at Princeton?

"Princeton is distinctive among research universities in its scale and its primary focus on the arts, sciences, and engineering. Its culturally and intellectually diverse faculty, students, and staff come from all parts of the nation and world to learn from each other, to use the extraordinary educational resources it has assembled to support both teaching and research, and to engage - both individually and collectively - in the preservation, transmission, and discovery of knowledge.

Princeton is also distinctive among the leading research universities in the relatively high percentage of its students who are undergraduates. As an undergraduate college, Princeton seeks to enroll students of exceptional promise and a variety of talents and to provide them with an environment in which they will grow intellectually and personally; a curriculum that is distinctive in its emphasis on student independent work and direct intellectual engagement with the faculty; a broad range of extracurricular opportunities; and the experience of living in a diverse campus community."1

"Undergraduate engineering education at Princeton aims to be distinctive in its teaching of a balance of general principles and specific applications, in its close academic interaction between talented students and an internationally-renowned faculty, in its opportunities for independent projects and research by every student, in its close articulation with the liberal arts, and in its opportunities for interdisciplinary study."2

Nearly 20% of Princeton Undergraduates are Engineering majors. Over 30% of Chemical Engineering majors are women.

Coursework and Teaching

One of the benefits of being at Princeton is the diversity and exceptional quality of courses offered across the University. Our students regularly enroll in technical courses in other engineering and natural sciences departments (Chemistry, Molecular Biology, Physics), in public policy courses (Economics, Woodrow Wilson School), and in foreign language classes, as their interests dictate.

Research Facilities

Equipment and facilities common to all departments of the School of Engineering and Applied Science include the Engineering Library, a fully staffed Machine Shop, and the Educational Technologies Center with its extensive computer graphics capabilities. Clusters of personal computers and advanced workstations are available for use by all students. The 40 research laboratories of individual faculty contain millions of dollars' worth of research instrumentation: both sophisticated commercial instruments and unique, custom-built devices, designed at Princeton. Students also have easy access to instruments housed across campus, such as the state-of-the-art electron microscopy facility in the Princeton Materials Institute and the extensive spectroscopy facility in the Department of Chemistry.

The Education of a Chemical Engineer

The program is built around a series of core courses covering the fundamentals of the profession (Principles of Mass and Energy balances, Thermodynamics I & II, Mass, Momentum and Energy Transport I & II, and Chemical Reaction Engineering). Students integrate these fundamentals and apply them in the Chemical Engineering Laboratory experience and the capstone design course. The senior thesis research experience further cultivates students' abilities to think creatively and independently. The program of study includes a significant number of technical electives (5), as well as open electives (2). Nearly half of all Chemical Engineering graduates take advantage of this flexibility to complete various Certificate Programs, especially in Engineering Biology and Materials Science and Engineering.

It's Not All About Science

Our students also avail themselves of multiple opportunities within the University. Community service, athletics, cheerleading, music, student government, competitions, clubs, professional organizations, summer internships, and so much more! Exposure to that which University life has to offer, both within and outside of academics, helps to prepare our students for successful careers in all walks of life.

[1] Excerpted from the University Mission Statement

[2] Excerpted from the SEAS Mission Statement