Undergraduate and graduate engineering training differ significantly. The former looks to established protocols and formulas to design and control processes while the latter often involves questioning established protocols and formulas to better suit and describe phenomena. Although we do not dispute the benefits of practical hands-on approaches,…

Chemical process simulation is one of the most fundamental skills that is expected from chemical engineers, yet relatively few graduates have the opportunity to learn, in depth, how a process simulator works, from programming the unit operations to the sequencing. The University of Calgary offers a "hands-on" postgraduate course in…

The increasingly diverse backgrounds of today's graduate students have resulted in a wide range of ideas about what graduate school actually entails and what is expected of the students. Therefore, a graduate course titled "Theory and Methods of Research" was developed and is required for all chemical engineering graduate students at…

Describes a year-long graduate plant design course. The course provides students with an appreciation of the profit motive that drives business activity, the role of the chemical engineer in achieving this goal, and historical and contemporary perspectives on chemical engineering practice. (JN)

A graduate-level computational chemistry course was designed and developed and carried out in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in the Fall of 2005. The thrust of the course was a reaction assignment that led students through a series of steps, beginning with energetic predictions based upon fundamental…

Describes a graduate level course on the philosophy and techniques of teaching chemical engineering. Course topics include lecturing methods, test construction and grading, homework assignments, laboratory instructional methods, and methods of individual tutoring. All topics were approached using a variety of instructional strategies. (JN)

A three or four semester-hour graduate course was designed to provide basic instruction in heat/mass transfer topics relevant to chemical engineering problems and to train students to develop mathematical descriptions for new situations encountered in problem-solving. Course outline and list of references used in the course are provided. (JM)

Describes a graduate or senior elective course combining fundamentals of surface phenomena with practical problem-solving structured around a series of case problems. Discusses topics covered and their development through acquiring new knowledge applied to the case problem, practical calculations of solutions, and applications to additional…

Presents course outline, topics covered, and final project (doubling as a take home final exam) for a one-semester, interdisciplinary course on the design and behavior of chemical reactors. Interplay of chemical and physical rate processes is stressed in the course. (JM)

Provides an overview of the "Hazardous Waste Management Graduate Certificate" program at Wayne State University. Describes four required courses and nine optional courses. Discusses the development of a Master program and the curriculum of the Master program. (YP)

Describes a two-quarter sequence of graduate courses in numerical methods and modeling for chemical engineers. Rationale, course content, methodology, topic development, and such course requirements as homework and design projects are considered. Emphasis is placed on the treatment of numerical methods implemented in commercial software. (JM)

Discusses the problems created in graduate chemical engineering programs when students enter with a wide diversity of understandings of transport phenomena. Describes a two-semester graduate transport course sequence at the University of Notre Dame which focuses on fluid mechanics and heat and mass transfer. (TW)

Describes a course in nonlinear mathematics courses offered at the University of Pennsylvania which provides an opportunity for students to examine the complex solution spaces that chemical engineers encounter. Topics include modeling many chemical processes, especially those involving reaction and diffusion, auto catalytic reactions, phase…

Describes a course designed to expose neophytes to methodology used in chemical process industries to evaluate commercial feasibility of proposed projects. Previously acquired disciplines are integrated to facilitate process synthesis, gain appreciation of nature of industrial projects and industrial viewpoint in managing them, and to become adept…

Describes the biochemical engineering and industrial biotechnology programs of the University of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada). Provides descriptions of graduate courses, along with a sample of current research activities. Includes a discussion of the programs' mechanisms for technology transfer. (TW)