Graduating as a Chemical Engineer

This week I had a great idea about letting Chemical engineering students know what it is like being a graduate and what sort of work they can expect after graduating. Now I am not what you would call a normal graduate. I was a mature student, being the oldest student in fact my department in Sheffield University had ever had. I did prove myself to be the perfect student, never missed a lecture and graduated with a 1st in Chemical and Process Engineering with a specialty in Biotechnical engineering. Now I did struggle getting a job but as I had loads of experience I was able to drop into commissioning work pretty easy and I have been doing it ever since, I have travelled the globe and gotten fat with eating all the free food that that entails. So my idea was to contact my old department and let them know I had a Blog site running and it covers all the stuff I do at work and what I get involved in. one of my old lecturers though that some of my pictures were just what he needed to show those children what working is about and this picture of me with my hard hat on and elbow deep in a control cabinet full of wires was just what he needed plus a few others of sites and plant from around the world, e also wanted me to give a general description of my working activities and this I also did but I was thinking what are the kids going to think when they see me with a huge moth stuck on my forhead and grinning into my own camera complaining about the fog in the jungle. I tried to think back to the good old days in Sheffield and realised that in fact that would probably entice more kids in chemical engineering as it seems a good laugh and most of the time it really is a great time and very interesting work it is also. So me acting pretty insane is a great advertisement for graduating into a career designing, building and operating large, expensive and typically potentially dangerous equipment. As most students would agree being silly now and again is exactly what you need to make the world go round a little bit more easily