Paulette Clancy

Paulette Clancy

Professor and Director School of Chemical and Biolmolecular Engineering
Cornell University
Paulette Clancy
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Answers by Dr. Paulette Clancy

Dear Sarah (from Detroit)

If you love Calculus and AP Chem then you are certainly on a classic path to head towards Engineering, and especially Chemical Engineering, as a major at college.  Given that you love make-up and hygiene products (and who doesn't!), you should know that, for decades, Chemical Engineers have been hired by all of the major U.S. companies whose businesses are focused on those products. I am thinking about Proctor & Gamble, L'Oreal, Clorox, Unilever, and many more.

Make-up and hygiene products offer a rich set of problems for engineers, from surface chemistry (to reflect light away from skin imperfections, for instance), to biochemistry (clearing up acne), to materials engineering (balancing a soft but strong toilet paper.  The key core competencies are chemistry, engineering, and math (you have to model and analyze the product designs you are considering).

As a chemical engineer I may be a bit biased, but I would recommend that you consider a chemical engineering program.  First, packaging is a more narrow focus and it is not a major at many universities.  Second, post-college, you will have a career spanning about 45-50 years and you need a broad-based education to make sure that you have the background for whatever you do over that long time (and it's not likely to be just one job).  Third, many people come into college with one career aspiration and then get inspired to do something else. So you want a degree that allows you the breadth to prepare you for any changes you end up making in your focus without having to change majors.

With respect to environments, this will depend on where you are in the design chain. You may be in a laboratory if you are more focused on the chemistry of these products. You may be working in a pilot plant, running your own tests on a small-scale  and then analyzing them. Or you may be working on the (large-scale) manufacturing process itself and having to trouble-shoot quickly as problems arise (rather like being a first responder). Each of these environments are quite different and will reflect the activities relevant to that stage of the process, from lab bench to full-scale production. Then hopefully, some day you see the product you worked to produce on supermarket shelves- how exciting.

Finally, as any one who reads my answers to Engineer Girl knows, I also recommend that you ignore the salaries. You need to do what you love first and foremost. Love what you do. No amount of salary can make you love your job. You clearly already have passion, harness that instead.

Good luck and keep up those math and chemistry classes.

Paulette Clancy/Cornell 

Dear Sara:






Paulette Clancy

Hi Christine I am a chemist by training too, so I understand this transition well from personal experience. No, you don't have to go back to college to get a ChE degree. There are professionally oriented master's degree programs that, while not a substitute for a BS in ChE, will give you a good foundation in the engineering side of the chemical industries. At Cornell, for instance, a chemist can complete a Master of Engineering (Chemical) in under two years (4 semesters), depending on the courses you took as an undergraduate. I've attached a file that gives you a brief description of the M. Eng. program at Cornell in Chemical Engineering. If you want more details there are two points of contact on the last slide. Being an engineer will certainly broaden your career options and significantly increase your starting salary relative to that of a BS chemistry graduate. It would help a lot if you were able to take some courses in your final year to help prepare you and cut down your time-to-degree . I hope this helps. Paulette Clancy

Dear Margarate, I am delighted to hear that you are considering Chemical Engineering as a major in college and perhaps as a career. As you might expect, Chemical Engineers spend a lot of time learning the fundamentals of chemistry, especially physical and organic chemistry. They also take a lot of mathematics courses (usually four) and they learn some physics and biology before specializing in the fundamentals of chemical engineering (courses like thermodynamics, fluid mechanics and chemical kinetics, but also process control, separation processes and heat and mass transfer). When you graduate, you will find that a degree in Chemical Engineering is valued by a broad range of potential employers: pharmaceutical companies, chemical companies, semiconductor and electronics companies, consumer products, and oil and gas companies. But chemical engineers graduates are also hired by some companies that you might not expect, like banks and other financial institutions, consulting firms, and food companies. Of course, safety at work is an issue. But there is not a reputable industry that I know that hires chemical engineers that doesn't have employee safety as their most important concern. The safety of workers in the chemical industry is, in fact, much better than the average manufacturing job in the U.S. But chemical engineers work in so many industries that, if safety is a particular concern, you can work in a department or in an industry that does not involve exposure to hazardous materials. Chemical engineering is a wonderfully versatile degree to have and we make important advances in the production of products that make life better. It's a very fulfilling career path and one in which safety concerns should not be the deciding factor in your choice of study at college. I hope you keep working at your studies and fulfill your dreams, whatever they may be. Paulette Clancy