Careers
Engineering is a career path that works! More than 3 million engineers work in the U.S. today, making engineering the nation’s second largest profession. The average starting salary for a chemical engineering graduate is more than $53,900 (2005).
Learn more about career planning.
Chemical engineering graduates are in great demand. Nearly all students with engineering-related work experience have jobs at or within a few months of graduation.
Learn more about what chemical and biological engineers do.
For example, in 2005,
- 100% of co-op students are placed by graduation
- 79% of graduates with co-op/intern or summer experience
- 21% of graduates with international education or work experience
and, - 98% of all graduates are placed by 6 months after graduation
The consistently high quality of the chemical engineering program gives Iowa State an excellent reputation among industry leaders.
Our alumni have gone on to attain eminence not only as practicing engineers, but also as corporate leaders, professors and educators (more than 60 alumni hold faculty positions in chemical engineering or related fields nationally and internationally), inventors, attorneys, and medical doctors.
Our graduates have traveled far and wide – they have founded start-up companies, and worked for companies, from the smallest to the world’s largest.
Typical Job Descriptions
The specific responsibilities of chemical engineers, though they may vary among industries and even within the same company, can be categorized in general terms for most industries. Some typical job descriptions are listed below.
- Process Design Engineer - Designs manufacturing facilities and the equipment and material used inside.
- Environmental Engineer - Develops techniques to reduce and recover usable materials from waste created during product manufacture.
- Plant Process Engineer - Provides technical support and troubleshoots processes in a production facility.
- Process Safety Engineer - Designs and maintains plants and processes that are safer for workers and communities.
- Project Engineer - Oversees the design and construction of specific processes in a facility.
- Research & Development Engineer - Seeks out new and efficient ways of producing existing products. Explores and develops new processes and products.
- Attorney - Specializes in intellectual property, patent law, environmental compliance, and safety issues.
- Biomedical Engineer - Works to develop artificial organs and to develop new treatments for human diseases.
- Technical Manager - Manages people, research programs, and daily operations of the engineering functions.
- Professor - Instructs students in the field of chemical engineering and conducts research in pertinent areas.
- Quality Control Engineer - Monitors the manufacture of a product to ensure that it meets specifications. Also, tests materials to determine how they perform over time.
- Technical Services Engineer - Works with customers, usually on-site, to solve production problems caused by a specific process or machine.
ChE Graduates - where are they now?
Meet Mark Hindman (BS ChE 1998), a System Engineer for General Mills in Cedar Rapids, IA.
