Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering University of Illinois University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign
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School of Chemical Sciences   |   College of Liberal Arts & Sciences  |   College of Engineering

Undergraduate Program

Undergraduate Education Mission Statement

We have designed our undergraduate educational program with the goal of educating leaders who will have a deep understanding of engineering fundamentals and are able to apply this knowledge to management of complex systems with particular attention to the chemical process and product industries. We believe that our students will be best served by our program providing them with a foundation on which to build careers through life-long learning and by teaching students how to learn. This foundation is thus based on the key concepts of engineering while providing the students with the training to rapidly apply their knowledge to solve problems and develop relevant solutions.

Program Objectives

Program educational objectives are broad statements that describe the career and professional accomplishments that the program is preparing graduates to achieve in three to five years.1
  1. Prepare graduates to obtain positions in industry, government, or pursue advanced degrees.
  2. Prepare graduates to work in team environments to solve problems and effectively communicate results.
  3. Cultivate graduates who will effectively lead projects in industry, government, or academia.
  4. Develop graduates who will actively seek to improve their technical background and expertise through further training and/or formal education.
Our educational program objectives are designed to serve the needs of a diverse set of stake holders (constituencies) including students, faculty, and alumni.

Program Outcomes

Program outcomes are statements that describe what students are expected to know and be able to do by the time of graduation. These relate to the skills, knowledge, and behaviors that students acquire in their matriculation through the program.1

Our program educational objectives are based on the concept that the educational experience in our department should integrate the knowledge and skills acquired in a rigorous set of courses to enable the graduates of the program to:
  1. Apply knowledge of mathematics, science, and engineering – Graduates must demonstrate the ability to apply fundamental concepts gained from mathematics, physics, and chemistry courses to subsequent courses, chemical engineering courses, technical electives, and capstone courses such as Unit Operations and Senior Design
  2. Design and conduct experiments, as well as to analyze and interpret data – Graduates must demonstrate the ability to analyze engineering data to interpret trends, develop models, and evaluate their relevance. This also involves successfully identifying the need for experiments, developing an experimental design, and analyzing the data quantitatively.
  3. Design a system, component, or process to meet desired needs within realistic constraints " Graduates, when given objectives and constraints, must successfully design a chemical system, process, product, or set of experiments to achieve a specific economic, safety, and production goal. This involves designing systems that are functional, safe, efficient, and ethically sound. Graduates must be able to identify the limitations of any design and well as demonstrate the judgment to evaluate and determine whether a design is adequate and should be implemented.
  4. Function on multi-disciplinary teams – Graduates must display proficiency in working in teams. They must display the ability to divide work equitably, set individual and team goals, and complete work in a timely fashion. They must be able to give and receive constructive criticism, listen and incorporate others' ideas, neither dominate nor lack assertiveness within the team, and take initiative. Graduates must be able to identify their own strengths and weaknesses and optimize the team structure to take advantage of everyone's strengths.
  5. Identify, formulate, and solve engineering problems – Graduates, when presented any engineering problem, must be able to identify all relevant information given, identify what information must still be found, construct a diagram to visually set up the problem (when appropriate), establish a plan for solving the problem, solve the problem using previously learned knowledge or new knowledge learned "just in time", and evaluate the solution for validity and relevance.
  6. Communicate effectively – Graduates must demonstrate the ability to successfully describe engineering projects or problems in both written and oral form to a variety of audiences: management, fellow engineers, and lay persons. They must be able to effectively present data, persuade audiences, and clearly and concisely answer questions.
  7. Have broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global, economic, and environmental societal context – Graduates must have a strong understanding of the impact of their work. They must be able to recognize the implications of any project on all persons involved: management, fellow engineers, all other workers, local communities, and people affected on the state/national/global level. Graduates must be able to translate this understanding to their design and decision making process.
  8. Recognize the need for, and be able to engage in life-long learning – Graduates must have automated the learning process to the degree that self-learning and "just in time" learning are a natural part of solving any engineering problem. Graduates must demonstrate the ability to solve complex problems using a combination of their fundamental engineering principles and self-taught knowledge through research of the subject. Therefore, graduates should feel confident in solving any problem (technical or non-technical.)
  9. Have knowledge of contemporary issues – Graduates must be able to identify relevant issues affecting engineers today and in the future. They should be able to identify their professional role in these issues.
  10. Use the techniques, skills, and modern engineering tools necessary for engineering practice. – Graduates must be proficient in use of engineering equations, tables, charts, published data, and simulation software such as Polymath, Matlab, and Chemcad to solve engineering problems. Graduates must display an understanding of the appropriateness of all of these tools, i.e. identify which tool should be used when and the limitations of each tool.
1 www.abet.org Criteria for Accrediting Engineering Programs, 2009.