How We Teach: Chemical Engineering Electives

The AIChE Education Division's Survey Committee covered elective course offerings in chemical engineering departments in the US and Canada in the Fall 2023 survey. Results are available from 70 respondents at 69 institutions. Medians are presented here, and the mode is mentioned if it is different from the median. Institutions require that their students take two chemical engineering elective courses, one outside-of-department technical elective (mode of zero), and four total technical electives. Undergraduate-only institutions (N = 5) offer a median of 8 chemical engineering elective courses over a two-year period, with a range of 2 to 28 courses. Over the same time frame, departments with graduate programs offer a median of 3 elective courses to just undergraduate students (mode = 2), 4 elective courses to undergraduates that graduate students may take (mode = 0), and 6 graduate courses that undergraduates may take as electives (mode = 0). Elective class sizes are small, with 44% of institutions reporting a typical enrollment of under 15 undergraduate students per course and 50% reporting 15-30 undergraduate students per course. In the past ten years, 17% of departments have converted a required course to an elective. These now-electives were most often required bioprocessing, advanced chemistry, or molecular engineering courses. More departments, 26%, reclassified technical electives as required courses in the past ten years. These now-required courses were usually process safety, programming, or statistics elective courses. Bio-, energy-, and materials-type electives were offered at over three-quarters of departments. Advanced-core and sustainability electives were the next most popular, at 60% of institutions. Process-type electives were offered in 47% of departments. In the past ten years, almost all departments created a new technical elective that has been regularly offered. Bio-type electives were the most common new elective, followed by process-type electives. Data analysis, data science, and process simulation & modeling were the only emerging topics to be covered in an elective course at half or more of the departments. Details about course titles, electives with laboratory components, minors & concentrations, and common out-of-department electives are provided in the proceedings. Comparisons were made to the results from previous surveys when possible.