This blog post is all about on “how to study” chemical engineering courses. I really think there is a STRATEGY whenever talking about learning and structuring your knowledge. This blog post will talk about which subjects are critical for your learning and the recommended order for a NEW Student, a graduate Engineer, or a Non-ChemE related field.
NOTE: This is a Blog supporting the landing page – START HERE from my ChemEngGuy Course Page.
Understand what you need to learn
One of the most important parts of learning is understanding WHAT we need to learn and WHY we need to learn it! And guess what… I see lots of students not understanding WHY they need to learn Material Balances, or Unit Operation Design, or may be even Transport Phenomena (yeah I know it’s a confusing subject!)
The initial step is to know WHAT is the topic… Then get informed! Try to ask the question WHY. Why do we need to make material balances? Why do we need thermodynamic knowledge? And then, check out the course layout, the syllabus content, check out the books required!
Get ahead
I separate students into three categories:
- The student that gets always behind the “pack”. They have no idea of what the course is about and just get by
- The majority of students will be “hanging on”. Meaning that they will be following the course, they have a broad idea of what the course is about and are learning as the professor/teacher/instructor is feeding them the knowledge, the homeworks, the chapters what to read, the projects requirements and so on.
- The minority is always those students which are hungry and want to get ahead, they ask why and what, get resources by themselves and ask the professors about future topics and how they can get ahead.
In my opinion, getting ahead has a great advantage: You will know what you need to learn and… why not? Learn it now, then ask question later!
Get Lots of Resources
Resources are also important. Good resources can be a very good book, which teaches almost everything in a great manner (Foglers books are my favorite!). Articles, animations, graphs that will make you understand in 1-2 minutes, what a book will show you in may be 2-5 pages! Video lecture from teaches from all around the world may help you understand your teacher in front of you!
Getting resources is also a skill!
Structure is Everything
Finally, you could have lots of resources, lots of questions and have tried going ahead.. but if you do not STRUCTURE all this into knowledge, you will NOT end up anywhere!
Knowledge is the structure & understanding of ideas facts and concepts. Understanding Entropy is way more important than knowing the formula for Entropy (dS = dQ/T) in case you where wondering
Enroll in Courses!
Ok, so we just know that we need to UNDERSTAND what we need to learn, get the RESOURCES in order to study them, and more importantly, STRUCTURE that knowledge… All this can be achieved with Online Courses! Why? Because the courses will guide you through the course subject: It will have the “WHAT” you need to learn and “WHY”. It has lots of RESOURCES as well as other proposed resources so you can get more value from the course! It also have the required STRUCTURE for your knowledge.
Check out the courses here.
Those are my main key concepts on how to learn chemical engineering courses. I prepared some of them, and I will keep making more educational content related to this field.
Understanding how to structure knowledge is a fundamental part of being an engineer.
I hope you find the courses interesting! I’ll see you in class!
Make sure to subscribe so you can get future posts and news from my channel! Get them directly to your Inbox for FREE!