cooperative education a key link between industry and engineers in the making

7/28/2019 COOPERATIVE EDUCATION a Key Link Between Industry and Engineers in the Making

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_ learning in in dus t r y )This column provides examples of cases in which students have gained knowledge, insight, and experience in thepractice of chemical engineering while in an industrial setting. Summer internships and co-op assignments typify such

experiences; however, reports of more unusual cases are also welcome. Description of the analytical tools used and theskills developed during the project should be emphasized. These examples should stimulate innovative approaches tobring real world tools and experiences back to campus for integration into the curriculum. Please submit manuscripts toProfessor W. 1. Koros, Chemical Engineering Department, University of Texas, Austin, Texas 787 12.

COOPERATIVE EDUCATIONA Key Link BetweenIndustry and Engineers in the Making

T ANYA BRADBURN2053 21st Street SE, Apt. S Hickory, NC 28602

having been in a plant , whi le Type II students can do themath and have intuitive skills, but can' t visualize the process . I was definitely a Type II student.Cooperative education, summer internships, or part-timeundergraduate research can eve ntually help Type II studen ts

such as myself to connect what we study to what it is thatreal engineers do, e.g., solve problems. Most universitieshave a freshman clas s that considers and explains some ofthe di fferences between engineering fields. In my case , however, this introductory course was extremely vague. For sucha course to be really useful to the student, I feel it shouldthoroughly defi ne each engineering disc ipline. For each department, the re should be spec ific examples of the types ofassi gnment s a student might expec t. Tours of companiesemploying various typ es of engineers could be included toallow students to see where they might expect to work after

A complex metamorphosis must take place before anengineering student understands what it really meansto be an engineer. Like most processes, there aremany paths to achieving the desired final result. Th is articleconsiders not only my actual experiences in that respect, butalso reflects on my disc ussions with many peer s over theyears-so it is more than just a memoir of my passage alongthis path to understanding.In high school , the process toward understanding often

begins upon learning that mathematics and science are toolsof a mysterious profession called "e ngineering." It is notunusual to find that when some of the "smart" people in thegraduating class announce their plans to pursue that profession, other students will often find themselves pulled in thesame direction. In my case, by the beginning of my senioryear in high school I had decided that engineering was thepath I wanted to follow . Despite this ear ly decision, when Ientered college I still had only the slightest idea of what anenginee r' s real role in society was or what the typical day-today duties of an engineer rea lly were .The seco nd stage of metamorphosis occurs in the first

engineering class when one is challenged to "think like anengineer." At this juncture, the class divides into two typesof students. Type I students are extremely intuitive and seemto be able to see processes in their minds without ever

Copyr ight ChE Division ojASEE 2001

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Tanya Bradb urn graduated from North Caro-lina State University in May of 2000 with a asin ChemicalEngineering. Sheis currentlywork-ing as an engineer in the Research, Develop-ment, and Engineering Division of CorningCable Systems inHickory, NC.

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graduation, and a chance to hear an engineer from eachenvironment exp lain what he or she does would be extreme ly useful students by helping them make informeddecisions about the course of study to follow . The co-opexperience naturall y incorporates such opportunities for thosestudents, like myself, who parti cipate. Practically speaking,however, I believe co-op opportunities come too late to beuseful to many of the Type II students who have becomedisenchanted in the first three semesters on campus.

class sequences needed for your graduation? Will you be paired with an actual mentor? Are there housing accommodations ? If the

company reserves apartments for co-ops/interns,are they f urnished?

How will your sa lary typically change as youcomplete rotations ?

Do you get vacation days ?Some of the questions may sound inconsequential, but

they aren' t. Shuffling back and forth from campus to plantto campus without breaks gives students very little time todigest their experiences. Fitting into an existing optimizedstructure designed to accommodate students is a huge ad-

Desp i te this ear l y dec is ion[to g o in to engineer ing], tsrhe n Ie n ter e d col leg e I s t i ll had on l y th e

s l igh tes t i dea o f w h a t an eng ineer'srea l ro le i n soc ie ty W'as or w'ha t the

t yp ica l day -to -day dut ies o f aneng ineer rea l l y W'ere.

Stopgap measures incorporating some of the most desirable components noted abo ve are needed in order to reducethe loss of students experienced as a result of the nonspecificintroductory courses offered at the beginning of their educational experience. A good beginning would be to simplyshow the students pictures of equip-ment that engineers use in eac h ofthe discip lines . For example, chemi-cal engineering studen ts could beshown pictures of separation equipment , computer control equipment ,and microe lectronic and bio-processing equipment. This would help provide students with a visual idea ofthe huge range of opportunities available in the field. Also. at lea st onefield trip, complemented by on-campus presentations by articulate practic ing engineers, cou ld and should beincluded in such a course.A key common element in all these

options is the opportunity for a student to see , firsthand, theexc iting impact an engineer can have in the workplace. Theco-op option appears to be the most practical approach formost students. This conclusion is based on the reality ofoperation in the time-constrained environments present incompanies and universities. The companies that have committed to a bona fide co-op program understand its value as ascreening and recruiting tool and are willin g to invest in it.Such companies actually have a framework in place to support the program.

For any off-campus opportunity, knowing the answers tothe following questions wil l help students know what toexpect and how to prep are for their work assignments:

Is the potential assignment part ofan on-goingestablished program in the company, or will yoube the guinea pig?

Has there ever been a co-op before in the area ofthe company where you will be working- can youcontact prior parti cipants?

Does the company hav e a year round co-opprogram, so you aren 't disadvanta ged in access to

vantage in terms of the ultimate benefits to participants.Maintaining such a framework is a significant contribu

tion made by companies that are truly committed to co-opprograms. Frameworks for moving and housing, as well asfor other placement issues, is less common in so-calledinternships. since they are typically discontinuous and arecentered around the summer months. Moreover, commentsby internship participants sugges t that such assignments often involve more ad hoc "mentor" relationships, as compared to co-op ass ignments.The third option, undergraduate research, is another area

of opportunity I have had experience with, and I will consider its benefits after focusing on the off-campus co-opbenefits. While undergraduate research is highly desirable,the time commitment involved in trying to accommodate allundergraduates on campus via this route seems to be unreasonable in typical educational institutions.

As noted above, co-op assignments are quite ef fectivebecause they give students an empowering insight into whatcan ultimately be done with their degrees. Such insight cangive students the momentum to ove rcome hurdles along theway to acquiri ng their degree and can ultimately increase the

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number of students who actually grad uate.Co-op work can also have second-order advantages. In my

case, it forced me to leave the safe surroundings of familiarpeopl e and places. It put me into a new state, into a newhome, and into a completely different environment. Withouta doubt , pursuing a co-op job at Eastman Chemical Company in Kingsport, Tennessee, was one of the best decisionsI had ever made. I had always lived in the Raleigh-Durhamarea , and moving to another state to work was an unsettlin gdecision, to say the least. I was five hours from home when Idrove by Eastman, or the "Big E," on the way to my firstapartment, and my mouth hung ope n the entire time as Idrove past the plant. I had never seen such a plant beforethe Kingsport Division is one of the largest chemical plantsin the US. I remember thinking as I drove past it, " I haveju st made the biggest mistake of my life!! !" I simply wasn 'tprepared for the smells of a chemical plant , the sight of thelooming distillation columns, the reac tors, and what seemedto be smoke (actually steam) swirling in the air.To be honest. at the time I didn 't know what a distillation

column or a reactor looked like. The boxes that I had drawnon engineeri ng paper to represent such equipment in no wayapproximated the sights. sounds, and smells of an actualplant. I often think of how disconcertin g it wou ld have beenif I had never worked on a co-op job, and if the first time Isaw a chemical plant was after graduating as a BS engineer.Even if introductory classes had included pictures of a distillation column, I believe a Type II student such as myselfwould be unprepared for what it is really like to see one in aplant. In any case . however. it would have been more reassuring to at least know what I was looking at.

During my first co-o p rotation, I worked with a separations group on a high-priority adsorption project for feedpuri fication. Sometimes, I would work from 7 a.m. to IIp.m . to meet our project objectives, but in sp ite of the longhours, it was exciting and challenging to be working on areal problem. For my seco nd term, I worked in CelluloseEsters doing compressibility and percent solids analysis, andfor my third rotation. I worked on opt imizing the sludgesystem for the polymer division, working with several crewsof operators . The reason for describing my co-op experiencehere is to show that no college course could possibly simulate what it is like to work with other operators, to actuallybe in a plant , or to work on a truly stressful project where theresult s mattered. It is a far different experience from ju stworking for a grade!

Contact is made with students from many different schoolsduring one 's work cycles . and based on conversations withthe se peers over the years, I have reached a number ofconclusions about the strengths and weaknesses of educatingchemical engineers. The following paragraphs elucidate a fewof my thoughts about steps that could be taken that wouldgreatly enhance the educational experience of students.60

After students select an engineering specialty, regardlessof whe ther or not they know what they are getting into, morepractical applications should be includ ed to complement thetheoretical background s they receive in the classroom. Whil ein some case s, such practical teaching may not be eco nomi call y possible , more can usually be done and it canbe done much earlier.

Specifically, simple qualitati ve experimental illustrationswould be useful, even when the students don 't completelyunderstand every detail and equation needed to desc ribe thesituation. For instance, seeing a distillation column concentrate a dye from a feed stream is impressive and offersmotivation to learn why it works ; seeing a microelectronicpart made or a bio reactor work can inspire the student tolearn more about complex reactions and mass transfer phenomena . Connecting these exciting processes to the need tolearn about chemical engineering fundamentals can makethe student want to learn about these subjects. It seems to methat there is no real reason why some of these practicalmotivational aspec ts cannot be integrated more effectivelyinto our formal education.

[ know tha t senior-level engineering courses demonstratesome of these practical applications. In my senio r designclass, we were assigned to work in groups of 3-4 and weregiven a chemical to produce. Our assignment was to research the chemica l in patents and textbooks and even tocontact companies to develop a process for making the chemical. While designing the process, we had to perform energyand mass balances to track our components in producing thedesired product at the necessary rate. We also had labswhere we had hands-on experience with reactors, dis tillationcolumns, heat exchangers. etc. The point is that studentswould benefit more from some type of practical-applicationexposure throu ghout the ir education, rather than packing itall in at the end of their schooling. Even sho rt demon stration s and gro up project s, when done earl ier in the curriculum. would be more satisfyi ng and valuable.Can something be learned and transported back to campus

from industrial, co-op. and intern experiences to enrich thelearning experie nce of all students-even those who neverleave campus? I believe so-especially in the area of computer skills and the need to better integrate their development throughout the curriculum, principally throu gh the useof homework assignments.There are at least four computer programs that are esse n

tial for a practicing chemical engineer to be familiar with:Excel, Aspen, Powerl'oint, and Word. Most employers, eventhose found in co-op jo bs. expect an employee to be competent with Excel. It seems to me that skills taught on campusin the use of these softwa re programs should lead . ratherthan lag behind, those that are demanded in an industrialsetting. Thi s is often not the case, however.

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cooperative education a key link between industry and engineers in the making

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