A New Curriculum?

It is Vijayadashami today and millions of Indians renew their oaths towards their trade and profession. And here is my bit towards my profession of chemical engineering.

The Board of Studies in Chemical Engineering, Mumbai University met last month to discuss restructuring of the syllabus for the undergraduate programme. As one of the two representatives from industry on this Board, I am often asked to suggest design and simulation software that should be included in the curriculum, so as to make it relevant for the industry. The curriculum today places more emphasis on application oriented courses like process engineering and process simulation at the expense of principle based subjects like fluid flow and heat transfer, in the mistaken belief that these produce more ‘industry-friendly’ students.

Universities should not sweat about tailoring their chemical engineering curriculum to meet the needs of a specific industry or business. What industry needs are engineers firmly grounded in chemical engineering principles and fundamentals, who can then be moulded to meet the specific requirements. Many Chemical Engineers would be applying a lot of fluid flow and heat transfer principles throughout their career and during our recruitment we test fresh candidates mostly on their knowledge in these two areas and they fare rather poorly on this. Process Simulation has lots of glamour value and everyone yearns for it. Instead of succumbing to the pressures of including this in the UG programmes, time and energy can be gainfully invested in the underlying principles of chemical engineering thermodynamics.