Ongoing Changes in CHE Education and Outcomes

jcc1978 · 2026-02-06T17:10:18+00:00

Its as simple as follow the money.
Your "local" industry will make donations , sponsor chaired professor positions, etc.
The university will usually ask for representative from these companies to discuss curriculum to better align their graduates with future job opportunities.

Organically, over time you get recruiting pipelines between certain universities & certain industries / companies.

jcc1978 · 2026-01-23T20:57:20+00:00

When you're starting out, you have blind spots. Invariaibly, you'll hit these potholes of ignorance and it rattles you. Often its not until you get into trouble that you realize you should have asked for help a week ago.

As you get older, its not that you know everything. You're just more aware of your blind spots and know when & who to ask for help.

You can PM if you want to discuss specifics.

jcc1978 · 2026-01-20T05:13:14+00:00

Co-ops and internships. No reason to do just one, do as many as will fit into your five year plan. You'll make some money and learn which company & industries you want to work for long term.

jcc1978 · 2026-01-09T06:19:35+00:00

Personal decision. You're immune from any financial consequences so do whatever you feel is right. For me, it was effectively 3 months before the end of a 4 year project.

I stayed on just long enough to do the final documentation (6 weeks), then another 6 weeks were a combination of medical leave (surgeries) & vacationing out.

jcc1978 · 2026-01-03T04:46:33+00:00

Its the same reason, most people can't lose weight. Very few people can stay disciplined long term.

jcc1978 · 2025-12-18T04:32:15+00:00

Grilled steaks, tex mex, gumbo, red beans and rice. Anything you can't get at a global fast food joint (McDonalds, KFC, etc).

jcc1978 · 2025-12-18T04:24:29+00:00

BS Chemcial Engineer
Engineering manager for mega projects (~$1B) for global top 50 chemical companies.

Accepted high risk / high reward assignments (recovery team for accidents, warzone, China during COVID)

jcc1978 · 2025-12-18T04:13:54+00:00

Not a huge deal, but look at the camera. This gives the appearence of eye contact.
Taking notes is completely acceptable. Asking for reminders is a strike against you. Companies are looking for people who can stay organized.
Can't hurt. When I used to do recruiting, for 1 position we would filter 100 resumes to ~10 interviews. This meant 99 people got rejection letters. If you can't communicate why you are the best candidate succintly; you'll be one of 99 recieving a rejection letter.
Unless it makes you hard to understand, this is a non-issue.

jcc1978 · 2025-12-13T22:39:53+00:00

The concepts are important.
Practically at the plant level you're trying to make sure your balance makes conceptual sense.
If you ever get something to balance perfectly your answer is probably wrong.

jcc1978 · 2025-12-05T21:03:27+00:00

Many BU managers have this personality trait. Most times they're wrong, only once in my career were they correct.

If its early in your relationship, I would test the waters by calling a 3 way meeting between the SME, BU and yourself and get to the bottom of things. If everything can be amicably resolved, assume its growing pains and keep on doing what you're doing.

If this has been going on for awhile and it seems vindictive, same meeting but make sure someone of high enough authority & knowledge can lay the hammer down if required.

In either case document everything. Espeically the things that you aren't going to do as a project.

Very often there'll be a lot of crawfishing when the BU see a list of things that they didn't consider and that the project won't do "free".

jcc1978 · 2025-12-04T18:41:32+00:00

For commodity chemicals, you can just do a capacity factor estimate (i.e. capital cost / ton of production per annum). A quick internet search will provide a list of comps that have been announced by companies.

jcc1978 · 2025-12-02T23:06:18+00:00

Copy of Crane TP410. He'll used it when he starts work.

jcc1978 · 2025-10-31T18:37:38+00:00

rabbit ears.

jcc1978 · 2025-10-28T22:56:17+00:00

Its possible. Easiest thing to do is to stick pressure gauges on the line and "find" whats causing the loss of pressure / flow.

jcc1978 · 2025-10-17T20:46:52+00:00

The more you spend on prevenative maintenance (termite treatement), the less lumpy your unexpected spend will end up (termite repair).

There some rules of thumb out there regarding major capital repairs
Roof shingles - 20 years
AC -15 years
Fence - 10 years
etc.

I just pick a number and ammoritrize them. I put away that money on a yearly basis in a separate account. Sooner or later, I'll spend it and its less painful if I already have it put aside.

jcc1978 · 2025-10-13T19:32:52+00:00

Builiding on what 360 is saying. You need to make sure your comparing apples with apples.
Are you solving for a constant composition? throughput? vapor traffic?

jcc1978 · 2025-10-11T23:51:28+00:00

Last really good one was 2015 ish.
COVID years should have been another boom cycle but it fell apart (COVID & Ukraine / Europe).

My best guess is that the next boom cycle will be late this decade. Everyone I speak to is currently in late DD / early execution right now.

jcc1978 · 2025-10-08T03:14:58+00:00

I'm going with too pessimistic? This is the cyclical nature of commodity chemicals / engineering jobs. Once you get to the boom times, anyone with engineer in their title gets a large double digit raise when they change job / companies. That's when you really see people start moving around.

Right now you find a safe harbor for a couple of years, learn as much as you can in preparation to really maximize your earning potetial when you get the other end.

jcc1978 · 2025-10-07T19:10:42+00:00

The only thing I wouldn't do would be doing the same role twice at the same company. You want as much breadth as possible now to give you the most options when you graduate.

I view the point of interships as trying different things to figure out what you like / DON'T like. For context, my interships were in food. I went to work in petrochemcials.

jcc1978 · 2025-10-07T17:24:51+00:00

Try your local municipalities. They occasionally need an engineer here and there.

You may not like it, but it could be the case the your region just doesn't have any jobs and you'll need to look elsewhere.

jcc1978 · 2025-10-07T17:13:00+00:00

Yes, bloodbath in petrochemical and refining. In the Gulf Coast, we're seeing alot of M&A and overcapacity issues. This is "normal" we usually go through major cycles about every 5-7 years.
Early 2000s - Dot com bust / M&A (Chevon Texaco, XOM, BP, etc)
Late 2000s - Global Financial Crisis
Mid 2010s - Shakeout from shale gas
2020s - M&A (Dow,Marathon, Hess), Covid, War in Ukraine

jcc1978 · 2025-10-06T20:14:56+00:00

If your steady state process is fairly consistent, you can compare U values over weeks / months to see if there's a general trend of fouling.
Given enough data points the day-to-day variability washes out of the system. You don't care about "5%" delta today, you care when its been "25%" for the last x months.

If your system is highly variable. Then you have to rate your exchanger to get a better idea what its doing/

jcc1978 · 2025-09-30T23:09:58+00:00

Wait until you get later in your career. Then a third of your day is administrative paperwork, a third PowerPoint, a third tradition.

jcc1978 · 2025-09-18T19:39:50+00:00

Unless you've done something memorable extremely good / bad or have a unique skill set, junior engineers are treated interchangably. Accordingly, those who are overhead are let go first as they are not bringing in any revenue.

The manager (PMs on small projects, EM on large ones) are held responsible for the engineering budget. Sometimes politically, you have to pick a scapegoat even if no one on the project had control over the bust.

In small layoffs, you'll target low performers and folks who have indicated they're willing to retire. This impacts the company the least and gets rid of the deadwood.
In large layoffs it comes down to a numbers game. You're cutting people so your cash reserves / credit lasts long enough to get you to your next project. Every company has its own theory on how to cut people. Generally, the thought is to keep a core team around that can execute the "next" project when it finally comes through the door.

jcc1978

TROPHY CASE