I have actually reached a very interesting place in my degree during my time at Monash. After this semester, I only have one more class in Chemical Engineering to complete, my capstone, along with a couple of electives. This means that I have essentially learned almost everything about chemical engineering that I will in college. As a result, this semester I have seen the material covered in my courses come together. In my process design class, we are utilizing material covered in my kinetics course and my process control course and are applying equations and theory learned in previous courses as well. My process control course involves mass balances that I learned in Transport 2. Kinetics builds heavily off the foundation lay by thermodynamics and transport phenomena. It has been really interesting and cool to see the pieces of the puzzle coming together.
My favorite course, however, has to be my kinetics course. At Monash, it is called Chemical Reaction Engineering and at Northeastern, the course is called Chemical Engineering Kinetics. The course covers rates of reactions and sizing of reactors under different conditions. It combines so much of what I have learned in the past and is most applicable to what I’d like to do in the future.
At Monash, I actually do not have one place I like to study. I’ve learned that I need to switch up my study spots appropriately in order to keep myself focused. My rotation switches between the wing lounges in my dorm, the science and engineering library, and the study room that is attached to but not part of my building. I tend to like to go to the library in the morning, so that it is easier to get a seat. At night, I much prefer to study in the study room or my wing lounge so that I don’t have to walk back from the library in the dark, though it is only a 5 minute walk. That walk is almost much safer than the one from Snell to the hill. Hopefully this study habit works for me at home, too!
