Day 306: A chemical engineer sings about university life!
29th March 2015
Author: Geoff Maitland, IChemE President 2014–2015.
By now, regular readers of this blog will have realised that I'm pretty passionate about chemical engineering, its application and why it matters the world over. The students I teach share my view, but they can be a bit more creative at expressing it.
Sandy Nimmo, a final year undergraduate at Imperial College, penned a song to describe his experience whilst studying our beloved subject. Rest assured, this is not part of the curriculum, but it just goes to show how inspirational chemical engineering can be.
The years spent at university can be some of the best of your life, and as they draw to an end, its only natural to reflect on the time you've had. And this is exactly what Sandy did with his song.
So I thought it would be appropriate to ask Sandy to tell us about life as an undergraduate chemical engineer, including what motivated him to write a song about it.
Have a listen to his song 'Music for Engineers' here:
Name: Sandy Nimmo
Course: (MEng) chemical engineering
Graduation year: 2015
University: Imperial College London, UK
I guess I should go back to the beginning and explain why I chose chemical engineering. When I looked at the course and what it entailed, the mix of looking at problems right from the microscopic scale up to the large, industrial scale appealed to me.
Other subjects seemed more theoretical and harder to visualise, where as with chemical engineering, the applications and results are more tangible to see.
My final year group project, with nine others, involves scoping how to make edible vaccines. There are 20 downstream operating units that need to be designed, and as a group, its up to us to decide how we approach the problem. Group work has taught me how to manage people and deadlines, and it certainly has increased my confidence and work ethic.
Being a final year student - and because I have enjoyed time at university experience so much - I felt the need to capture things for posterity. I wanted to sum up the amazing time I've spent with friends, peers and lecturers whilst learning to become a chemical engineer.
And since I'm a member of the music production society at Imperial, I thought I would marry the two together and write a song. I realise it's niche, but the song is very much intended for my friends and chemical engineering classmates. It's driven by that sentimental notion that in just a few months time, we'll all be heading in different directions.
Creating a song is also a great way to take a break from studying because the course can be quite intense at times. Yet over the years, I've grown to love the subject and after graduation, my plan is to stay within the field.
I've taken quite a few nuclear modules throughout my course. As a consequence, I've come to really enjoy the area of energy, and in particular, how to approach the energy challenge in a sustainable way. I'd love to gain practical experience with a variety of processes, including methods of energy production.
At the time of writing, Sandy's song has attracted 660 You Tube views. He's got some way to go before he catches up with Psy's Gangnam Style, which, I am told has passed the two billion mark. But I reckon Sandy's song makes more sense!
Have you come up with a quirky way of spreading good news about some aspect of chemical engineering? Maybe you'd like to write a guest blog?
Just drop me a line via the blog.
ChemEng365 blog
Geoff Maitland launched this blog during his IChemE presidency in 2014. ChemEng365 features 365 chemical engineering successes and achievements throughout his year-long presidency.