r/ChemicalEngineering • u/Plane-Temporary-8501 • Jul 19 '25

Career Advice How much Maths is in ChemEng?

Hii, im a year 12 student who is currently thinking about what course i should do. And im stuck between Maths and ChemEng. I only recently discovered a Maths course is just mainly proofs which isnt exactly what i was looking for. I absolutely love Maths and i really want to continue it in the future and I think the maths in engineering is my best bet as it is applied. But the thing is, i dont do physics so the engineering courses i could do are very limited. So i can really only apply for ChemEng.

My main question is “Is chemical engineering majority maths and roughly what percentage of the course is just maths?”

46 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

42 comments sorted by

98

u/vovach99 Jul 19 '25

ChemEng contains huge amount of physics, so you won't escape from physics if you choose chemistry :)

11

u/fatkc Jul 19 '25

They meant they didn't take physics at A-level so their applications to those courses would be weaker than to chemical

3

u/RopeTheFreeze Jul 19 '25

Huh, I was under the impression it was mostly math and chemistry. Like mixing, diffusion, fluids, thermo, etc. where does the physics come in? Or are we counting fluid/thermo stuff as physics?

I'm great at any physics where my letters don't have hats on them!

9

u/claireauriga ChemEng Jul 19 '25

My take as an engineer more than ten years out of uni:

For university, the bit of physics you need is forces and vectors, particularly for fluid dynamics. If you've done a mechanics module in maths you've already covered the exact same thing and will be well-prepared.

In industry, physics has been useful for me in terms of basic understanding of analytical techniques like spectroscopy and diffraction.

4

u/vtkarl Jul 19 '25

That’s all physics in my opinion. I did a physics degree after BS CHE and PE.

Undergrad and high school physics focuses on balls flying in the air and some rudimentary DC electricity.

Einstein’s phd was in how to figure out molecular weight of a polymer. Physics is still struggling with vorticity, the onset of turbulence, and the meaning of the Reynolds number.

2

u/vovach99 Jul 20 '25

Physicsl chemistry (full of physics, that's more physics than chemistry). Thermodynamic, it's almost all about physics too. To understand chemical engineering in general (how columns, adsorebers, pumps, heat exchangers etc. work), you have to study physics. If you want chemistry, you may become lab assistant (minimum wage salary and hard labour). All the rest chemists have to study physics anyway

2

u/vtkarl Jul 19 '25

“Honk if you passed Pchem.” My favorite bumper sticker of all time.

We have a whole class to describe the physics of chemistry… using math. Besides that, you’ll get thermodynamics. These are both fundamental to the practice.

23

u/TangyTangTan Jul 19 '25

I would say there is a bit of calculus in ChemE. However, how my lecturers described it to me is that the maths more of a "tool" you can use to solve problems. But outside of that, there's not much of a strong focus for mathematics.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of physics, since the four pillars of ChemE (at least in my uni) are fluid mechanics; thermodynamics; reaction engineering; mass and energy balances. However, there is a lot of maths and calculus in all four pillars, especially fluid mech and thermodynamics.

But it all depends, I thought I really enjoyed chemistry in highschool (hence why I picked ChemE), then realised that even first year Chem was too difficult for me, and was glad that ChemE doesn't go beyond those fundamentals. You'll never know until you give it a go.

As for other engineering specialisations, this post post might be helpful.

10

u/claireauriga ChemEng Jul 19 '25

I would say there is a lot of maths in chemical engineering, but it is mostly the sensible kind of maths like calculus and the alright kind of maths like statistics, not the crazy maths that people into physics or electronic and software engineering have to deal with.

1

u/Risk-Consultant Jul 25 '25

Out of curiosity, what is the crazy math exactly?

2

u/claireauriga ChemEng Jul 25 '25

The maths that stops being about fundamentally sensible, tangible things like rates of change and adding stuff up in different ways, and starts going into things like imaginary numbers or the Laplace transform or wave functions or operators.

11

u/fatkc Jul 19 '25

A lot of chemical engineering, especially process eng stuff is based on maths, and depending on what kind of topics you're into you can really lean heavily into maths later on in your course. You might find anywhere from 20-50% maths according to your module choices. Process and thermo modelling is very maths heavy, and there's a lot of scope for research into new mathematical models if that's what you're into. There's definitely enough maths to sink your teeth into even in an applied context. I'd say go for it!

1

u/AgitatedWay3952 Jul 19 '25

Naa Not so much in undergraduate

1

u/fatkc Jul 19 '25

it depends on your modules tho, my uni has a few modelling modules which are almost entirely transforming mathematical models to apply them to different use cases and I'm doing a summer project in process modelling right now which uses a lot of calculus type maths. It's obvs all engineering at the end of the day but the emphasis is on making the maths useful

4

u/burnsniper Jul 19 '25

I mean it’s basically all math, physics, and chemistry in that order…

4

u/KobeGoBoom Jul 19 '25

SO MUCH MATH. Like all of it. All of the maths and it never ends.

3

u/BufloSolja Jul 19 '25

Depends. There is pretty simple math which is just Balance equations (mass or otherwise). There are more complicated equations for fluid dynamics, non-ideal gas mechanics, fugacity, etc. Usually in your actual job post graduation you won't use 95% of the math you needed in school. Or it will be on an excel sheet and you just plug and chug.

3

u/Changetheworld69420 Jul 19 '25

Calc 1, 2, 3, differential equations, linear algebra, stats. Everything is maths, physics is literally just maths. You will have physics 1 and 2 at least, and physical chemistry likely, and a civil engineering course like statics. Please don’t be afraid of physics, it’s one of the easiest parts of the major tbh. If you can do Thermo, you can do literally anything in physics haha that I firmly believe.

4

u/claireauriga ChemEng Jul 19 '25

I'm curious - north American students/engineers talk a lot about maths classes with those standard terms, and everyone seems to understand exactly what the curriculum involves, but I never heard them at school or university in the UK. Like, I know what calculus is, but I have no idea what the difference is between 'Calc 1', 2 and 3, or how that's different from 'Differential equations'. Could you give a quick primer on what the content of the courses is?

1

u/16tired Jul 19 '25

Calc 1 covers limits, differentiation and its applications, and basic integration.

Calc 2 covers integration techniques and applications, calculus on volumes like rotating shapes, and sequences, series, convergence/divergence and etc.

Calc 3 is multi variable calculus on manifolds

1

u/Melon_Mao Jul 20 '25

I think manifolds are well beyond almost all Calc 3 courses.

3

u/AgitatedWay3952 Jul 19 '25

More than chemistry less than ee & me ;)

1

u/Critical_Stick7884 Jul 20 '25

I crashed a signals course and all that transformation and curve sketching was mind blowing.

1

u/AgitatedWay3952 Jul 20 '25

Control theory couraes in undergraduate i have attended both classes from ee and che, difficult was the ee for sure

1

u/Saya_99 Jul 19 '25 edited Jul 19 '25

A lot. I took 2 classes of calculus, 1 of algebra, 2 of physics, 1 of mechanics, 1 of strength of materials and many other chemistry classes that use mechanics and strength of materials (polimer science specialization).

In my job (special processes and composites technologist in the aerospace industry) I use easier math concepts, but I still need quite a bit of math and strength of materials when it comes to tensile strength, peel tests, etc. on adhesives and other polymeric materials.

1

u/jazanelato Jul 19 '25

It really depends on the university, but I would say that it has more math than chem. Basically, chemE is more about how to build an industry than how to do some reaction. Usually, you will learn how to upscale an existing reaction.

1

u/chemie113091 Jul 19 '25

It’s like 30% pure math, 30% pure physics, 40% combining those two in real world applications. Not sure if it’s still the same as when I went to college (2010-2015) but the pure math curriculum normally is Calculus 1-3 and Differential Equations. The physics courses are heavily math based too naturally.

In the real world it turns into 100% of that application based math and physics, mixed with a lot of technical writing and critical thinking.

Good on you asking this at such a young age. It’s a very rewarding career

1

u/ahfmca Jul 19 '25

Lots of math, physics, thermodynamics and some chemistry. Thermo is a big chunk.

1

u/No_Fill_6005 Jul 19 '25

You'll take a lot of math courses in school, but likely won't do much math at work (except for maybe if you go into research).

1

u/abd_pvt Jul 19 '25

60% Physics 35% Maths (more than) 5% Chemistry (less than)

1

u/admadguy Process Consulting and Modelling Jul 19 '25 edited Jul 19 '25

Wrong question, you should be asking, how much chemeng is there in math. Pretty much all of it.

1

u/vasjpan002 Jul 19 '25

CHem Eng is like a triple major in Applied CHemistry, Mathematics and Mechanical Engineering. Survive it and you can do ANYthing

1

u/r2o_abile Jul 19 '25

It's all calculations. You don't need to be a math whiz, you just need to be able to do calculus.

1

u/loafers_glory Jul 19 '25

You have to learn a fair bit of math in college. I took 3 years of pure math aside from any mathematical component of other courses.

However, in the workplace it's rarely more than multiplication. I'm about 18 years into my career and I've taken it as a point of pride that in all my workplaces I'm often the only person who remembers how to do even basic calculus.

1

u/vtkarl Jul 19 '25

It’s going to seem like nearly all math for 2-3 years, but with weird physics concepts thrown in as well.

1

u/DerpyThePro Jul 20 '25

chemical "engineering". pretty much any major that ends with engineering has lots of math, mostly one as scientific as chemE

1

u/OgeeWhiz Jul 20 '25

I remember controls and process modeling being the most math intensive. You could take a mathematical methods in chemical engineering if you want a bigger dose of math. Math through differential equations and linear algebra used to be adequate.

1

u/TheGryphonX Jul 20 '25

it's 95% maths.... it's just maths in different costumes

1

u/notinmood__523 Jul 20 '25

Hi, I think you can apply for some other engineering even without physics, but in terms of math, in chemeng in uk I would say that it doesn’t have as much proof topics as other majors like cs because it mainly focuses on applied math like mech