r/ChemicalEngineering • u/West-Wash4301 • Jul 30 '25

Career Advice Is Chemical Engineering dangerous?

Hi I currently am a high school student and planned to study chemical engineering. It sounds fun to me since I'm good at science and math and like chemistry very much. However I've seen many news talking about the incidents happened around the world on chemical engineers such as explosion in the plant and poisoning in chemicals, they look so dangerous and I can't be sure anymore whether I would go on in this industry... do you think I can still learn it or not?? Thank you for your advices.

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u/Lazz45 Steelmaking/2.5Y/Electrical Steel Annealing & Finishing Jul 30 '25

Realistically you are in proximity to hazardous materials. Follow all PPE and safety requirments and you should be fine. You are not the one literally standing there turning valves on a daily basis so your chances of being exposed to an industrial accident are not really all that high. No higher than any other type of industrial accident that could occur in other fields. I wouldn't get worked up over it, or go into safety and make things safer for people

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u/Yee_n_Aye_Guy Jul 31 '25

As an instrument tech that routinely interacts directly with process at a chemical plant, i can verify this.

Enginerds are pretty safe.