2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Chemical engineering students are faced with many different fields they could enter upon graduation, and demanding curriculums make career development opportunities scarce. While core chemical engineering courses are typically set in their structure, elective courses offer an opportunity to encourage students to ponder their passions and develop purpose within their education. Furthermore, growing industries such as biotechnology offer new opportunities to graduates, although students are often unaware of such career paths. To address these gaps, we have developed a "podcast series project" as part of a new elective chemical engineering course in synthetic biology where we interview professionals during class who utilize synthetic biology in different industries or in academia. The project has three learning objectives: to introduce students to career paths for chemical engineers within synthetic biology, to showcase how synthetic biology can be used to solve world problems, and to highlight the interdisciplinary nature of synthetic biology. Students assembled a podcast project report throughout the semester that included asking questions to the speakers, reflecting on a set of speakers, and following up on one speaker area for new learnings. Introducing this type of organized guest speaker series in chemical engineering elective courses should bolster career development by offering students time to reflect on their own career path and by connecting them with professionals who bring diverse perspectives on evolving career paths available for chemical engineering graduates across emerging industries.