Chemical engineers devise innovative solutions to today's most pressing challenges—addressing our needs for clean, sustainable energy, maintaining and remediating the environment, and maintaining and improving the health of people everywhere. Chemical engineers develop new products, design new chemical plants, and keep existing plants running better, safer, and more environmentally sound. At WSU, we provide an education that prepares you to help meet these challenges, preparing you to become a leader.

Chemical engineers often work in the processing industries, where 70,000 consumer products—such as computer chips, foods, paper products, plastics, fuels, dyes, synthetic fibers, pharmaceuticals, agricultural chemicals, and many others—are produced by 7,000 companies in 12,000 plants in the United States. Industries and government agencies employ chemical engineers for energy production, transportation, environmental protection, electronics, computing, and medicine. They also work for companies around the world in offices, plants, in the field, or at other locations. Chemical engineering can be a springboard to other careers, such as consulting, law, medicine, business, policymaking or government, technical marketing and sales, plant management, research, and teaching. Demand for chemical engineering graduates is high. Starting salaries for new graduates exceed $50,000 per year. Northwest organizations such as BP, Boeing, Weyerhaeuser, Intel, Micron, Battelle Pacific Northwest National Labs, and Hanford contractors actively recruit WSU graduates, as do smaller companies in the region and international companies of all sizes.