‘Twas the few weeks before exams, and all through the engineering faculty, not a student was stirring – assignment insanity! I may not be a poet, but I will tell you this: The news that I will tell you will fill you with bliss! The next year is coming sooner than you fear, so listen to me ramble about courses if you dare!
Zlata Voronina, CHEMMAT Blogger, Part time poet.
I hope you all enjoy my sad excuse for poetry that I am writing instead of doing my bajillion assignments! As the year ends, the university becomes more and more like a ghost town, and we get closer to the promise of a long summer holiday! With this being said, I want to congratulate you for almost completing one year of engineering! You should feel incredibly proud of what you have achieved, and as you stand at the one-quarter mark of your degree, you are at the crossroads of where to go from here. I hope this post about the second-semester CHEMMAT papers can help you decide on what journey you will embark on next year!
Please note once again: Courses can change yearly; this information is dated as of 2024, so things may change.
CHEMMAT 202: Energy and Processing
This course can be split into two separate parts. The first half covers the first and second laws of thermodynamics and the processes in which these laws are used, such as the Carnot engine. The second half is all about phase equilibria, chemical equilibria, and the thermodynamic network. It’s hard to understand what I mean at first glance but accept it as just a whole course on thermodynamics and how we can study and apply it in as many ways as possible.
The Positives:
- You get to do a fun lab where you play around with pressure vessels! While it may not be the most involved lab you will do in the second semester, it serves as a really great demonstration and application of the things we learn in class.
- Personally, I found the topic of thermodynamics very interesting. Coming from a Physics background, I was aware of quite a few of the concepts presented in the first section of the course. If you enjoy doing physics like me, you will find it very enjoyable.
The Challenges:
- It’s hard and can be considered one of the more difficult papers you will take this semester. Many theoretical mathematical derivations pop up in the second half, and it’s not the easiest to wrap your head around. It’s quite content-heavy to boot, so staying on top of it is essential.
My advice for this course, which is the natural course after CHEMMAT 201, is once again not to get discouraged! Yes, it’s a lot of work, and yes, it is awfully difficult at times, but I can promise you that you can get through it! Remember to ask lots of questions and form a study group with your mates. This course is much easier to digest when you do it together :).
CHEMMAT 203: Transfer Processes
Speaking of thermodynamics, let me introduce you to more thermodynamics! You’ll be going through four fun sections on heat transfer fundamentals and applications, as well as fluid statics and dynamics. Some of you may have missed MATLAB, but do not worry; it makes a comeback for this course!
The Positives:
- You get the chance to undertake two very fun laboratories using a water heat exchanger and a water monometer. While I understand I put the labs as a positive in every course, they’re genuinely a lot of fun, and they helped me understand the work we are doing in class a bit better.
- The course is taught in a simple, easy-to-understand way. While the titles of the content may sound scary, the lecturers make sure to break it down in very easy-to-understand ways, making the concepts simple and almost intuitive to understand.
The Challenges:
- The coding assignment T-T. This could easily be put into the positives section if you enjoyed coding and were not left with traumatic feelings about it from your first year, which you may never recover from. I do understand why it’s important to be able to utilise coding tools for solving thermodynamic problems, especially in industry, but I wasn’t a particular fan.
Coding is a struggle, so I advise you never to leave things to the last minute! This course has one of the bigger numbers of deliverables throughout the semester and a big chunk of it will be due at the very end, right before the exams. While you may not be able to prepare for the big workload dump, you can prepare by (attempting) to be on top of all your other courses!
CHEMMAT 205: Process Design 1
Finally, a non-thermodynamics-based paper! This fun course will take you through three modules, and you can undertake a semester-long project with a team. You will learn about unit operations, process diagrams, safety, economics and sustainability in engineering design, as well as materials selection (yay!! more materials <3) and the mechanics of materials in process design.
The Positives:
- The group project is a lot of fun! Granted, it is also very time-consuming (as is most engineering subjects), but you get assigned a group and a processing industry, and you spend the semester writing a report about its process and the overall importance of this industry to NZ. I personally found it really fun to undertake the research for this project, but if this isn’t your cup of tea, I completely understand how you may not find it as enjoyable, especially if you have had bad experience working in teams.
- Materials selection and the module for unit operations, process diagrams, and engineering design will be the easiest sections to complete all year, which is always an added bonus.
The Challenges:
- Too many tests! The workload they unload onto you in this course is unreal, with the many milestones for your group project coupled with mechanical and material design, which, if you remember statics from first-year mechanics paper, is basically that! It is also quoted as one of the hardest sections you will have to undertake in the semester.
- The presentation. A 14-minute presentation is any engineer’s nightmare. After finishing the report, you must present it to the class, where a panel of CHEMMAT teachers and your peers will watch you and ask questions at the end. Thankfully, this is a one-and-done situation, but it is incredibly scary and nerve-wracking nonetheless.
I must sound a bit preachy at this point with how much I’m telling you to keep on top of the work, but at this point, this is all I can recommend! For this subject, don’t be afraid to approach the lecturers if you and your group aren’t getting along; they only want to help and make sure that this project is a fun and fair experience for all the students. While I have yet to undertake the presentation myself (that’s a treat for week 12), the more you practice something, the better you get at it, and I hope to take this principle into the presentation and all my studies as a whole.
This might all sound really strange and scary to you, but I promise you that it is very doable! I’m not a straight A’s student, and it takes me a while to understand things, let alone do things, so take it from my experience. You will be more than okay :). You are stronger than you know and capable of more than you realise! Hold your head up high; just the fact that you are an engineer means you are more than capable of tackling anything that the university throws at you!
With that, I will see you in my very last post!
Good luck with your assignments! Don’t forget to check out the other engineering bloggers!
Time to get back to my 3000 assignments…
Zlata