 Dawn
Childs
Process Engineer
Shell Chemical Company
Deer Park, TX
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 B.S. - Chemical Engineering, University of Texas |
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Process Engineer |
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"Until you get practical work experience it's very difficult to even have
an idea of what you would do as an engineer or even know what kind of
questions to ask. So an internship really gives you a good place to
start." |
Childs: "As
a process engineer in this type of a role, one of the main
responsibilities of your job is to provide daily support to your unit. And
what that would mean is trouble shooting problems that go wrong in the
plant or trying to find ways to run your plant better. You could try to
improve the safety of your plant, or trying to meet increasingly strict
environmental regulations, improve the profitability of your unit which
could mean using less energy, so less steam, less raw materials, get more
product for the same amount, de-bottleneck units in order to make more
product. There are things that are called process hazard reviews where you
go through each line in each step of the process and you say what could go
wrong if you increased flow or decreased flow and are there safeguards in
the system that are adequate to help prevent a safety problem."
Childs: "I
personally feel like, in my assignment, that I am fairly compensated and
I'm happy with how much I make. I haven't found very many people that have
had issues with how much they're making."
Childs:
"One
of the first things that it means to be successful is that you feel really
happy with your job and you have, you feel like you're living the life
that you want to live and you're reaching your goals. And, I think, I
finally started feeling that after I'd been at work for about a year, once
I started feeling very comfortable with my job and started feeling like I
can provide the company with something. And when people started coming to
me with questions and problems and I started becoming the, the technical
resource to come to with issues."
Q: What are some of the things that you
do as a chemical engineer with Shell?
Childs: It really
depends on the project. In a safety project, they could come up as someone
has a concern about how they're doing their job and you have to implement
something that will make it safer. Or there are things that are called
process hazard reviews, where you go through each line in each step of the
process and say what could go wrong if you increased flow or decreased
flow and are there safeguards in the system that are adequate to help
prevent a safety problem. For an environmental problem, it might be
something like the government has a new regulation on how much of a
certain type of component you can release, and you have to find ways to
meet that criteria. For profitability projects, it could be things like we
want to save a million dollars on our raw material feed and it's the
dollar savings you see.
Q: What does success mean to you?
Childs: I think one of
the first things that it means is that you feel really happy with your job
and you're reaching your goals. After I'd been at work for about a year, I
started feeling very comfortable with my job. When people came to me with
questions and problems and I started becoming the technical resource to
come to with issues, that was when I started feeling like I was making a
difference.
Q: How does money fit into job
happiness and success?
Childs: I am fairly
compensated and I'm happy with how much I make. You really need to worry
more about what your job assignments are and what your career goals are.
Q: What advice would you offer someone
interested in becoming a chemical engineer?
Childs: Undergraduate
students should find out what's right for them, and they should try to get
practical work experience as soon as possible. Find out what people like
and don't like about their jobs. Work in the job assignments yourself and
find out what you like.
Q: How did your undergraduate education
prepare you for this job?
Childs: An engineering
education teaches you a way of thinking, it teaches you a way to look at
problems, analyze them carefully, test your assumptions, and work at
problems in a very exact and thorough manner to come up with the best
answer. If you're very active in extracurricular activities, you can get a
lot of important skills from that: scheduling meetings, working with other
companies, working with other people, and balancing different types of
roles.
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