Entrepreneurial Mindset (EML) Modules for Chemical Engineering Courses

Traditional chemical engineering curriculum focus on the math, science and engineering fundamentals culminating in a senior year process design course. These courses are excellent preparation for most chemical engineering jobs, but they typically omit very practical skills such as curiosity, connections and creating value. The lack of these fundamentals of the entrepreneurial mindset puts chemical engineers at a disadvantage in today’s workplace. The faculty at Villanova University have made the effort to focus on EML (entrepreneurial minded learning) by creating modules that can be implemented in already existing courses. These modules all vary in time, scale, and application, but have the same goal: to introduce chemical engineers to the entrepreneurial mindset. This paper will review in depth three different modules created and presented to students. The projects vary from elective courses (intro to biotechnology and polymer science) to required courses (heat transfer operations and process design). The projects included an attempt to explore a contrarian viewpoint by evaluating “bad” plastics, design of a shower without electricity and the design of a heat exchanger for commercial scale brewery. The projects were all evaluated using student surveys and post implementation reflection by the faculty. The authors believe these same modules can be implemented in similar classes at other institutions with equal success.