I did a bachelor degree in chemical engineering, in Bandung Institute of Technology. I like this major, it really gave me the basic principles of logical thinking, although the study itself was very hard.
Oh ya, btw, I have to tell you first that it's chemical engineering, not chemistry (in case you don't know). These two are different disciplines. Chemical engineering deals with engineering problems of chemical reactions while chemistry deals with the chemicals. This is the reason why Chem. Eng field of study comprises of 80% mathematics and physics and only 20% chemistry. Something that most first year students in my old faculty didn't realize until they got into the faculty courses. Sometimes, when people asked me about my major, and then I answer ed"chemical engineering" and they would reply with "oooh....chemistryyy"... it kinda makes me crazy cos then I needed to explain it again "nooo....it's chemical engineering...not chemistry..." :)
Back to the study, I needed 5 years to finish it though it's supposed to be only 4 years. That was cos beside studying I was also "very" active in a student organization for three years, which required me to do a lot travelling outside my university. It was really fun indeed but sometimes I had to leave some courses because of that travelling stuff (ok..no more blaming at my activitiy...:D I was pretty lazy too actually). Nevertheless, I think 5 years is ok...beside I got lots of experiences outside studying (in fact, I consider myself as a person who doesn't really go for studying only...^_^)
The research I did for my bachelor degree was on the field of syntenthic polymer, to be more exact, it was about synthetic polymer that could be used for gas separation. I studied (together with my tough partner Irin) the process of separating air (gas mixture of O2-N2 with composition similar to air 21% O2 + 79% N2 in volume) with synthetic polymeric membrane. It was done in the Laboratory of Polymer and Membrane Technology under supervision of Prof. V.S. Praptowidodo.
[At this moment it seems that I have lost every softcopy of this research. My computer was broken just few weeks before I graduated and so I lost all files in it....sigh.. I'll try to find some info about it to be put here....]
After graduated on July 2000, I directly continued my study in TU Delft, the Netherlands. I took the Master of Science International Program majoring in System Engineering, Policy Analysis and Management (in short: SEPA) for a full 2 years. After a long suffering-thesis process, I finally got over it last August...so I'm finished with my master degree now...:)
What is SEPA? well...it's pretty hard to explain...so perhaps it would be better if you'd check it out by yourself ^_-
just click on www.tbm.tudelft.nl (it's in Dutch but don't worry, there is an English version)
This program is under the faculty of Technology, Policy, and Management. In Dutch it's called Technische Bestuurkunde en Management. My specialization is Energy and Industry (I did my research in the section of Energy and Industry), and more particularly the industrial system. Since my background is chemical engineering, this section is the one that most suits me. My particular field of study is Industrial Ecology and Eco-Industrial Park.
You can check out the abstract of my thesis research here.
If you are interested in getting more familiar with the terms Industrial Ecology and Eco-Industrial Park, you can read the paper I wrote for IASI here.
