Looking for a gentler semester? Start with courses where students have earned higher grades.
Highest historical GPA first. At least 100 letter grades over the five years through the selected term. Grades reflect past outcomes, not workload or a guaranteed result.
17 courses
Ranked courses have at least 100 recorded letter grades.
Seminar where Biotechnology Training Program trainees present research and internship work for critical review and discussion of industrial biotechnology applications.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Seminar on computation and informatics in biology and medicine.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Special Topics in Chemical Engineering covers topics of specialized interest to majors in the field, offered on demand.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · George Huber
One student found the exams difficult and niche, noting there were no practice problems or study guides provided, only over 1,000 slides of lecture content to review.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Introduction to Chemical Engineering provides an overview of the field, covering career types, industries, and skills needed for degree completion and professional entry.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Dan Klingenberg
The student rated the difficulty as low and described the class as not too hard.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Biochemical Engineering covers properties of biological molecules, enzyme kinetics, metabolic engineering, microbial growth, bioreactor design, and bioseparations.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Quentin Dudley
Lectures were 75-minute, slide-heavy presentations that some found disengaging, requiring students to actively manage their attention during the long sessions.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Transport Phenomena Lab focuses on determining thermodynamic and transport properties, transfer coefficients, and studying related phenomena.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Katelyn Dahlke
One student described the workload as high, particularly at the start, and criticized the strict emphasis on professional formatting rules.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Process Design covers the analysis and design of chemical processing systems and equipment.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Ross Swaney
Project information was scattered across five to six different PDFs, and the class consistently ran behind schedule, requiring students to manage fragmented materials.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Polymer Science and Technology covers the synthesis, properties, and fabrication of plastic materials of industrial importance.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
historical GPA · grades
Spring 2023–Spring 2026Systematic introduction to dynamic behavior and automatic control of industrial processes. Labs use conventional hardware and real-time digital computers for instrumentation and control.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Ross Swaney
One student found the content so challenging that they preferred sleeping in class to trying to understand the instruction.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Chemical Kinetics and Reactor Design covers analysis of kinetic data, catalytic phenomena, and application of engineering principles to chemical reactor design.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Marcel Schreier
The subject matter is described as hard, requiring students to manage a challenging curriculum.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Introductory Transport Phenomena covers mass, momentum, and energy transport, including transport coefficients, viscous flow, heat conduction, diffusion, and dimensional analysis.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Daniel Klingenberg
The class involved a significant amount of homework that often took a long time to complete. Exams were described as tough and expected high standards, though they were generally considered fair and well-prepared for.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Mass Transfer Operations covers analysis of chemical engineering operations involving mass transfer, including differential and stagewise separation processes, simultaneous heat and mass transfer, and design of mass-transfer equipment.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Ross Swaney
Homework assignments were very challenging, and exams were written to be tricky but doable with practice.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Analysis of chemical engineering operations involving fluid flow and heat transfer, covering flow through ducts/porous media, particulate motion, and conductive/convective/radiative heat exchange with/without phase change.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Ross Swaney
Homework and exams were heavily lecture-based, with the textbook serving mostly as a reference. Students recommended heavily utilizing the textbook and TA office hours to prepare.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Introduction to thermodynamics, energy balances, steady/unsteady processes, pure fluid behavior, and chemical reaction equilibria.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Rahul Sujanani
Students described exams as difficult and noted that one reviewer felt the tests covered topics only vaguely related to classwork, with no practice exams provided.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Covers properties of ideal/non-ideal vapors and liquids, multicomponent VLE/LLE, reaction equilibria, electrolytic solutions, surface and solid phase thermodynamics.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Reid Van Lehn
Lectures were derivation-heavy with few practical examples, and homework problems required significant use of Excel or Matlab.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Introduction to chemical process modeling and using modern computational tools to analyze these models.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Katelyn Dahlke
Past students noted that the course involved long homework assignments and projects, requiring significant time investment to complete.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Process Synthesis introduces inventing processes for large-scale, low-cost processing of materials like water, chemicals, petroleum products, food, drugs, and wastes.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Katelyn Dahlke
The course required lengthy weekly homework assignments, and exams were described as hard and often too long for the time provided. Students also reported receiving homework on material not yet covered in class.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026