Arriving at the high school eighth period on Friday, Nov. 22 was chemical engineer Mrs. Julianne Klara.

Mrs. Klara is equipped with over thirty years of experience.  Mrs. Klara graduated with a chemical engineering degree from the University of Pittsburgh.  For her entire engineering career, she has worked at the U.S. Department of Energy in South Park.

Peppered throughout the room were freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors.  They were all eager to learn about what chemical engineering has to offer.

Mrs. Klara emphasized that anyone can became an engineer.

Mrs. Klara said, “If I can become an engineer anyone can.  The fact of the matter is anybody can be an engineer.  It just takes some hard work.  Bethel Park is the place to be if you want to go into the sciences.  I have two sons that went through the high school and I currently have one son and one daughter here now.  The teachers here really do lay a solid foundation for you.”

Chemical engineers can really get into anything; they can branch off into the energy, pharmaceutical, and even the foods industry.  Mrs. Klara highlights that chemical engineering is the broadest engineering major.

As of now, only 20% of engineers are women.  Mrs. Klara thinks this is significant.

“As of 2011, our planet surpassed seven billion people,” Mrs. Klara said.  “We have a lot of problems.  We have energy problems to solve, we have food problems to solve, we have a lot of problems that need engineers to solve them.  So, we just need to have just as many women engineers as men engineers.”

Mrs. Klara believes that engineering is going to grow.  According to bls.gov, the engineering job outlook is projected to grow approximately 11% across all branches of engineering; these branches include aerospace, civil, chemical, electrical, environmental, industrial, mechanical, nuclear and petroleum.

“The projection for engineers is very, very good.  In the future, we will need many engineers and many different kinds of engineers,” Mrs. Klara said.

Engineering salaries are booming.  Aerospace, civil, electrical, environmental, and mechanical engineers rake in an average of $80-85,000 per year.

“Chemical engineering is known as the hardest branch of engineering,” Mrs. Klara said.  On average, chemical engineers, according to bls.gov, make $90,300 per year, more than most branches of engineering.  The highest salaries top out at $114,080, $99,920 and $97,480, which are petroleum, nuclear, and aerospace engineers respectively.

Mrs. Klara ended her presentation in an interactive way.  She presented a PowerPoint in which students stood up and answered questions related to energy.  Beforehand, she passed out multicolored cards that indicated the letter of the answer.

At the end, only one student prevailed: Billy Ruschel.

Mrs. Klara kindly handed out mechanical pencils to everyone.

She ended with, “Here’s a gift for everyone: mechanical pencils.  This is the most important tool all engineers use.”