Material and Energy Balances is the first course of the chemical engineering major and the one the whole degree is built on. The statewide description is short and exact: the conservation laws of mass and energy applied to the solution of industrial chemical process problems.
⚠⚠ Every chemical engineer remembers this course. It is not mathematically difficult — there is little beyond algebra and a systematic accounting of what goes in and what comes out — and it is nonetheless where a substantial share of intending majors change their minds. The difficulty is that problems arrive as a paragraph of prose about a real process and you must decide for yourself what the system is, what crosses its boundary, and which equations are independent. Nothing earlier in the curriculum asks that.
Carried by four Florida public institutions.
Named on the Chemical Engineer career path, where it is the entry point to the major. Beyond that its skill — accounting rigorously for what enters and leaves a process — is the daily work of a process engineer in any plant, and it is what an internship interviewer will ask you to demonstrate.
SCNS titles this number Introduction to Chemical Engineering. No carrier uses that name: FAMU and FSU call it Mass and Energy Balances I, UF and USF Material and Energy Balances. The statewide description — the conservation laws of mass and energy — agrees with the carriers, not the title, so the title is the stale element.
⚠ It matters practically: several Florida institutions run a genuine “introduction to chemical engineering” survey course under a different number — ECH3002 at USF, ECH2934 at UF — and those are one- or two-credit orientation courses, not this. Do not substitute one for the other on the strength of the title.
| Institution | Credits | Structure |
|---|---|---|
| University of Florida | 4 | one term |
| Florida State | 4 | ⚠⚠ followed by ECH3024 |
| Florida A&M | 3 | ⚠⚠ followed by ECH3024 (4 credits) |
| University of South Florida | 3 | one term |
⚠⚠⚠ This is sequence-length divergence (the same field taught as one course at some institutions and two at others) colliding with a credit divergence. A student transferring into UF or USF with only the first half of the FAMU-FSU sequence has covered the material balances and possibly not the reactive energy balances. Send the topic list; the titles are no help, because both halves are called the same thing.
Chemical engineering is awarded by four Florida public institutions in three cities: the University of Florida (110 bachelor’s degrees a year), the University of South Florida (73), Florida State (27) and Florida A&M (4). Florida State and Florida A&M share the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, a single joint college in Tallahassee, which is why their records for this prefix are identical down to the title.
⚠⚠ So a carrier count in this prefix overstates how many independent programmes exist. A course carried by “FAMU and FSU” is one programme’s course, not two institutions agreeing. Read the hedging on this page accordingly, and treat anything stated about content as a description of a small number of specific curricula rather than a Florida-wide norm.
⚠ Neither UCF nor FIU awards a chemical engineering degree — the two largest universities in the state by enrolment. See the Chemical Engineer career path for what that means if you live in Orlando or Miami.
All four Florida programmes are accredited by ABET’s Engineering Accreditation Commission, which is what employers screen on and what carries the four-year route to Professional Engineer licensure under s. 471.013(1)(a), Florida Statutes. ⚠ Accreditation attaches to a named programme at a named institution, not to a course list — verify the specific programme in ABET’s own search.
Most chemical engineers never license: process plants fall under the industrial exemption. ⚠ The Florida exceptions are environmental and water engineering consulting, where work is sealed for public clients. Sit the FE examination in your final year regardless — the chemical FE is written for the curriculum you have just finished and will never be easier.
Generated September 18, 2026 · Updated September 18, 2026