Undergraduate Description

The Department of Chemical Engineering (ChemE) was established in 1925, graduating its first class in 1930. It has graduated over 4,000 undergraduate ChemE’s in 94 years.  The program was created to educate the much needed local workforce for the booming sugar industry at the beginning of the last century. It grew and evolved in response to Puerto Rico’s local industry and economy, which changed over the decades with the evolution towards the petrochemical, pharmaceutical, and biopharmaceutical industries. Today, our graduates excel in a wide range of industries from pharmaceutical, biopharmaceutical, medical devices, petrochemical, plastics, energy, and consumer products, not only in Puerto Rico but also in the continental US.  

Currently, the Department of Chemical Engineering at UPRM offers a Bachelor of Science (BS) in Chemical Engineering Degree with 172 semester credit-hours in a 5-year program. The program has an average annual enrollment of 681 undergraduate students and graduates on average 82 students per year (in the last five years), making it one of the largest chemical engineering programs in the US and ranking amongst the top 50 school awarding chemical engineering degrees. It has also been consistently reported to be amongst the top three programs awarding chemical engineering degrees to women and Hispanics.  

The undergraduate chemical engineering program has been continuously accredited since 1970. Currently, the Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering at the University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez is accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission (EAC) of ABET. For more information, check the Accreditation section. 

The University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez is also accredited by the The Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE).