Introduction

At the Faculty of Chemical Engineering, applicants are welcome to study at two specialities. They have already been admitted separately for the specialities of chemical engineering and biological engineering for the fourth academic year.

At the speciality of chemical engineering, the purpose of the training course is to train qualified experts and engineers with appropriate knowledge and application skills in both natural and economic sciences. This way they can operate and develop technologies meeting modern technical, economic, and environment protection requirements, as well as design new procedures and products and perform research and development tasks.

At the speciality of biological engineering, the basic knowledge to be mastered is supplemented by wide-range biological knowledge. Part of it is taught in cooperation with ELTE and SOTE Universities, and our graduate engineers will be capable to perform operational, development, and research tasks in the fields of contact of biological and engineering sciences (e.g. agrobiology, catering and nutrition science, environment and health protection.

The training course is run in a credit system. Students are not only marked for the quality of completing a subject, but they receive credits in proportion to the work performed (that is, the time needed to master the subject). In order to complete the so-called 1^st level, 120 credits must be collected from a certain group of subjects. Then students can decide on the basis of their results whether to graduate as engineers (college degree) or as qualified engineers (university degree).

Accordingly, they can choose the route of their further studies. With 210 credits earned, they may get a college degree, and with 300 credits earned, a university degree. If the training course is not interrupted, the necessary time for completion is 3.5 years in the case of the former one, and 5 years for the latter. In both cases, students must successfully complete a vocational practice; they must prepare a thesis for the college degree and pass a rigorous examination and prepare a diploma project as well for the university degree.

At both specialities it is possible to specialize in special branches in a certain part of the training course. This primarily entails engineering training with examples taken from the narrower fields of chemical and biological engineering, not decreasing in any way the possibilities of employment in the fields and the borderline of chemistry and biology.

Special branches of the speciality of chemical engineering

(U = university training, C = college training)

Analytics and structural examination	U
Material science	U
General chemical industry	U
Pharmaceutical industry	U	C
Plastics industry	U	C
Synthetic chemical industry		C
Textile, paper, leather, and packaging technology		C

Special branches of the speciality of biological engineering

Health protection	U
Food industry		C
Food qualification	U
Industrial biotechnology	U
Environmental and industrial biotechnology		C
Environment protection	U
Agriculture and food industry	U

Another precondition for taking the final examination is to have passed a basic and medium-level language examination, respectively. The credit system of training makes it possible for students to continue their studies without interruption even if they have not been able to complete one or more subjects successfully. Especially in higher years, this provides students with more independence and puts more responsibility on them at the same time in terms of choosing the pace of progress and the sphere of knowledge to learn by individual subjects. The instructors of the Faculty help each student in an organized form to make up their own curriculum, giving them advice on how to organize optimal individual progress.

Computer science has penetrated in the field of chemistry as well; it is used for the computerized modelling of complicated chemical processes, and on this basis, for controlling and modifying them. In the course of developing pharmaceutical agents, computers help plan biological effects more consciously by determining the expected spatial structure of molecules. The Faculty has its own computer labs where students can acquire basic computer knowledge, familiarize with the use of the Internet and the computer network, being able to develop it further in the work performed at any of the departments.

After graduation, qualified engineers may participate in the so-called third phase of training, that is, doctoral training, where thay can get a Ph.D. degree in three more years on post-graduate scholarships. In the meantime they take part in educational tasks as well; the most excellent ones are to provide the future replacement of university instructors.