Adult undergraduate students aged 25+ in engineering disciplines are an important demographic bringing a wealth of life experience to the classroom. This study uses qualitative data drawn from semi-structured interviews with two groups of undergraduate chemical engineering students at a large, public research university: adult students with engineering-related work experience, and traditional-age students without engineering-related work experience, to compare student-faculty interactions. We find differences between these groups relating to intimidation and embarrassment, and question-asking behaviors.