As I am about to embark on the next 4 years of my life at college, I am faced with this pertinent yet frightening question: should I go into engineering. After taking 3 years of Physics, 1 year of Chemistry, 4 years of Math, and 2 years of Biology (if that counts), I am not too sure if I am cut out for engineering. I did very, very well in those classes and have done really well in math and physics competitions. My parents would really love for me to go into engineering so I would have a good chance of getting a job right out of college. But because of my success, I am scared that I am too smart to go into engineering. I feel like I can compete at the levels of theoretical physics and mathematics, and I think my mind would turn into gravy after building things and doing middle school level math and physics all day. I do want to go into engineering to get the job but don’t know if I would be able to put up with the engineering courses that I would have to take. What do you guys think? I want to be intellectually stimulated which is why I’m leaning towards math or physics.
You should go with most interests you. There are jobs for students with math and Physics degrees. However, since you don’t know much about engineering, you will need to learn whether it is a potentially interesting major for you. I don’t think it is a question of how smart you are. Engineering is challenging, just as challenging as Physics or Math in its own way (speaking as a physics professor…). The good thing is that the first year courses are more or less the same for all these majors and you will have some flexibility ins changing majors if you decide that you are in the wrong one.
Wait, you think you’re too smart to be an engineer? You don’t think that you’ll be challenged?
Seriously? Engineering is just as challenging as Math or Physics. Probably more challenging, depending on the specific area.
If you go into engineering and expect it to be easy breezy nice and cheesy, odds are that it will chew you up by the time you realize that it isn’t.
Engineering can be as challenging as you want it to be! At the PhD level, it can be just as challenging as a career in Physics or Mathematics. Most engineers terminate their education at the BS or MS level, but you always have the option to go further if you’re looking for more academic rigor.
This has to be a joke. Right?
I think if he is thinking that the day in, day out, engineering involving working with people over theories could easily be hard for the real boffins. Engineering work isn’t in the abstract for most employed engineers, and for sure, not all engineers are super bright.
What profession IS composed entirely of godlike geniuses??
When you guys say that engineering is just as challenging or even more challenging than math or physics, you mean in the physical sense, right? As in, engineering is more challenging since you must be very precise when putting parts of a machine together? Let me clarify my original question, I am inquiring as to whether engineering is as challenging at the intellectual level.
Also, this thread is not a joke; I am sincerely concerned and seek advice. Additionally, having engineers who haven’t tried pure math or physics comment that engineering is challenging doesn’t say much if my premise is true. Therefore, please state your background when giving advice, similar to how xraymancs did. Thank you.
@Eulerguy21, What gave you the idea that engineering wasn’t challenging or might not be stimulating on an intellectual level? I think your assertion that your “mind would turn into gravy after building things and doing middle school level math and physics all day” might be an indication that you don’t have a full grasp on what engineering really is. No one is too smart for engineering. If you’re fearing boredom from rote work, choose a theoretical career path. You can be as challenged as you want to be. FWIW, you can be either a math or physics major and be far less challenged and bored.
I was never an engineering major (only the parent of one), so I can’t speak to how challenging the courses may be for you, but I was strongly encouraged to be an education major when I originally started college and switched majors after becoming very frustrated by how unchallenging those courses were for me. Every major is not right for every student.
So, my advice is to contact a local university and ask if you can sit in on an upper level engineering class session, then you might be able to better determine the level of challenge involved and if it interests you or not.
Let’s take a step back, here. What exactly is it that you think engineers typically do? I’ll give you a hint; very few engineers build machines, and unless you went to middle school at a university and took calculus and differential equations and the like, then your comment about using middle school math all day is borderline offensive to anyone who has an engineering degree.
Also, another hint for you is that you ought to be approaching this much more graciously than you have been so far as opposed to making demands and putting down the profession of those from whom you seek advice (whether you mean to or not).
I’ve got a PhD in aerospace engineering and work at a major research center with a bunch of other PhDs both in engineering and in the sciences. Our jobs aren’t all that dissimilar.
Engineering can be just about as hands-on or as theoretical as you want depending on how you vector your career path. Some jobs can be done mostly by clocking in, going on autopilot, and clocking out, while others can require a great deal of hands-on work, and others still can involve a lot of theory and mathematics. Which direction you go largely depends on you.
I’ll also offer one more bit of advice. Don’t let your high school stats tempt you to get a big head about your own abilities. That’s a pretty quick way to find yourself struggling in college when you think you already have it figured out and start underestimating classes. I’ve seen it happen to many people. Maybe you got a perfect SAT score or were valedictorian or whatever other achievement it is that you are very proud of, and that is great. Be proud of it. The fact is, though, that once you start college, none of that matters. Your slate is wiped clean and its an even playing field, and most likely, many of your fellow classmates had similar accomplishments, especially in STEM fields. This is true again when it comes to things like the GRE and graduate school. Just stay humble and work hard and you’ll do fine.
It may feel like piling on, but I want to add a little anecdote to @boneh3ad’s post.
My son was invited into the honors section of Calc III his first term at university. The low score on the first test was 36%. Many of the class scored below 50%. In order to get in, student’s had to score 5 on the Calc BC AP exam. Everyone of those students was likely a superstar at their school. Everyone of them likely had a high GPA and As in most if not all of their STEM prep classes.
What you have done so far is simply preparation to take the next step. It’s in no way a guarantee of your success. The road is littered with the over confident.
Thank you guys for your feedback. @boneh3ad, I apologize if I came off offensive in any way. I did not mean to. I learned multivariable calculus in 8th grade and did single variable in 7th grade. By middle school math, I meant computational-like classes, i.e. not proof-based calc (which I did not do until high school), number theory, or any other “pure” math. I do find it partially offensive that you would suggest I would be proud of reading enough to get a good SAT score or memorizing enough information to be valedictorian. I am proud of my personal progress in mathematics and physics, and how I have improved in both, which will definitely help me in my future endeavors.
I have not had any exposure to engineering whatsoever, and my comments partially derived from the show Big Bang Theory, with Sheldon Cooper’s (funny) comments. I’m sorry if my definition of middle school math differs from the norm and that I had a false impression of engineers only doing hands on, routine work - I haven’t been exposed to the truth apparently.
So may you guys please expand on how engineering can be completely (or close to it) theoretical and possibly give me a problem from theoretical engineering? Thanks again.
Yours is a unique experience as does not represent what is typical of “middle school math”, so while you apparently delved into some more fun topics at that age, but calling engineering “middle school math”, you imply to the rest of us that you think it is all elementary algebra.
If you find that offensive, you have incredibly thin skin. In fact, that’s exactly why I included “or whatever other achievement” to my original statement since I don’t know you, nor have you provided much background until just now.
You shouldn’t base your views on life and careers on the exaggerated treatment in a comedy show, especially one that is so divorced from reality as BBT. That’s sort of like basing your opinion of spy agencies on Austin Powers or Get Smart.
I spent 6 years of graduate school working on the problem of how a fluid transitions to turbulence. I have no idea if you are at all familiar with fluid mechanics, but the transition problem is one of the great unsolved mysteries in physics. This is one of many problems that are still major unsolved physical phenomena that are typically tackled by engineers, physicists, and mathematicians alike.
In fact, Werner Heisenberg did his doctoral thesis on that topic before moving into quantum mechanics later (under the direction of Arnold Sommerfeld, who was also very much into the topic). Ludwig Prandtl, who was technically an engineer, spent a great deal of his career treating that topic (and other) with a great deal of mathematical rigor. Horace Lamb (if you’ve heard of him) once remarked:
“I am an old man now, and when I die and go to heaven there are two matters on which I hope for enlightenment. One is quantum electrodynamics, and the other is the turbulent motion of fluids. And about the former I am rather optimistic.”
Now I work on trying to experimentally study similar fluid dynamic phenomenon that are related to supernovae and controlled nuclear fusion. There are quite a few mathematicians and physicists that work on that problem as well.
Of course, the bottom line is that if your hope is to use proof-based math in your every day job, you probably aren’t going to find much of that in engineering or physics and will have to stick with pure mathematics. Applied mathematics may represent a happy medium, but even then the focus is usually on applying the mathematical concepts to the physical world. If you are just looking to do work where understanding proof-based mathematics is beneficial but not a daily occurrence, then physics or engineering are more likely to be acceptable to you if you latch on to one of the more technical/theoretical career paths.
@boneh3ad, You said that any achievement I was proud of wouldn’t matter in college, so I gave you the benefit of the doubt and reinterpreted your comment to stick to “having a good SAT score or being valedictorian.” And thank you for the rest of your post; it was helpful.
Theoretical computer science also makes use of mathematical proofs.
@Eulerguy21 Okay, how about this.
Design a 300 watt tin droplet laser produced plasma (with a multi-megawatt CO2 laser, of course) with a repetition rate of 6 kilohertz, capable of sustaining that power output over a year or so, then figure out how to ionize the tin debris utilizing a controlled prepulse so that the magnetic field (which you also have to implement without compromising the light source) will catch all of the debris, then fabricate Mo/Si bilayer mirrors with an Ru protective coat, because OF COURSE you need the protective coat, that will reflect 13.5nm radiation with an efficiency of over 70%, then create a high-yield photomask that is contains about, say, 50 times fewer defects than current photomasks (you get a cookie if you get no errors), then run through thousands of photoresist compositions to find one that is both smoother and more sensitive than current ones (at the 13.5nm band, of course. You can use your light source from earlier to test them out. Did I mention that you’d need to do this in a vacuum chamber and make sure that the photoresist doesn’t outgas? Because you do, and it can’t), and then assemble your optics and print 150 silicon wafers per hour using your fully assembled Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography Stepper, then increase the power output to over 500 watts, add 2 more mirrors, and print 150 wafers per hour with feature sizes at or under 7 nanometers.
If you can design and manufacture all of this, then you are too smart to be an Engineer. Notice that this is about two thirds highly theoretical mathematics, physics, and chemistry, and about one third manufacturing.