I’ve narrowed it down, but not limited to Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering using other threads and stuff. Between these 2, I like them equally and people have split opinions. What is the best major for a career in robotics? I know that robotics is a good field, but will the pay be on par with the pays of traditional engineer work?
Mechatronics is too specialized, so please leave that out.
Mechatronics is too specialized? Says who? It’s simply a catchall term that unites electrically driven mechanical things with a brain (microprocessor). When you do “robotics” you are doing “mechatronics.” Robotics is a subset of mechatronics. Now that said, you don’t have to choose a mechatronics program to get into robotics. You can choose ME, EE, CS or CE (and probably others I haven’t thought of). Which one you choose depends on which angle you like.
Some schools think that the “Robotics” major is the best major for robotics.
https://admissions.sa.ucsc.edu/majors/robotics
https://www.wpi.edu/academics/departments/robotics-engineering
http://undergrad.ri.cmu.edu/academics/additional-major/
However, if you don’t want to major in mechatronics, then maybe you don’t want to major in robotics either. In that case, agree that you can get into robotics from ME, EE, CE, or CS. It depends on your interest, and maybe on your school – the robotics program may be primarily associated with one department in School A, and with a different department in School B.
@Corbett @eyemgh In the case I cannot find a job, or am stuck in one that I don’t want to do, won’t a mechatronics degree be a disadvantage to finding a new job in the same field? Would I be better off with a degree in ME or EE ?
Also, I read that most people in robotics are specialized in a specific area, and if mechatronics covers a wider set of knowledge won’t someone in each subset like ME and EE be a better candidate for that job?
I appreciate the help, if mechatronics is as broad and in turn “versatile”, I would be open to doing it. I definitely do want to do robotics, I have been doing vex for the last 5 years and have been a worlds semifinalist twice. I have no doubts that robotics is what I want to do for my career, as every aspect of it can never get boring.
Mechatronics isn’t typically a degree per se, but a concentration of ME (usually) or EE (occasionally). You still get a broad background in ME or EE. My son for example is a senior ME who chose a Mechatronics Concentration. He did an internship with an aerospace company over the summer. He did quite a few things including some circuits work, heat transfer and fluid mechanics. The number of jobs he will be qualified to do is overwhelming.
@eyemgh That’s interesting, so do only a select number of colleges offer this? Also, how would it work? Would I pick a ME major and then concentrate in mechatronics?
Hardly anyone offers an ABET accredited degree in Mechatronics Engineering, just a couple of podunk u schools you probably wouldn’t be interested in. I would either do as @Corbett recommended and look at a robotics specific program like WPI or choose a ME program that offers a concentration in mechatronics or robotics. Georgia Tech and Cal Poly are examples of the latter.
What state are you from and how far along in school are you?
I am from PA and a junior in high school
If stats are relevant to this, my uw/w gpa is 3.74/4.32, sat 1510
The CMU Robotics Institute would be the ticket IF you get in and IF you could afford it. If you could choose ME at Penn State or Pitt, and then round out your tech electives you could probably get what you want also. You don’t need a robotics or mechatronics piece of paper to work in the field. Look at the curriculum map for ME at a school you’re vetting and then pull up the catalog and look at tech electives. How many classes do they offer? That’s how you sort this out. Do you want to stay near home and do you have budget constraints?
You can get into robotics with a background in ME, EE, or CS.
However, if you choose the ME route, you’ll have to be sure to supplement your core coursework with as much work in programming, controls, and math as possible. Pure mechanical design is in extremely low demand in the robotics world. Electronics and circuitry are much higher on the list. What is most sought-after, though, is an understanding of control theory, programming, machine learning, AI, image processing, parallel computing, etc. Knowledge of these things is the real ticket into robotics.
Again, any of those majors (ME, EE, CS) will give you the opportunity to get into that stuff, but you may have to work a little harder to gain the knowledge and proficiency in those areas with an ME undergraduate degree than with an EE or CS undergraduate degree. A graduate degree would probably be a good idea, and will also allow you to specialize in any of those areas regardless of academic discipline.
A concentration in mechatronics or robotics could be useful, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to find a program that offers these.
@eyemgh
I’d rather go from home for the sake of exploring, but I could stay if it had a significant benefit to my career. I am on the fence for pitt and penn state, but I’d be more than willing to stay for CMU.
As for budget constraints, I have none, however, I’d like to save money to use it in the future if it’s not necessary to pay a high price.
@AuraObscura
Thanks for the insight, I was reading many things similar to what you said about electrical being where a lot of the demand is. Like I said, I’d be open to both ME and EE.
Also, back to one of my original questions, " I know that robotics is a good field, but will the pay be on par with the pays of traditional engineer work?"
To specify is robotics as well paying of a field (as an electrical or mechanical engineer for example) as other ‘traditional’ engineering routes, like defense company jobs or automotive industries?
This is an interesting report put out by ASME and ASCE on engineers’ salaries.
https://www.asme.org/getmedia/788e990f-99f5-4062-801c-d2ef0586b52d/32673_Engineering_Income_Salary_Survey.aspx
However, I would be extremely wary of drawing any conclusions from this, and you should read it with a grain of salt (or maybe a whole shaker of salt). Aside from small sample size, the report methodology makes no mention of how respondents were targeted or recruited, and there could be a large selection bias and other biases. Furthermore, the results do not account for differences in cost of living in different geographic areas, which makes a massive difference in pay. On top of that, there’s no mention of how they break down the different fields, i.e., what constitutes “robotics”? This might be based purely on each respondent’s own response/opinion of what field they’re in, when in fact, most robotics engineers probably don’t have the title “robotics engineer”, or they may self-identify based on their specialty rather than the field. There are loads of software engineers, electrical engineers, computer engineers, controls engineers, biomedical engineers, and systems engineers in robotics roles, but the report says nothing about whether this was taken into account.
You may want to look around on websites like PayScale and Glassdoor, but in my experience, engineers in robotics are compensated well above average relative to engineers as a whole. In general, electrical engineers are paid above average, and software engineers are paid far above average, and individuals of these backgrounds comprise the majority of robotics engineers.
"As for budget constraints, I have none, " - Your parents are on board with that, right?
@colorado_mom
Yes, however, I should be smart about it since I can use the money later if it’s not important.