I am a high school senior applying early action to colleges such as Georgia Tech, Purdue, UIUC, UIC, and Cal Poly SLO, all for engineering. However, I am stuck on which discipline to select. I have always been interested in biomedical and it’d definitely be my first choice if I hadn’t read CC discussions stating that BME isn’t a good undergrad major because jobs are limited at that point and it’d be better off to major in a more general engineering discipline, such as ME, EE, or ChemE. How much truth is there to this?
I am also interested in mechanical, but was wondering how much thermodynamics is involved. I’ve taken AP Physics for 1 year and am in my second year (AP Physics C) and did not enjoy thermo at all. I did like kinematics and dynamics, but how much of the stuff we learn in these classes is theoretical? If I don’t enjoy thermo in a HS physics setting will I not enjoy it as a college major?
BME is a “hot” major everywhere, likely for the wrong reasons (students think it’s a good pre-med degree, which it isn’t and that they’ll have a good fall back if they don’t get in, but it isn’t a strong BS only degree). ME is a much broader degree, far more useful as a BS only and a great starting point is you want to do BME graduate work. I can’t comment about the rest, but for Cal Poly, ME is quite a bit stronger.
In ME, you’ll have at least 1 or 2 semesters each of Thermodynamics and Fluid Dynamics. You said you didn’t like thermo in high school, but maybe that was due to the instructor vice the material? I took thermo twice in college. First time I couldn’t understand the material and dropped. Second time the instructor was fabulous and I understood everything and really enjoyed the class. A good instructor makes all the difference.
Again, speaking of CP only, BME requires Thermo I and Fluid Mechanics I. ME requires Thermo I, II, heat transfer, Fluid Mechanics I and II. Either way, it’s not easy, but doable. Either way, you’ll encounter classes you won’t necessarily love.
I had probably the best physics teacher in the school for this course; he was maybe my all time favorite teacher. It wasn’t the teaching style, it was just the material–stuff like carnot engines, expansion/compression of gases, heat transfer, etc. I didn’t really see the practical application in it during the course
I probably should have phrased that better. I understand that thermo can be applied in many different ways in the real world, it’s just that in class, the practice problems we did and notes we took didn’t seem like things that would have a lot of significance nowadays.
The practice problems were probably a little more applicable than you realize, it’s just that you haven’t been presented with a problem to solve. As an example, take the problem of a volume at a given pressure and temperature and its expansion to a larger volume, then determine final pressure and temperature. Can seem a little odd. But, if that initial volume happens to be a nuclear plant that springs a leak, you can easily determine the maximum pressure and temperature in the large concrete building that’s supposed to keep all that contained. In practice, the analysis is a bit more complex, but fundamentally this would tell you there is a problem with the design.
And be wary of using “nowadays.” I’m not trying to be the old guy chasing you off my lawn, but the fundamentals of modern mechanical engineering were worked out 100+ years ago. The rules of the universe do not change. Just the problems to be solved. I have handbooks on my shelf that are older than I am. About ready to give them to my son who is currently a Junior in ME.