<p>Thank you for taking your time to read this, i really appreciate the feedback. </p>
<p>I have two major problems, one is the difficult task of choosing between engineering majors. If you asked me which i would become, i would say mechanical, because to me it seems so diverse and broad... I feel i wont be as trapped as aerospace or environmental... Now i am sort of looking towards a more chemistry related engineering. Chemical E, or BioMedical E... </p>
<p>please give me your honest opinion on any of this. What are pros and cons? what do you know, PASS FORTH YOUR NOBLE WISDOM! </p>
<p>second questions is basic, is double majoring a good idea. For some reason i want to do chemE major with a mechanical major. :) thank you.</p>
<p>As an academic advisor to many student over the years, I don’t recommend double majoring or two degrees, particularly in engineering. Focus on one area of engineering which you really like and then if, necessary you can get a Masters in a second area. This iwll give you a much better earning potential than two B.S. degrees.</p>
<p>As for the particular field, it all depends on where you intend to look for employment. Mechanical is more general and you can go in lots of directions with such a degree but Chemical is more directed to the pharmaceutical, chemical and petroleum industry. From what I have seen, Biomedical is a bit less rigorous as an engineering discipline and student tend to be interested in graduate school or medical school.</p>
<p>I’m just curious, but can you explain to me why two B.S. mayors in engineering are not good? What if you want to gain more knowledge in a different part of engineering? For example, if you like Electrical and Mechanical, is it really a bad thing to do a B.S. in each of them? And why do you say a Masters is better?</p>
<p>Employers are looking for a specific major. If they want to hire a mechanical engineer, they’d rather get one with a master’s in mechanical, rather than a BS in mechanical and electrical. You go more in-depth in grad school - it’s valuable to have that greater knowledge of your field.</p>
<p>You may not believe it now, but once you get your engineering degree, there will still be LOTS that you still have to learn. If an employer was looking for a few people to do work that involved both mechanical and electrical engineering, they would hire a few ME’s and a few EE"s, <em>not</em> a few who dabble in both. </p>
<p>How does that saying go? Jack of all trades, master of none.</p>
<p>Thanks guys, yeah it seems double majoring isn’t very beneficial. In your opinion what would be good major minor combinations? would engineering major with engineering minor be better than engineering major with non engineering minor, such as… economics or something?</p>
<p>xraymanc: you said this From what I have seen, Biomedical is a bit less rigorous as an engineering discipline…</p>
<p>I would say this: I have heard that Biomedical engineering degree pays better than EE or ME…google it too and it is there!! and it is hard since it is a combo programs of Engineering and pure sciences. </p>
<p>And to pursue a graduate school and Phd in BME, you need to have a certain GPA like 3.4 or 3.5 as a general requirement. You can check it out these graduate schools in BME/Bio Medical Engineering: UPenn, Univ. of Kansas Bio-Engineering Dept, MIT, UC San Diego, UC Berkeley. They all require GPA at least 3.4 or 3.5…even worse Johns Hopkins Univ for graduate school or Phd in BME, the admission is under med school. </p>
<p>And you know that 3.4 or 3.5 undergraduate GPA is not easy to get. But, that is the requirement for BME. BME is a bit rigorious as an engineering dicipline does not make sense at all.</p>
<p>That just blew my mind… I remember talking the the Long beach Port Engineer manager (not so sure of his position… but its up there) he said writing and communications skills got you the job, and the engineering degree got you the interview!</p>
<p>An econ minor or double major could get you into consulting. But OperaDad is right–writing skills will take you very very far. Even if you can’t double major due to engineering requirements, apply to schools that are strong in the humanities as well and take as many courses in that area as possible. The well-roundedness will show :)</p>
<p>I have a BSME with at Technical Communications concentration (5 courses, some that fulfilled other requirements). It gave me some extra skills. It also gave me an advantage that resulted in a job offer at the major corporation. I still work there, almost 30 years later.</p>
<p>Personally I think Tech Comm courses help engineers more than traditional English classes. (Think bullet points vs fluffy paragraphs). However any extra writing experience is helpful. Also it is good to have a change of pace from problem sets.</p>
<p>Echo what Colorado Mom said. I hear it time and again from educators about what poor writing skills college students have. Thus, I see that many engineering departments now require a technical writing class, but a good old upper level English class is certainly worthwhile as well for science majors. I’ve encouraged Lake Jr., a budding engineer, to sign for up Advanced Composition.</p>
<p>For my M.S. Engineering degree (Univ of Wisconsin), there was a REQUIRED technical communication course. Also, for my PMP certification (project management professional), one of the areas of knowledge (which you are tested over) is about project communication.</p>
<p>I do know that for two of the local universities in my area…both Univ of Maryland-College Park and University of Maryland-Baltimore County (UMBC) require an upper-level writing course.</p>
<p>My engineering college had a writing proficiency exam. It was required junior year, allowing students could get tutoring if needed in order to pass it before graduation. </p>
<p>My motivation to do Tech Comm concentration was boost declining writing skills, which had been decent in hs. The emphasis on audience analysis planning prior to writing has been helpful to me in work and in life. One of my courses was business writing. The B- grade on my resume certainly got me in gear for a rewrite ;)</p>