Not having any engineering experience does not equate to not passionate about engineering. If you really like math and physics, you have all you need. In fact, most engineers don’t figure out what real engineering even is until about third year.
Two questions will point you in the direction of a major. How important is it to work on something tangible? Very, points to Civil and Mechanical. Not, points to Electrical and Chemical. If not was the answer, then the next question is did you like E/M in Physics or Chemistry better. If very was the answer, then the next question is how important is it that the things you work on move? Very…ME. Not…Civil.
That’s a very broad picture, that leaves off a lot of other options. Most of them though are really refinements of the ones above. For example, Materials is closest to ChemE. Aero is a subset of AE. CompE is really a subset of EE.
There is an outlier…Industrial Engineering. It’s much more high level, related to systems, and is the most “businessy” of the engineering degrees.
My Chem E would disagree with you about chem es not working on tangible things but she’s been working in manufacturing settings. In our experience with her chem e friends, it’s a very broad field with lots of different applications, many of which are very tangible.
No doubt it’s an oversimplification. ChemEs work on VERY tangible things, as do EEs. It’s just the process underlying, chemical reactions and electron flows are not easily seen, like you’d see a bridge or a robotic arm move.
BTW, this simple mental game was the way a former Caltech Professor helped my son choose a field. It’s a crude, but effective way to open the discussion.
I definitely want to work with tangible things, but civil (based on my research) doesn’t sound super interesting to me. And I think mechanical will be more broad to go into, and if I find something specific I like, I could switch over to that major.
Unless the school has industrial engineering, which is still preferred.
I’m jumping on the GTech bandwagon. Can’t beat it for your particular situation.
I was also one of those students like yourself that went into engineering because I liked math, physics, and chemistry. It’s a great, broad education that will serve you well. I was also not interested in the building aspects of engineering, but rather the solving stubborn problems aspects of engineering, but there are so many directions in engineering that you don’t need to build. I took some industrial engineering courses in college, and I remember really enjoying them. Very organization and optimization oriented from what I remember.
I think you’re on the right track and I wish you all the best for your applications and future college career.
You are very fortunate to have Georgia Tech available to you as an instate student. You have an interest in industrial engineering and Georgia Tech is tops in the country in industrial and systems engineering. Hope you get good results there in the EA round. Good luck with your applications!
ME is extremely broad. There’s an endless number of things you can do. Think about the complexity of heating and cooling an indoor football stadium, or robotic arms, or sound emanating from a speaker. Those just touch the surface. That said, ME is an “in the weeds” engineering discipline where most do something(s) technical on a piece of a bigger thing.
IE is very different. It’s more about optimization of the whole system.
They are sufficiently different enough that if you know you want to be an IE, there’s no reason to look at anything other than IE. Zach makes nice videos. The ones below might help you know for sure. He has LOTS of other good videos too.
I also agree with many others that have said GT in state with a Zell Miller is a golden opportunity. You might find schools that are better fits, but from a pure financial perspective, this would be hard to beat without massive demonstrated financial need.
I can see you are probably more undecided than committed to engineering at this point. That is ok. You are 16. Do you have to graduate this year? Or are there additional classes and internships you could do next year at high school? I am not a fan of accelerating HS just to knock out the classes. You miss some of the time to explore interests, but you will do that in college based on your posts.
If this is true, engineering may be more than you think it is and leaves little room for exploring because of the course load:
I’m going to be honest, I am not extremely passionate about engineering
If you are interested in problem solving in Business and also have STEM Interests, there are majors that bring those together in various ways. Here are a few that may be of interest:
Perhaps the least tangible (but still often very important) product of an engineering specialty is with industrial engineering, where the product is typically a process or methodology. Industrial engineering makes a lot of use of math and statistics. Some colleges may offer a non-engineering operations research major (or subarea within statistics or applied math) that has similar goals.
Any “T-20” is going to cost that much or be close to that amount, for the exception of GA Tech, since you’re in-state. There’s not any real benefit to spending $300,000 on a bachelors degree, except for bragging rights at dinner parties. UGA and GA Tech are ABET accredited and heavily recruited for engineering jobs.
Engineering is a broad field and from some of the items you are describing you might like industrial engineering. You might also look to a school that will offer you a survey course in different types of engineering, most schools offer this. You have great start and look to be very competitive in your major. GT in-state in your backyard is such an awesome opportunity to have.
