<p>a physics and engineer major? I want to be a scientist and receive my Ph.D in physics or chemistry.</p>
<p>An engineering major is more likely to go into industry, and is more concerned with the practical aspect of everything. There are different types of engineering, but the main types are civil, mechanical, chemical, electrical, and biomedical. Physics majors are more concerned with the theory behind it all. </p>
<p>If you want to be a scientist, go with physics.</p>
<p>Yeah, if you are interested in pure science, especially very theoretical, don't go into engineering. Engineering uses a lot of design rules, thumb rules, formulas whose meanings are not always apparent, etc., just to get the job done. So you may not get to appreciate or even understand the science much, unless you do PHD engineering. I found this out from people who are already working as engineers.</p>
<p>Only thing about majoring in physics is that is is VERY hard to become a physicist. The job market is very slim but at the same time competitive for physicists.</p>
<p>I'm studying civil engineering and many times we use approximations or just read numbers off graphs to get the information we need. Especially in engineering, there comes to a point where doing that is accurate enough and not worth the time to calculate the precise answer.</p>
<p>This is still my biggest dilemma, too.</p>
<p>Thanks. It seems that they are cutting gov't funding for Aerospace and physicist's careers and even growing lower-than-average annually. I guess people want to live longer and invest in biology fields since more output is developed from funding.</p>
<p>This may not help, but...</p>
<p>I have a friend who could not decide between engineering and physics.</p>
<p>So he choose engineering physics as a major. He says he loves his job. He does a lot of signals work.</p>
<p>Scientists discover the things that are unknown.</p>
<p>and Engineers solve problems and find new ideas to fix the problem.</p>