<p>Hello everyone,
I am a transfer student and I will be attending U of Michigan in winter 2011. Is it ok to do double major (Mechanical Engineering and Electrical Engineering) ? It is just 25 credits more. Can you list pros and cons ? </p>
<p>thank you so much.</p>
<p>If you can handle the extra work-load, then sure go for it. But make sure you don’t end up damaging your gpa for no reason. Nobody will care that you are a double major in EE and ME if your GPA ends up being too low < 3.0.</p>
<p>25 credits more. I say at least one semester if you can;t handle that many. In fact you might find time conflicts…</p>
<p>I say don;t worry about the double / dual major right now.
Focus on your primary major.
double major =/= great work performance.</p>
<p>If I were you, I will, again, focus on the primary major (the one you like the most), and then do a grad study later. You can pick those 1-year grad studies.</p>
<p>are you looking into robotics area? is that why you are picking ME+EE?</p>
<p>Kind of piggybacking on what Jxwie said…</p>
<p>Pick one major and take enough from the other major (hopefully less than extra 25 credits pass 120) so that you can get admitted into a graduate program of the other major. Most graduate programs usually have a set of required courses needed to be considered for that program if you don’r have a B.S. in that area. I know as a Math major, many of my classmates took electives that would allow them to be admitted into other similar programs like Engineering Mechanics, Applied Physics or Computer Science.</p>
<p>A similar route can be done with EE & ME.</p>
<p>Can’t you also get admitted before completing the pre-requisites?</p>
<p>Yes. If your grades are high enough, a graduate school can “conditionally admit” you provided that you promise to compete the prerequisites.</p>
<p>Nice to have the clarification. :)</p>
<p>thx for advise.</p>
<p>I don’t know yet that I can handle the extra work-load because I am a transfer student. After first semester it will me more clear. But it just 25 credits more and If I want to go in Master in EE than i have to take that classes. Here is my future plan (it depend on how it goes.): </p>
<p>Case 1: Double Major ME + EE and Master in EE (50% likely to do)
Case 2: Double Major ME + EE and Master in ME (35%)
Case 3: Double Major ME + EE and MBA (15%)</p>
<p>Again, Thank you for advise !!</p>
<p>I know of one guy who went that route (ME and EE), and that set him well to go into some system design and integration jobs, but I don’t know if it was much of an advantage overall. He hasn’t been promoted faster or (to the best of my knowledge) been paid much more for that extra knowledge.</p>
<p>Before you go that route, I would ask this question: What job or graduate research area do you have in mind that would require such extensive knowledge of both disciplines? Double majors are very attractive to many undergrad students, but grad students and professionals quickly learn that they don’t really help that much.</p>
<p>I would not advise doing that. You’d get more out of your degree if you take those 25 credits in advanced electives rather than intro/mid level classes for your double major.</p>
<p>you can’t look at fields as completely different just because they have different names. say you study control systems/signal processing in the EE department as an undergrad and fall in love with it. there is no reason you can’t apply to graduate control systems program in the mech engr department. </p>
<p>on the other hand, if you want to work on semiconductor physics, i would say 90 something percent of what you learned in the mech e degree becomes directly useless. </p>
<p>it’s rare that you’re hired to do EVERYTHING. there’s just too much information and details. people spend their whole lives studying/writing books about some super small piece of science (they’re typically honored with an equation or effect named after them).
what ends up happening is that you do your part as a team. </p>
<p>the people who do get hired to do “everything” are more in the supervisor roles. (engine guys build engine of car. material guys build material of the frame. electronics guys make the electronics of the car. supervisor puts it all together). i feel like the guys in this position typically have research backgrounds.
as other people have pointed out, once you get into graduate school, doubling majoring in such similar fields isn’t very helpful.</p>
<p>thank you for your comments. </p>
<p>I will talk about with my adviser. Right now, I am in ME department so I can do dual with EE but let’s say i just did B.S in ME and after that i want to do Master in EE then I have to complete pre-requisites of Master in EE right ?? </p>
<p>Again, thx for advise.</p>