I am a junior in high school and am constantly giving thought to what courses I plan on taking in college. I love physics and engineering (mechanical, electrical, chemical, etc.) but have decided I would like to incorporate physics, ME, and EE into my education. I would like to double major in Physics and ME and minor in EE if possible as these are my passions in life. My second choice would be to major in Physics and double minor in ME and EE though this is unfavorable. I look forward to reading your replies.
Cool that you are looking at courses and are so excited that you are going into engineering.
What would be useful for you to do next is to look at a 4 year plan for physics, ME, and EE.
http://www.me.gatech.edu/files/ug/program_of_study_me1516.pdf
https://www.ece.gatech.edu/sites/default/files/documents/undergrad/curriculum_charts_cmpe_2015-2016.pdf
http://www.physics.gatech.edu/content/core-requirements (didn’t see a 4 year plan)
you should specifically also look at schools you are considering … every school handles these things slightly different
you could also consider Engineering Physics, some kind of Electromechanical track… applied physics, etc.
What you will see is that all 3 are pretty much similar for freshman year (take chem if you want to do any engineering). Sophomore year ME and EE will be the same. Junior year there is no overlap between EE and ME and physics and your schedule is jam packed in any of these majors with difficult courses. So you have 2-3 years to decide, to take college level coursework in high school (AP physics and calc are great ways to get ready for a STEM degree) and then in college. Take both EE and ME intro classes if they are offered at your school.
There is overlap between these fields but no way to get a degree in all 3 without a lot of pain and probably 5 or more years to get a BS. You can pick any of these threes and take classes in the others … that may be a minor in some schools, may not be in others … physics will likely also come with a lot of general ed requirements that engineers don’t have time for.
If you have more questions after doing all this, ask at a specific school … or provide us more details. There is an engineering forum with lots of current engineers and students here as well.
I will tell you that EE and ME are intense majors and physics is often the smartest kids in any school … you would have your hands full in any of the three majors.
But if your interests lie somewhere specific, it is best to start applying to schools that can fulfill these interests and are good matches socially, financially, etc too.
I am taking AP Chemistry and AP Physics 2 my senior year but I think AP Chemistry is a two year class so I don’t know all the implications… I am also taking AP Statistics next year but that probably won’t help what I am trying to achieve. Sadly I cannot take AP Calculus because at my school it requires Precalculus as a prerequisite. The issue with that is that my school’s normal math course is Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra 2, and Precalculus (in that order). I would have to have skipped a year of math to take AP Calculus as a senior which I don’t understand. The worst part of the situation is that I bought books on calculus and differential equations and have been teaching myself them for a while now. I’ve asked kids who are taking Precalculus this year about the class and they don’t even know what derivatives or integrals are and we are almost into the second semester. So to add insult to injury I won’t be able to take AP Calculus next year but I will be able to sit in Precalculus for an hour each day and not learn anything new, which might I add is exactly how my Algebra 2 class is this year.
End rant.
Thinking through what interests you and what you might want to do and how you would get there are useful exercises, but getting tied up into major/minors is not. You truly need to get into college, start the engineering track and see how it goes. To paraphrase a recent politician, you don’t even know what you don’t know. And you definitely don’t know what it is to take a full roster of upper level engineering and physics courses.
But most importantly, I think that students often overestimate the importance of majors and minors. Employers are generally much less interested in them than you might think- and experience through a summer internship is likely to trump a ‘minor’.
By all means, research the fields and find an engineering school that is strong in the areas you are interested. Get there, take classes and follow your interests. Let the actual major come to you.
If self-study precalculus this year, would your school allow you to place out of precalc next year. I would like to see you take Calculus in high school, but you could self-study that next year and even take the AB test and see how you do. Your college will also have placement tests.
The importance of pre-calc is to get very confident in the trig identities and to improve some of your other math skills. So you need to work through all the materials, or it will haunt you in calculus.
For engineering, calculus is a key class and you also need to take it preferably before starting your physics sequence, or at least be familiar with derivative and integrals so you can follow the calc-based physics class. For ME, it is likely you should take that first semester.
I would definitely enlist your current math teacher in your self-study work … she/he may be able to provide you a syllabus of what is covered in both pre-calc and calculus AB (that one has lots of AP calc books, you can buy that one too and self-study).
But do the pre-calc work first … don’t skip important steps … don’t brush off things like limits either.
@collegemom3717 I have not overestimated the importance of minors and majors because I am more interested in learning than what my employers would see.
@PickOne1 My math teacher teaches Algebra 2, Precalculus, and Calculus. He uploads each assignment from each class to his website cc-tourn.com and I look at the other class’ work frequently. I feel quite comfortable with limits already buy what you said makes me think there is more to limits…
Given that your current teacher teaches both pre-calculus and calc 1, please go talk to him and discuss your particular situation. If you have been successfully self-studying a lot of material, he may be able to test you into Calc AB and even provide you supplemental materials to get you ready. He should know your capabilities well, hopefully you are doing excellent work on all his algebra 2 tests. He may also be able to help you self study for the AP test.
If he is not helpful, you could still try to find someone else at school or at the district level who would be. Last choice would be trying to craft a program on your own, since you don’t know what you don’t know (and that is the way it should be, that is why 99% of people allow themselves to be taught by people who know more, and know what you don’t know).
Regarding minors and such … double majors can really hinder even the smartest students progress to their BS degree … which is OK if you have a lot of financial resources and time … and sometimes moving on to a masters degree is actually more interesting (graduate engineering courses are taught much more from a fundementals, scientific standpoint … many undergraduate engineering courses concentrate on how to get you to use formulas to for example size a pipe network and pump or determine the minimum size of a structural beam, in grad school you discuss why based on science, hydraulics, and advanced math.
I totally agree on taking interesting and even diverse classes in college, it is not a trade school, it is an academic institution with lots of resources in almost anything you could be interested in.
But engineering curriculum is already over packed and it is difficult to overestimate the difficulty of many of the courses. For example, my thermo class involved 30-40 hours of homework a week, you can’t take 2 or 3 of these to fulfil multiple requirements.
If you do want to dabble and are not rich, your state flagship may be the place to go, as years 5 and 6 will cost you much less money … maybe even commute to bring annual cost down.
The cost of a few years of your life … I actually think it is fine, you should have minimal expenses in your 20s anyway … and this is time to feed your muse. But, some overseas backpack travel, a volunteer experience in a 3rd world country, a semester abroad, a co-op experience … these are also valid experiences …
And, if you pick the right school, you may be able to do some undergraduate research that includes multiple interests. For example, some MEs build robots and there are lots of EE activities involved. Some EEs build robots and there are ME activities.
In real life, we all specialize and then form teams to assemble the full cadre of skills needed to accomplish a goal. A robot would be built by a team with MEs, EEs, manufacturing, materials, CS, managers, financial types, etc.
Knowing a bit of everything is really only useful at the systems or management level, and I think both those jobs are often done better by folks who have cut their teeth on their own difficult problems, whether as an EE, ME, or whatever.
Yea I’ve gotten 100% on 7/9 tests in Algebra 2 so far this year and 90% or better on the other two. Sadly my math teacher is retiring after this semester as he is a 70+ year old past Olympic weight lifter. #:-S not sure what our new teacher will be like or whether he will have the same capabilities as my current teacher. I don’t hear from a particularly wealthy family so I plan on getting a job soon to start saving for college and look to take advantage of different scholarships. I started programing in Java around two years ago so I thought Computer Science might be cool but that’s overkill. But I guess that’s cool because a college background isn’t required to market a well programmed product.