<p>Is it useful, or even possible, to double major or major/minor in both ME and EE?</p>
<p>Possible: Sure, although I supposed some schools may limit it. I know at least one ME/EE double major from Penn State, and he did it in 4 years with an extremely high GPA, so I would say that in a general sense it is definitely possible. Having said that, engineering minors are relatively uncommon, I am not sure where you could DO a minor in either of these fields. Minors in engineering fields are usually restricted to narrower subjects.</p>
<p>Useful: Probably not. This combination will give you tremendous breadth as an engineer, but that kind of breadth is only going to be useful in a relatively few circumstances. Most companies want depth, someone to fill a niche on a design team, and a double major does not really help with that. Indeed, many double majors have to sacrifice depth to get that breadth - in the interest of graduating in a reasonable time, double majors often try to find double-counted courses, and as a result may graduate with only as much depth as a single major, or even less if they can count required courses in one major as electives in the other. The exception might be in very small companies where a great breadth is needed just to make a product happen. If that is your goal, then I could see this being useful. </p>
<p>While some would say that the increased breadth will bring more job opportunities, I think that is a false statement because you cannot really compare a double major to an ordinary single major. Someone doing a double major is expending considerably more effort than the minimum required for a single major, and if they expended that same heightened level of effort on a single major they would see substantially better job and grad school opportunities than they would with the divided effort.</p>
<p>Minors are uncommon? I had no idea. My school has minors in both mechE and EE, as well as cross listed minors in mechatronics, robotics, energy eng, etc.</p>
<p>It is useful in a sense as you can apply mechanical engineer jobs with your mech degree and ee jobs with ee degree. However there would be very limited opportunities to use both…</p>
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Some schools have them, they are just not very common for whatever reason. I think it is hard to find an appropriate selection of courses where you have sufficient breadth and depth to be worthy of a minor and yet significantly less than that required for the major itself.</p>
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These are extremely common. Most engineering minors are essentially specializations in industry or application that can be combined with one or more engineering majors, and often reflect the particular specializations of the faculty.</p>
<p>Interesting to know. I think they’re common for the bme majors at my school - those minors are often only an additional 2-3 classes for them (and can be used for electives so for some it’s 0 additional classes), where as double majoring would be 8-9 extra.</p>