<p>I am planning on going with this, but I am concerned about something. </p>
<p>I am 12th grader and there are four subject areas I really like and they are mechanical engineering, computer engineering, physics, and music. My life goal is to be like Einstein, a violin playing theoretical physicist. Computer engineering doesn't really tie into my long-term career other than I have always been fascinated by computer chips. I'm guessing that mechanical engineering would give me the expertise to build planes; I have always wanted to fly places anyways and who knows what kind of opportunities I may encounter if I were to fly to places like Germany (where Einstein lived).</p>
<p>I've already made a huge list of colleges I want to apply for knowing full well that I want to major in mechanical & computer engineering with a minor in physics and music, but I am concerned abut my health and well being. I don't want to be the college student that's stuck indoors studying newtons and practicing all day. I want friends too, and time to eat food.</p>
<p>So do you guys think I can do it? Especially since, from what I understand, engineering and physics and violining are really hard.</p>
All we can say is whether someone can do it, we don’t know you. But here are some thoughts.</p>
<p>From the way you describe your ambitions, it appears that you do not currently play the violin. This makes a minor in the subject extremely unlikely. You can certainly take lessons, but a minor is going to require a certain number of credits starting at a certain level of proficiency. I am not aware of any performance-based music minors that you can complete without any specific background, and to be honest I think even a non-performance music minor would be a big reach without some significant preparation.</p>
<p>Health and well-being are largely a function of pace, so the real question is how hard you are pushing yourself. I would expect that ME and CompE overlap little enough that it would probably take an extra 3-4 semesters at an ordinary courseload, and unrelated minors are usually a semester on their own, so right now you are looking at a load that would take over 6 years at an ordinary pace. Will your health and well-being be compromised trying to cram that into 4 years? You tell us!</p>
<p>Plans like this generally yield only personal benefits, not professional. You can learn all you want for your own enjoyment, but you will be hired as a mechanical engineer OR computer engineer OR violinist… not all three. Even Einstein never managed that! And that means that the personal and financial costs will probably never be recouped in real money, and the exceptions are truly rare.</p>
<p>A lot of people (myself included!) have or had aspirations similar to yours in high school, but the reality is that there is only so much time and you need to balance hobbies versus career. Einstein had to accept that he would never be more than a hobbyist on the violin - to achieve performance level would have required sacrifice of time and energy that would compromise his work in theoretical physics. Likewise, you will need to decide how important a career is to you, because this level of breadth will impact the depth to which you can pursue your main career, and that will in turn limit the heights you can reach in your field.</p>
<p>Maybe you can do the music always on the side but as far as the engineering areas, you will only be hired and paid for one discipline. On top of that, minors in engineering areas are just about futile since one needs all of the upper-division courses to qualify for jobs…so a minor in computer engineering will not get you hired anywhere in you are looking at mechanical engineering-type companies.</p>
<p>Might as well pick one engineering discipline and go from there. Only the academic areas that can rely on another area like computer science are choices for all that double major/minor stuff, like math/CS, physics/CS, physics/math, stats/CS, etc.</p>
<p>Ditto…No reason to do all that. Pick ONE major, and fill your electives with classes you like. Use your free time to learn other things of interest. I have hobbies, but I like to go and enjoy them, not be forcibly graded on them with the potential to have them interfere with my engineering (aka what is going ultimately determine my life’s financial stability) studies.</p>
<p>There are generally not work-related advantages to double majoring in engineering. There is no question that it would take you longer to graduate with all of those majors and minors than if you had a single major. </p>
<p>I agree with others upthread - pick a single major, and try to fit in some classes in your other areas of interest. If you were going to college for additional years, you would get a lot more benefit from getting a master’s degree than additional undergrad majors.</p>
<p>Due to the crossover in required courses, you may not be allowed to have major/minors in physics/mechanical and computer engineering. Speak to an advisor at the schools you are considering. Son was a double major- Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering but his school would not allow him to add CS (but did allow a math minor which he decided not to pursue.)</p>
<p>If you major in physics, it would be very easy to take the engineering classes that interest you on the side as a lot of engineering and physics classes have the same / similar prereqs.</p>
<p>Something to consider is that some schools do not allow students to double major in two engineering majors. Also, many schools have a maximum to the number of credits you are allowed to take, and double majoring and double minoring may very well put you over that limit.</p>
<p>I would recommend trying to plan out all of the courses you would need to take at the school you decide to attend to see if it is possible (or even allowed), and whether or not you want to do it. Start taking some engineering classes to see if you can handle the load and still keep your GPA up (and have the social life and work/internship experiences you would like).</p>
<p>No one can tell you if you can handle it. Wait until you get to college, try it, and see.</p>
<p>You’ll have to go with something and see how it feels and goes. What you’re doing right now is just speculation about something that you don’t really know what it’ll be like for real.</p>
<p>Physics is a beautiful and general subject though because it encompasses many areas and has a sort of unifying “liberal arts” feel to it (compared to engineering). Everything has a purpose, everything is exact, everything is meaningful and everything is plain (no engineering abstractions or boring applications). And there’s real (even philosophical) depth. And it’s the real, hard core of almost any kind of engineering (thus you can leverage to understand engineered systems equally well).</p>
<p>My suggestion is to pick one major, then perhaps add a minor if it is easily done at your college. </p>
<p>You have lot of talents and interests - that’s great! But there is no need to study them all academically. Use music on the side as a creative outlet.</p>
<p>You sound like a true Renaissance individual, and I truly respect that. I think I am too. In general it is definitely possible to do but it will be difficult. If all you care about is good grades then this is not for you because your grades will most likely be better if all you have is one major. If however you want to truly go after your interests, learning for learning’s sake, then do it. As colorado-mom said you don’t need to do them academically, you could just do the other things on the side. Self-tech yourself the violin!</p>
<p>If you want to be a theoretical physicist like einstein, why are you wasting your time with the two engineering majors?
Also, if you want to do theoretical physics you need to be planning for the Physics Ph.D. Best preparation for this is…you guessed it: Physics Major!</p>
<p>Physics minor? At best this will allow you to take the intro physics sequence (shared with engineers), an intro modern physics course, a optics/thermodynamics course, and 1 elective. Real physics only begins AFTER you take all these lead in classes. A minor will leave you out of:</p>
<p>quantum mechanics, lagrangian/hamiltonian mechanics, advanced E&M theory, and my favorite statistical mechanics</p>
<p>And much more…</p>
<p>Double majoring is not that bad if there is reasonable overlap between the majors. For instance, I’m a senior in Physics/NukeE with a math minor. That’s actually attainable in 5 years, and you will in fact have at least a tiny amount of sanity left when it’s over. Junior year of physics nearly sent me running off the edge of the cliff, but you survive and learn to deal with the hard times when they come.</p>
<p>Instead of doing computer engineering, take a few comp sci courses instead. </p>
<p>Mechanical Engineering: decide if you want to build planes for a career. Better yet decide if you want to be a mechanical engineer. If you want to do theoretical physics, this is an absolute waste of time.</p>
<p>I don’t know about that. Certainly there are fields within theoretical physics that overlap nicely with mechanical engineering and where a mechanical engineering background is an asset. For example, in condensed matter theory (especially in low-energy), fluid dynamics, nonlinear dynamics, thermal and metallurgical physics are active areas of research.</p>
<p>Not every theorist has to be researching esoteric and impractical things like particle and astrophysics.</p>
<p>I was too general. If you are interested in condensed matter, you are very correct. However, if we are looking at theoretical particle physics or cosmology, then it is unnecessary. </p>
<p>I really don’t know what to tell the OP since his post indicates so many different interests. There is nothing wrong with feeling that way coming out of high school. However, he needs to understand that theoretical physics will require either: </p>
<p>A. A physics degree
or
B. An engineering degree with physics leveling courses upon entering physics Ph.D program.</p>
<p>I don’t see any other way around that. A physics minor is nowhere even close to cutting it.</p>
<p>I have a couple problems with some of the generalizations made.
Some physics minors actually do require senior level coursework in classical mechanics<em>, E&M</em>, quantum I-II* or stastical thermo (my program requires 3 of those).
has a junior level physics dept. math course prereq</p>
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<li>My current astrophysics professor (and future orbital dynamics prof in a year) specializes in solar system physics and encourages/praises me and the other two aerospace majors in his class for our approach to problem solving(also helps that we have the highest grades vs 32 physics majors). Not all astrophysics is pondering dark matter and big bang evolution. We want an appreciation of the science and in some cases believe (hope?) understanding more/better theory wil l make us better engineers. </li>
</ol>