*Dumb Question*

<p>I did run a search, but I can't quite find a definitive answer to my question exactly.</p>

<p>What kind of engineering major would best fit someone who is REALLY good at algebra, calculus, and physics? Personally, I LOVE math and physics primarily because I seriously don't have to know much to solve the problems and yet I can still comprehend how the problems work. In reality, calculus II, typically regarded as the hardest of all the calculus classes, was my FAVORITE class because I seriously didn't have to know much to pass with an A+: knowing the quick and easy way of doing a trig substitution saved my life in that class. :) Secondarily in Physics, I loved E&M because I really didn't have to know much in there either. A lot of the formulas to solve most problems in the class involve integration which I would like to think I'm really good at.</p>

<p>I have considered being a math/physics teacher, and I would really like either one... But I just feel "lazy" in a sense if I just become a teacher. I want to do great things and I would really like to try to exhaust all my possible options before I pick a desk job like that.</p>

<p>I have not yet taken chemistry, so I don't know how I will fare in that, primarily because I hear there's quite a bit of memorization involved. I hate memorizing things whereas in math and physics, I can just integrate a differential equation/solve for x and get the correct answers without knowing much.</p>

<p>I'm at a REALLY heavy crossroads at this point in my undergraduate career where I've gotta pick what my major is. I'd like to at least try engineering before I give up or pick something else. To narrow down some choices, I don't quite know if I'd be comfortable working in an engineering job where you could battle death on a daily basis like petroleum engineering. I've heard a couple of stories of people walking into a well and not coming out alive due to sour gas... :|</p>

<p>CS has a lot of math I’ve heard and they have better working conditions than petroleum engineers.</p>

<p>There are specialties in EVERY engineering major that are math-intensive, and the only real alternative to being physics-intensive is being chemistry-intensive. That having been said, I can definitely say that Aero and EE are math and physics heavy all the way through. I think ME is as well, but I am less familiar with it.</p>

<p>glassamilk your question doesn’t really seem “dumb” to me. </p>

<p>Side note, above it was said that ME some specialties are math-intensive. Can you guys give some examples? I am very much like glassamilk, math is awesome to me.</p>

<p>The answer to your question is engineering physics. Google it.</p>

<p>ME and Aero both include thermodynamics and fluid dynamics, which can be very mathematically intensive. Not sure what else.</p>

<p>A few more terms to Google…</p>

<p>Computational Mathematics
Computational Science/Computational Engineering</p>

<p>notice the word “computational”…not “computer”</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>But not much cont. math like Calculus. </p>

<p>If you really like cont. math then you might look into EE or Aero.</p>

<p>Finding yourself in a tight situation is never exactly fun now, is it?</p>

<p>In high school, chemistry was kinda easy but kinda hard simply because my conceptual understanding of math was extremely rudimentary. Chemistry topics were extremely interesting to me, so much that I would see chemistry everywhere and try to see if I could describe how it worked in a stoichiometric equation. Biochemistry was exceptionally interesting to me, but probably the hardest since I had trouble identifying what a hydrocarbon was. It was probably also extremely hard because my teacher would delve into concepts that, from what I’ve been reading, are contemporarily disregarded because it frequently occludes the learning process. (For example, the “-ous” and “-ic” naming of compounds dependent on variable charges.) </p>

<p>That being said, I am considering the route of chemical engineering as a potential choice of major. I have not taken the general chemistry sequence yet. I feel kinda ready, but kinda scared because getting a B or lower in it would make me feel like I shouldn’t major in chemical engineering. The only place that I can effectively pursue chemical engineering would be Texas Tech University. Texas Tech offers a scholarship valued at $6,500/yr to transfer students which is a LOT to be honest, compared to the Top 10% scholarship they offered me as an incoming freshman last year. The only stipulation to this scholarship is that you can’t have attended ANY other university other than a community college. If you’ve attended a university in addition to a community college, you’re stuck with paying for university yourself!</p>

<p>However, to bring into reference the thread that I provided above, I’m REALLY good at math and physics, and I find them both incredibly interesting topics. There’s really no telling if I’d make it through the general chemistry sequence and still like chemistry enough to endure it for the next three or four years. I’ve already completed the calculus and physics sequences and I thought they were extremely fun and interesting topics, so much that I considered majoring in mechanical engineering, and to an almost equal extent, math and physics. I liked/like math and physics because it’s easily provable on paper, and you can easily see physics happening (more or less). Chemistry, you can’t really see it–you’ve just gotta believe it and roll with it, whether or not it makes immediately justifiable sense. </p>

<p>If I cared to major in mechanical engineering, I would be starting all my engineering classes this fall and another university. Just to reiterate, there’s no telling if I would like chemical engineering, as well as mechanical engineering itself either. I still need to take the first two semesters of general chemistry, but I’d also like to see what mechanical engineering curriculum is all about. Unfortunately in my case, I have to pick one or the other: would I like to claim my scholarship at Texas Tech and have a potentially more interesting job, but graduate at a substantially later date, or would I like to graduate early with something that I already KNOW that I’m good at? The chemistry factor sounds like it would be a lot more interesting to work with rather than building stuff. (I know what you’re thinking: why not just major in chemistry and be a chemist? It’d definitely be cheaper and take less time since I can major in chemistry just about anywhere, including the same university that I would be attending for mechanical engineering. I just don’t quite know if the work I’d be doing would be worth the money I’d be getting.) </p>

<p>I’m completely aware that letting people over the internet decide my academic fate is a very bad idea, but I’m not really after letting other people make my decisions for me. What I’m really interested in asking for today is if there’s any way I can look into what I’ll be getting myself into ahead of time? Is there anywhere that I can preview the material I will be learning, such as the theory, the work, the mathematics, and the concepts? Whether it is “You don’t have to agree with it, just believe it for the test,” or if it’s something that makes sense with an equation or some past intuitive sense. I’ve consulted MIT Opencourseware for some chemical engineering classes, and to a much lesser extent, mechanical engineering, but a lot of the posted classes don’t have much to them. They’ve just got a calendar and a syllabus and that’s it. I’d truthfully like to see if the work you’d do in class is something I can see myself doing for the rest of my life, or for several years at a time. A lot of you will say that picking a major doesn’t decide the career for the rest of your life. I know that is true to an extent and you can quit that line of work any time you want. Unfortunately, I come from a socio-economically disadvantaged family that cannot afford college twice (Much less the first time :P). I have to pick something and stick with it unfortunately. I’d also like to become part of the R&D sector for possibly the U.S. government, which will usually require a Ph.D. That’s a long road ahead of me if I’d like to meet that goal, and I don’t want to delay my pathway there any more than I have to.</p>

<p>(As a bit more of a side note, the University of Houston allows for mechanical engineers to transfer almost seamlessly into their master’s of chemical engineering program which would be a good plan in its own right. I could try mechanical engineering first and get the master’s in the same amount of time it would’ve taken me to get the masters directly after the bachelor’s in chemical engineering. I’d have a degree in both at that point, as well as the best of both worlds there. It’s just that I don’t know if switching majors like that would be detrimental to being able to comprehend how everything works.)</p>

<p>I greatly apologize for the length and appreciate anything anyone may be able to provide.</p>

<p>Teaching is not a desk job. It’s pedagogy. And you can do great things in teaching if you e.g. manage to motivate most of your students to study hard sciences (it’s a difficult task where the teacher can have a huge influence on the students’ motivation). At college/university level teaching you can do great things in motivating your students to stay in the course and to help them understand what the stuff that you’re speaking about really is and why it’s significant/important. If you want to know how influencing and inspiring teaching can be, see the writings or lectures by people like Gilbert Strang (mathematics) or Richard Feynman (physics) or Walter Lewin (physics).</p>

<p>If you perceive yourself as more scientist than engineer, have a general interest in all things physical sciences, but don’t care about theoretical physics or “philosophy” (meaning speculative and pure science in this case), then I would suggest engineering physics or applied mathematics, or the already mentioned computational science/engineering, which although is a grad level area of study (undergrad is typically in physical sciences or engineering, life sciences, computer science or mathematics).</p>

<p>You sound like one of those “can’t do anything unless I know its applications” sort of people. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but you won’t make it far in a PhD program without an appreciation for seemingly abstract theory.</p>

<p>The beginning chemistry sequence explains the “how” of chemistry quite well. You don’t need the “why” to understand that any more than you need to know why gravity exists. And FWIW there is a class for the “why” in chemistry, and it’s called Physical Chemistry. It’s a much more complex class; you’ll have to take a physics and math sequence to understand it.</p>

<p><a href=“https://www.khanacademy.org/science/chemistry[/url]”>https://www.khanacademy.org/science/chemistry&lt;/a&gt; there’s what you’re looking for.</p>

<p>Also, don’t worry about being “good” at chemistry. You become good at it by actually doing chemistry. It’s more intuitive to some than others, but everyone can understand it.</p>

<p>You are a bit behind for Chemical Engineering if you want to graduate in 4 years. Usually, a Chemical Engineering major will have taken General Chemistry in the first year of college and is taking Organic Chemistry in the second year. It sounds like you are more on track for a Mechanical Engineering or Engineering Physics program.</p>

<p>Your situation is not exactly clear to me. You mention changing schools or going to one of several options. Does this mean you are in a Community College now or that you are at a school with limited Engineering major options?</p>

<p>You also mention that you want to get a Ph.D. and be a researcher in a national laboratory or something like that. In that case, you have a long road ahead of you and given your uncertainty, I suggest majoring in an area that allows you to move around a bit when going to graduate school. The two best options for this are probably physics or mechanical engineering. Either of these gives you a good jumping off point, even into chemical engineering for graduate work. You might need to take some additional make-up courses but that should not be too burdensome. The fact that you are so undecided would argue for a more general major.</p>

<p>Electrical engineering can be very mathematically intensive. Especially signal processing.</p>