Engineering

College Majors
1

Hello to all

I am a senior in a GA high school applying to colleges. I want to do aerospace engineering, but have only an ok GPA (in the 50th - 25th percentile, my school does not rank so don’t know where) and do not see many options outside of GA tech as going out of state is expensive. My question has a couple parts to it.

  1. My math skills are very good, but my physics skills are twofold - I am very good with doing the calculations, but struggle during with theory, especially during units like electricity, magnetism, and waves. During Mechanics based units, I am better with the conceptual aspect but not great. I also believe that I haven't correctly put in the skill to learn the concepts, which could be the reason. I realize engineering school is hard and people drop out every year,so is this a good choice major wise?
  2. So far the best offer I have got for aerospace engineering was at U Alabama, which costs me around 22k to attend. In state, I have applied to Georgia State University, Georgia Tech, and UGA. GSU does not even offer engineering, which UGA offers a decent mechanical engineering program and a Cognitive science/ artificial intelligence program, which is what I applied for. GSU is my backup, and UGA is my target school, and both appear to be my best options because of the cost(Hope for in state students). GSU also has a high transfer rate to Tech, the No 2 Aerospace Engineering school in the country. But if I am unable to transfer to Georgia Tech after my 2nd year at least, I will have to look for out of state options, which are more expensive and there is no garuantee that I will be able to do aerospace for my undergrad(More on this on question 3). If I get a good scholarship package to a decent out of state aerospace school, is it worth it to go there, spend more money, be guaranteed to take aerospace engineering coursework, but also realizing it will be harder to come back in state and go to georgia tech if I am sure I want to go to georgia tech. Or should I stay in state at GSU or UGA, and in the event I don't get into Tech, do a different stem major and then do aerospace engineering as an undergrad if I am set on that. My worry about going out of state, is that if I don't want to do aerospace engineering, I willl be stuck at a school that doesn't really have other great programs.
  3. If I don't do aerospace for my undergrad, what majors can I do. My parents want me to do a math major, which I think is a good idea, but is it better to do a physics major or a mechanical engineering major. Any thing else that people have done?

Thank you very much for all the help. I appreciate it all.

2

Civil Engineering. Design and build houses, roads, and bridges.

3

MechE has a lot of overlap with aero.

4

AeroE is basically just a flavor of mechanical engineering. If you want to be an engineer or work in aerospace, get an ME degree. Most engineers in that industry have degrees in ME.

5

The other question I had was if your good at the computational aspect of physics but not the theoretical aspects, is it possible to change that and become good enough at physics for ME and AeroE

6

What do you mean by good at the computational aspect but not the theoretical aspect?

7

Like I know how to do the math, manipulate formulas, and understand why they work the way they do. It is why i am able to understand mechanics fairly well. But I struggled with things like waves, electromagnetism, and optics. the reason why is because you have to understand it at a conceptual level, which I struggled with these units. How can I fix that. Is it possible to fix that.